---
title: Connectors setup (SMB and SharePoint)
path: administration/connectors-setup
status: published
---

Connectors keep an external storage source and a ScaiDrive share in step — files appear in ScaiDrive without being moved out of their original home. Useful when you have existing SMB shares or SharePoint Online libraries and don't want to migrate.

For the developer-facing technical detail see [SMB Connector](/docs/scaidrive/connectors/smb-connector) and [SharePoint Connector](/docs/scaidrive/connectors/sharepoint-connector). This page is the admin walk-through.

## What a connector does

For each configured connector, ScaiDrive runs a periodic sync job that:

1. Enumerates files in the external source.
2. Pulls new and changed files into a target ScaiDrive share.
3. Optionally pushes back changes made in ScaiDrive to the external source (bidirectional mode).
4. Maps identities — SMB user → ScaiDrive user — based on a configurable mapping.

The result: users see external files in their normal file browser, sync them through the desktop app, share them externally, etc., while the source-of-truth on the SMB or SharePoint side stays intact.

## SMB connector

For Windows file shares (Samba on Linux works too).

Connectors → SMB → **New connector**:

| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| **Name** | What you call this connector |
| **Server** | `\\fileserver.example.com\share` or `smb://fileserver.example.com/share` |
| **Credentials** | Service account that can read (and write, if bidirectional) |
| **Domain** | Active Directory domain, if applicable |
| **Target share** | A ScaiDrive share to mirror into (create one if needed) |
| **Sync mode** | One-way (SMB→ScaiDrive) or two-way |
| **Schedule** | How often to scan — every 5 min, 15 min, hourly, etc. |
| **Identity mapping** | How to map SMB principals to ScaiDrive users (see below) |

### Identity mapping

You can map SMB owners to ScaiDrive users in three ways:

1. **By email** — works if your SMB server includes email in user attributes (uncommon on bare Windows; common on Samba+LDAP).
2. **By name** — fuzzy match on the SMB display name. OK for read-only mirrors.
3. **By explicit mapping table** — paste a CSV: `smb-sid,scaidrive-user-id`. Most reliable.

Users who can't be mapped get **assigned to a system owner** so files still sync — they just don't show "Alice uploaded this" in ScaiDrive's UI.

### Conflicts

In bidirectional mode, a conflict (same file edited on both sides since last sync) is surfaced as a [sync conflict](/docs/scaidrive/core-concepts/sync-model) on the ScaiDrive side. The default resolution is **manual review** — admin gets an email and can pick a winner from the connector detail page.

### Initial sync

The first sync of a large share can take hours. The connector status page shows progress (files scanned / transferred / errored). Pause/resume controls let you throttle if it's hurting performance.

## SharePoint connector

For SharePoint Online libraries (Microsoft 365). Same idea, different transport.

Connectors → SharePoint → **New connector**:

| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| **Name** | What you call this connector |
| **Tenant ID** | Your Microsoft 365 tenant ID (GUID) |
| **Application** | An Entra ID application you've registered for ScaiDrive |
| **Client secret** or **Certificate** | Application's secret/cert |
| **Site URL** | `https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/team` |
| **Library** | Which document library on the site |
| **Target share** | ScaiDrive share to mirror into |
| **Sync mode** | One-way or two-way |
| **Schedule** | Frequency |

You'll need to register an Entra ID application with Microsoft Graph permission `Sites.ReadWrite.All` (or `Sites.Selected` + explicit grants for tighter scope), then either generate a client secret or upload a certificate. ScaiDrive uses the Graph API throughout — no on-premises gateway needed.

### Identity mapping

SharePoint stores Entra ID identities for files. The default mapping uses the user's `mail` claim (which most orgs configure to match the work email) — match this to ScaiDrive's email field. Override with an explicit mapping if your environment is more complex.

### OAuth token refresh

ScaiDrive refreshes the Graph access token automatically. If the application's secret expires or is revoked, syncs start failing — you'll see a `connector.auth_failed` event in the audit log. Update the secret on the connector config page and syncs resume.

## Both connectors: monitoring

The connector detail page shows:

- **Last successful sync** + duration.
- **Files synced / errors** in the last day, week, month.
- **Pending queue depth** — useful to spot a connector falling behind.
- **Storage usage** in the target share.

If errors pile up, the **Logs** tab has per-file failure detail. Common failures: permission denied on a particular subfolder, file too large for the target share's quota, encoding issues with non-UTF-8 filenames.

## Decommissioning

To stop a connector but keep the synced data:

1. Connectors → connector detail → **Pause**.
2. (Optionally) wait, then **Delete** the connector.

Pausing keeps all files in the target ScaiDrive share — they just stop syncing from the source. Deleting removes the connector config but leaves the share intact.

To remove the synced data too: pause/delete the connector, then delete the ScaiDrive share via Storage → Shares.

## What's next

- [SMB Connector](/docs/scaidrive/connectors/smb-connector) — technical detail.
- [SharePoint Connector](/docs/scaidrive/connectors/sharepoint-connector) — technical detail.