Configuring Citrix ShareFile Sync from PowerShell

When you have a cloud-based file sharing service it makes a lot of sense to synchronize part or all of the data with your desktop computer. Citrix ShareFile offers the Sync for Windows tool for that purpose. However, once you open its configuration screen you notice that has a severe restriction: it can only synchronize to a single local folder. In many cases it would make much more sense to synchronize different cloud folders to different locations on your hard disk. When I complained to the product manager Peter Schulz about this I learned about a hidden gem: the single folder restriction is only present in the UI; the underlying sync engine is much more flexible. And the best thing is: the sync engine can be configured from PowerShell. Here is how.

Getting Started

The sync engine is 32-bit only, so make sure to use the 32-bit version of PowerShell for this. On 64-bit Windows it is located here:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

Import the ShareFile sync engine module:

Import-Module "C:\Program Files\Citrix\ShareFile\Sync\SFSyncEngine.dll"

Listing Available Commands

What can we do with the ShareFile sync engine PowerShell module? Let’s ask it:

PS D:\> Get-Command -Module SFSyncEngine

CommandType     Name                                               ModuleName
-----------     ----                                               ----------
Cmdlet          Add-SyncJob                                        SFSyncEngine
Cmdlet          Get-FileLink                                       SFSyncEngine
Cmdlet          Get-FolderIdByName                                 SFSyncEngine
Cmdlet          Get-FolderLink                                     SFSyncEngine
Cmdlet          Get-HomeFolderId                                   SFSyncEngine
Cmdlet          Get-SyncJobs                                       SFSyncEngine
Cmdlet          Get-SyncJobState                                   SFSyncEngine
Cmdlet          Remove-SyncJob                                     SFSyncEngine

Listing Existing Sync Jobs

Let’s see which sync jobs are currently configured:

PS D:\> Get-SyncJobs -all

Id                 : 3
Account            : helgeklein.sharefile.com
FolderId           : foh61d44-2494-43c7-a61b-xxxxxxxxxxxx
User               : [email protected]
DeviceId           :
LocalFolderPath    : D:\Daten\ShareFile\My Files & Folders
Application        : SFSyncEngine.SyncApp
Mode               : sync_up_down
Persist            : True
AuthenticationType : oauth_sharefile
CachedJobState     : job_idle

As you can see, there is only one sync job with the ID 3 configured that syncs files from the tab My Files & Folders to the local directory D:\Daten\ShareFile\My Files & Folders.

Adding a Sync Job

I have a folder ingenuously called Shared folder in ShareFile which I want to sync to the local directory D:\Daten\Sync to ShareFile. Please note that the local directory is not a subdirectory of the base folder D:\Daten\ShareFile configured in the UI. Configuring target paths per sync folder is something you cannot currently do in the UI.

Folders are identified by their FolderId. Before we can add the sync job we need to get the id of Shared folder. To do that go to the folder in the web UI, right-click Get Direct Link and then click Copy link address:

The link looks similar to this (deliberately obfuscated):

https://helgeklein.sharefile.com/getdirectfolderlink.aspx?id=foc86c19-d904-434a-9d67-xxxxxxxxxxxx

With that information we can add the sync job:

PS D:\> Add-SyncJob -ApplicationId 1 -ApplicationName "PowerShell" -Account helgeklein.sharefile.com 
-RemoteFolderName "foc86c19-d904-434a-9d67-xxxxxxxxxxxx" -LocalFolderPath "D:\Daten\Sync to ShareFile" 
-AuthType 4 -UserName [email protected] -SyncDirection 2 -Password "MY SHAREFILE PASSWORD"

Id                 : 12
Account            : helgeklein.sharefile.com
FolderId           : foc86c19-d904-434a-9d67-xxxxxxxxxxxx
User               : [email protected]
DeviceId           :
LocalFolderPath    : D:\Daten\Sync to ShareFile
Application        : SFSyncEngine.SyncApp
Mode               : sync_up_down
Persist            : True
AuthenticationType : oauth_sharefile
CachedJobState     : job_idle

Please not that it might be necessary to specify an AuthType of 0 instead of 4, as Remko Weijnen found.

The password can alternatively be specified as a secure string:

PS D:\> $securePwd = Get-Credential [email protected]

PS D:\> Add-SyncJob -ApplicationId 1 -ApplicationName "PowerShell" -Account helgeklein.sharefile.com 
-RemoteFolderName "foc86c19-d904-434a-9d67-xxxxxxxxxxxx" -LocalFolderPath "D:\Daten\Sync to ShareFile" 
-AuthType 4 -UserName [email protected] -SyncDirection 2 -Password $securePwd.Password

The local folder will be created if it does not exist yet and the ShareFile sync engine will immediately download the cloud folder’s content to the local disk.

A description of the values used for AuthType and SyncDirection can be found below.

Removing a Sync Job

Removing a sync job is easy. Just use the job id that was displayed when creating the job:

Remove-SyncJob 12

Useful Constants

SyncDirection

The parameter SyncDirection accepts numerical constants whose meaning I found by trial and error:

0: sync_up
1: sync_down
2: sync_up_down

AuthType

The parameter AuthType accepts numerical constants whose meaning I found by trial and error:

0: sharefile
1: saml
2: win_ad
3: last_old_auth
4: oauth_sharefile [this is what the UI uses]
5: oauth_saml
6: oauth_win_ad
7: oauth_win_sso
8: oauth_saml_forms

Troubleshooting

If something goes wrong, especially when creating sync jobs, the job’s state might change to job_queued. A detailed log can be found in %temp%\ShareFile\SyncEngine2*.log.