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Manage the Node

Your node has a massive amount of storage. Carve it into spaces, share it with your team, and upload your content. Toss out the closet full of hard drives.

Navigate the Management Interface

Every node has a web app with a management interface that lets you:

• Create User Accounts
• Connect to Networks
• Allocate Storage
• Monitor Performance
• Share Content on Networks
• Upload Content
• Grant Access to Content

The web app has four pages: System, Team, Spaces, and Monitor.

System

When you first log into the management interface, you arrive at the system section. This section describes how the node's storage is allocated, how the node is connected to your network, who is connected to it, what tasks are running, and what hardware is inside the node.

Use the System page to:

• Allocate storage
• Connect the node to your network

You can also use the system section to:

• Snapshot your content
• See who is connected to the storage
• Configure services
• Restart the node

Team

The Team page lists all of the user accounts that can access content on the node. When you first log in, this page will contain two accounts: your admin account, and a Creative Support account, which our support staff will use in case you need them to access the node.

Use the team section to:

• Create user accounts

You can also use the team section to:

• Let other people manage the node
• Organize information about each of your team members
• Deactivate user accounts

Spaces

The Spaces page is a file browser that shows you all of your content. When you first log in, the spaces page will be empty. As you upload content to the node, it will appear here.

Use the spaces section to:

• Upload your content
• Share your content over your network
• Grant access to your content

You can also use the spaces section to:

• View and organize your content
• Review your content's metadata
• Search for content
• Make templates for your content

Monitor

The Monitor page provides a dashboard with gauges and graphs that display system resources over the past 10 minutes. Every second the node collects over 2,000 metrics, that can be presented as hundreds of charts, and is currently monitored by approximately 150 potential alarms. Some of these charts are displayed on this page.

Use the monitor section to:

• Monitor performance

Add Your Team Members

creative.space lets you share content with everyone you work with. All you need to do is add them to your team. Your team consists of user accounts, which are assigned a role and can be put into groups.

Create User Accounts

Your user account is your passport to the node. It determines what content can access, and what kinds of changes you can make to the node. Your account is a system administrator account. You can access everything on the node, from the content stored in it, to the management interface. Most notably, you have the power to grant others access to the node, by creating user accounts for them.

As the system administrator, you decide which spaces each user can access, and what each user can do in the management interface.

TIP

Create a separate account for everyone you work with. Do not share a single user account among different team members.

To create a user account:

Create Groups

If you have a large team, you can organize each team member into one or more groups. A group is a set of user accounts. A user account can be included in as many or as few groups as you want. Groups make it easy to grant all the user accounts included within them access to the same space.

To create a group:

Add a Space

A space is a portion of the node's storage. It is a versatile way to organize, protect and restrict access to your content.

By default, spaces stretch to fit the content you place within them. However, you can limit how large a space can grow, and you can also limit how small a space can shrink.

Each space can have its own set of access restrictions. By default, no one can access a space except for the person who created it. However, you can always grant users and groups permission to access a space.

Connect to a Space (without Desktop App)

Each space can be shared over your network. This means that you can access it from any workstation on your network. While the desktop app makes connecting to spaces much easier, as a manager it is helpful to know how to access the storage without it.

How you connect to a space varies depending on your workstation's operating system:

Set Up Remote Access

Under routine post-production workflows, remote access to shared storage was challenging. However the pandemic pushed the industry to require twenty-four-hour access and collaboration from any location. VPN, WAN, and Internet access to shared projects and files present technical challenges that can be difficult to overcome, especially for small production teams. creative.space has integrated ZeroTier’s VPN and SD-WAN technology on its easy, reliable, and secure storage platform to empower the creative process. Collaborative storage is the main hub connecting remote locations.

Now, effortlessly control team and device access to your creative.space storage from anywhere and anytime. Create secure networks between on-premise, cloud, desktop, and mobile devices. Easily provision and de-provision remote access authorization for users, freelancers, and clients. We simplify your network stack by unifying VPNs, VLANs, and SD-WANs into one solution. The creative.space storage seamlessly interacts with ZeroTier’s zero-trust networking software to provide scalable security, peer-to-peer (P2P) connections, and 256-bit end-to-end encryption.

What does this mean for your workflow? The bottom line is that you can quickly provide secure SMB (Network Share) and FTP remote access to folders and files on your shared storage. As an example, the SMB connection smb://192.168.1.33/dailies, works the same as if you were onsite. Just be aware that you may need to adapt your projects to account for bandwidth speed and latency. We can assist you in implementing a proxy-based workflow.

FTP is excellent for transferring multiple directories and files to and from your creative.space storage. Another advantage of FTP is the ability to continue transferring files even if the connection is lost. In case you accidentally lose your connection or have to reboot your computer, you don’t have to worry about starting from the beginning again. You can pick up right from where you left off.

Securely authorize users and devices, and configure networks all within the creative.space web app. This integration saves multiple manual steps and needed IT security knowledge if only using the ZeroTier administration website. There are two levels of authorization for users to access the creative.space storage. The first is ZeroTier for encrypted network access. The second is the creative.space LDAP server to control user rights and folder/file permissions. Think of it as a locked gate and front door. You must have the right keys to both before you can get inside. ZeroTier offers a free Basic account for up to 50 network members and 1 admin. Their Professional account increases the numbers to 500 network members and 10 admins for $49 per month. You can always start with their free account and then upgrade as your requirements change.

Open your Gateway's Firewall

Before you can set up zerotier, you will need to make sure this port is open on your gateway:

We also recommend that you open the following ports. While you do not have to open them, it helps us help you if you do:

Get a Zerotier API Access Token and Add It to Your Node

Navigate the Zerotier Configuration Panel

The ZeroTier configuration panel lets you

• Create new ZeroTier networks.
• Enable and disable existing ZeroTier networks.
• Join and leave ZeroTier networks.

The configuration panel is divided by Active Networks, Disabled Networks, and Available Networks. This is based upon the current status of your creative.space storage within each network. It also displays the number of nodes authorized for each network. A “Node” is a device on the network. A user’s name is automatically added to the node description field. A user can have multiple devices such as a desktop, laptop, and iPad authorized on multiple networks, each with a separate “Node ID”.

Use ’Change ZeroTier API Token’ to update the token you use to connect to your ZeroTier account. This token allows the creative.space management interface to communicate with ZeroTier.

Use ‘Filter Networks’ to search among the ZeroTier networks associated with your account.  

The Active networks section lists the networks that your node is connected to. If your node is connected to a network, it can connect to the other nodes on the network. In this case, a node can be another creative.space node, or a workstation.

The Disabled networks section lists the networks on your ZeroTier account that nothing can connect to. To use these networks, you must first enable them.

The Available networks section lists the networks on your ZeroTier account that you can connect your creative.space node to. Once you connect your node to an available network, the network will move to the active networks section.

Use ’Name for Your ZeroTier Network’ and ’Assign an IP’ to create a new ZeroTier network with a name and IP address range of your choice. The network will show up in the Available Networks section as soon as you create it.

Install the Desktop Applications on Your Workstation

Select the option that best describes your needs to get started:

Create Folder Structure Templates

With creative.space, you can save a folder structure with files as a template that can be applied by filling out a form to populate custom variables and apply permissions. These can include project files for the applications you use, such as Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, that contain your in-app organization structure.

Variables

When you create a new project folder structure, there are inevitably some folders and files that need unique names and other that will always be consistent across projects.

Variables allow you to define the information that needs to be customized each time the template is applied.

How does this work? Anything you put in square brackets, i.e. [], becomes a variable.

There are three types of Variables: - Text and/or Number: A user-defied text field that can be filled out with whatever alphanumeric characters you want. - Auto-Increment: Provide a starting number, which can include trailing 0s, such as 001 or 010, and each time the template is applied it will increment. - Date: A calendar will appear in the form to select Year, Month, and Day, which will be populated as YYYYMMDD so that it sorts alphabetically in chronological order.

Access Control

Folder structure templates make managing access easy by allowing permissions to be configured once and then applied automatically when a new project is created. Think of them as your organizational blueprint. How you apply permissions to control access is the key to keeping your projects orderly and manageable.

Do you have at least one team member who just doesn’t get with the program? No longer.

Eliminate clutter by carefully controlling write permissions for each directory in your Template to stop files and folders from being created where they shouldn’t be.

For example, making the Space and root level folders read-only, but granting write access to where assets, projects, and documents should be stored.

Here are a few important things to understand:

• Recursive Permissions: Whenever you apply permissions, they will only effect the currently selected level, unless you turn on the ‘Recursive’ toggle. This will overwrite the permissions of all children with the current user and group rights.
• Groups vs. Users: Granting read and write access at the group level allows you to quickly grant or revoke a user’s access with a single action, instead of having to update each item individually.
• Who Owns Created Folders/Files: The person who creates the template will always be the owner of the folders and files that are a part of it regardless of who applies it.

Additional Configuration and Monitoring on the System Page

Click the “View Connected Users” button in the Connected Users Panel. It will display connected users, and you can monitor what Spaces, Folders, and Files are being accessed. This is great for troubleshooting or looking for detecting suspicious activity. If a user’s credentials are being used from multiple IP locations, then they may be compromised or shared.

In the ZeroTier Network panel, you can view Active and Disabled networks. For “Active Networks,” you have a graphical chart displaying network bandwidth speed and activity. The “Connection Type” Private or Public, “Network ID”, and IP address of the storage is shown.

“Disabled Networks” display networks that the storage has been disabled on. Click the “Reconnect Network” button to make live and reachable again.

Through the creative.space web app, you can only create “Private” networks. If you wish to create a “Public” network not requiring node authorization, it must be done on the ZeroTier administration website. If a network is configured for “Public”, the panel will display it with a red border and warning message.

At the bottom of the ZeroTier panel is a section to add a ZeroTier Network ID that is not on your ZeroTier account. It will automatically add the network, but you will need to add the storage Node ID and approve it manually on the ZeroTier administration website.

Add the ZeroTier Network ID and click the “Add” button.

On the “Manage ZeroTier Networks” panel, there is a “Change ZeroTier API Token” button. Click this to change the API token if needed.

On this page

• Manage the Node
• Navigate the Management Interface
• System
• Team
• Spaces
• Monitor
• Add Your Team Members
• Create User Accounts
• Create Groups
• Add a Space
• Connect to a Space (without Desktop App)
• MacOS
• Windows
• Linux
• Set Up Remote Access
• Open your Gateway's Firewall
• Get a Zerotier API Access Token and Add It to Your Node
• Navigate the Zerotier Configuration Panel
• Install the Desktop Applications on Your Workstation
• I am a local user...
• I am a remote user…
• I need to onboard a local user…
• I need to onboard a remote user…
• Create Folder Structure Templates
• Variables
• Access Control
• Additional Configuration and Monitoring on the System Page