Permission for more than one user to share files/folders

We have a huge issue, which is threatening to become a dealbraker for Seafile and our organization:
Is it possible, and if so how, to give the permission of sharing files or folders to users or groups to more than one user (library owner)? (we do this on the web interface usually)
We have a library filled with about 200 project folders and we’re a team of three sr. team members, who have to be able to give access to projects to jr. members on a need-to-know basis. However, right now, the three of us need to reassign ownership to the project-library each time one of us wants to make changes to the sharing settings or add new shared folders. In addition, Seafile seems to “forget” the sharing settings “sometimes”, when the ownership changes. On top of that, we occasionally have to resync the libraries on our local (Mac) desktops then as well,

All in all, this is really becoming a headache for us. How can we have multiple users with the permission on the same library, to share folders to other seafile users?

Thanks!

Seafile Server Version: 6.1.4

When you create or manage a Group, the Owner can set other users as Admins for that Group, by which all of them can then administer a Library shared to said Group.

Thank you, @schlarbm, but I cannot confirm this behavior.
Let me show you our setup:


Group Staff

  • Owner
    • Alex
  • Admin
    • Ben
    • Chris
  • Member
    • Don
    • Emily
    • Fred

Library Projects

  • Owner
    • Alex
  • Permissions
    • Staff can Read/Write

Yet, Chris cannot share a folder (“studiomitte.com/2016 studiomitte.com”) in Projects with Don (or anyone else, for that matter). He doesn’t even get the mask to do so (see screenshot).

Only Alex is able to share. (see screenshot in next post :wink: )

Any Input?
Thanks.

Ah yes, right, I must have gotten confused with my test users.

This actually doesn’t seem to work as you wish.

I remember there was some discussion about a more flexible/fine-grained permission model (e.g. read, write, share, delete, and so on), but maybe @daniel.pan or @Jonathan can tell us what’s the status on that.

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Giving admin permission to other users is a feature we plan for 6.2 release. A user with admin access to a shared library can share the library to other users.

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Thank you @Jonathan and @schlarbm for your responses.

@Jonathan I know how much suppliers love this question :wink: , but do you have a release date for 6.2 yet? Following the naming convention and release schedule at https://www.seafile.com/en/roadmap/, 6.2 should be done just about now :wink:

Thank you!

I think you have to be a bit more patient - 6.1 stable was released on 15th of June, so I guess 6.2 is ready in September or October. The roadmap is not up to date at the moment.

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@epinez thanks for that update. hard to judge by outdated facts, but i get what the status is now. I’ll try to keep the team on board with Seafile for the time being … not gonna lie, if this doesn’t get resolved we’ll be out shopping for an alternative rather soon again.

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Using Seafile-Server 6.2.9: A library-admin seems to be able to share the whole library but not subfolders or files. Is this behavior correct?

It would be favorable if sharing subfolders/virt-libs would also be possible. Are you, by any chance, planning on implementing this as a feature?

Why not create a library for each subfolder? This enables you to configure the share permission (via group management) and also selectively sync.

Why not create a library for each subfolder?

Because if we want all subfolders to be shared with multiple users and only some subfolders to other users it is cumbersome to create a lib for every new subfolder.

For example let’s say a lib is already shared to many users (a group) but only some subfolders of this lib needs to be shared to other users.

lib is shared to a group, every subfolder created inside is available to group members, but to other users an admin will need to click share icon > share to user > username > submit

Unfortunately this action is only possible for the lib owner, that’s quite annoying.

Is it planned to implement this @DerDanilo ?


seafile server pro 6.3.12 on official docker image

How would I know this? :slight_smile:
I am not working for Seafile.

In the pro edition, you can share a library with “Admin” to other users or groups.

Sorry my bad !

Yes but is it possible for a sub-folder within a lib ? I have tried (pro edition) and the “share to user” and “share ot group” link is only visible for lib owner not lib admin.

This is not possible for sub-folder. You can add multiple admins for the whole library, but not for a sub-folder.

Understood, is it planned to implement it ?

Right now I need to give owner access to my co-workers who are group admins, so they can share folders with other people (non group members), this is not really safe.

library => shared with group A. owner and group A admins can share it.

  • subfolder 1 => needs to be visible to group A members, and also can be shared with others (non-group A members)*
  • subfolder 2 => same
  • subfolder 3 => same
  • subfolder 4…
  • new folder => visible to group A members, but not to other people.

*right now only by lib owner can share it to other users or other groups.

Maybe there is another way to do it but I just don’t understand why admins cannot share a subfolder while owner can, to me it is inconsistent.

Admins can share a subfolder.

The option “share to user” or “share to group” is not visible to admins, only to lib owner.

as seen in one of the first posts :

lib owner :
986c17e11e6438832abf2fb7908057e0f734937a_1_495x166

group admin (where lib is shared to this group) :
10fe3790a131519518c8180f0b2dc6d0cfd07848

If so, it is a bug. We will test it.