Hornetdrive FAQ

Hornetdrive is available in two versions on the Business and Enterprise tariff plans. You can find further information on the key features and differences between the two tariff plans under the “Prices” section on the Hornetdrive website.

All the data stored by users in Hornetdrive are encrypted with an AES-256 end-to-end encryption algorithm. This means that files are encrypted on the user’s device prior to being uploaded to Hornetdrive in order to ensure than others cannot read the content of the files. As a result, only devices that have the appropriate key for a particular drive can decrypt the data. Hornetsecurity, the manufacturer of Hornetdrive, therefore does not have access to the unencrypted data.
All the data stored in the Hornetdrive cloud are redundantly stored in data centres with at least two copies of each file to prevent data loss. All the data are stored in data centres in Germany in compliance with strict German data protection laws.

Hornetdrive does not currently offer the functionality to cut files or folders. To move content from one folder to another, these must be copied within the client to the new drive and the data deleted from the old drive.
Please note that only files that are available locally can be copied. Hornetdrive does not copy tables of contents.

If you accidentally delete a file or you need a previously deleted file, there are several options that can be taken to restore the file. As a general rule, regular users of Hornetdrive are only able to delete the local version of the file but not the data stored on the server. This can only be done by the administrator of the relevant drive. Even in this case, the file is first moved to the recycle bin, from where it can be restored. Indeed, it is virtually impossible to overwrite files as Hornetdrive stores older versions of files to make them available at a later time.

To reset your password, please go to your login screen and click on “Set a new password”.
In the input mask that appears, please enter your registered user address and click on “Generate a temporary password”. As described in the notice, a temporary password will be sent to your registered email address.
Enter the temporary password directly below your login data in the input mask and select a new password, which you can use to login directly.

When you delete a file, it will be deleted from the directories of all members of a drive during the next synchronisation. As long as the file is located in the recycle bin of the Hornetdrive, it is available on the server and can be restored.

You can contact our support team at the following e-mail adress: .

Dear Hornetdrive users
When you contact Hornetdrive Support, you may be required to provide further information.
In order to provide you with the best possible support, we have attached a few guides in which you can find this information.
Please provide:
– Drive ID
– Your recent log files
– Screenshot of the event monitor showing the relevant event
– Screenshot of the Hornetdrive client showing “Advanced” information about the drive
– Name and data type of the files that have not been synced
– Name of the drive in which the files have not been synced
– Username of the inviter
– Username of the inviter

To help the Hornetdrive Support team to deal with your problem as efficiently as possible, you may be asked to provide your drive ID.
This is located in the “Advanced” information on your drive.
Size:
Files:
Deleted files:
Drive ID:
Please provide Hornetdrive Support with the number that you find there.

Select the “Event monitor” tab in your Hornetdrive client.
Here, you will be able to see all the event occurrences related to your Hornetdrive.
When you encounter an error, click on the related event and take a screenshot, which you can then forward to Hornetdrive Support.

To access “Advanced” information on a drive, you must first enable the detailed view.
To do so, click on “View” in the menu bar and enable the detailed view.
In the detailed view, click on the plus sign to the right of “Advanced” information to expand it.

This is generally possible, but is only available to holders of the Enterprise licence.

Files are encrypted locally on your system and then transferred in blocks. Interrupted transfers will resume when the system is back online. On account of the encryption, no deduplication takes place.

Some graphic cards do not support OpenGL , but it is required for a few features of Hornetdrive 4. Even the graphic card doesn’t support OpenGL there is a way to get Hornetdrive working correctly.

1. Quit Hornetdrive 4
2. Open “Control Panel” and go to “System”.
3. In the “System” window select “Advanced system settings”.
4. Now, select “Environment Variables…”
5. We recommend just changing the variables for the user and not for the system in order to prevent system wide changes. Click “New” in the section “User variables for…”.
6. Add one of the following two variables:
   1. Option 1 (recommended):
      • Enter “QMLSCENE_DEVICE” as the “Variable name”
      • Enter “softwarecontext” as the “Variable value”.
   2. Option 2:
      • Enter “QT_OPENGL” as the “Variable name”
      • “software” as the “Variable value”.
7. Click okay on all windows to exit. Start TeamDrive 4 and this should have remedied the graphics issue.

There are no specific requirements for the installation and use of Hornetdrive. All you need is an Internet-enabled computer running a Windows operating system (XP, Vista, 7 or 8), Mac OSX (Leopard, Snow Leopard/LION, Intel only), or Linux (RPM, DEB).

With Hornetdrive, you can synchronise many different folders on a system at the same time. This can include existing folders. However, individual files cannot be selected for synchronisation, only entire folders and their subfolders are synchronised.

When you access an older version of a file containing, for example, active macros/variables, the hash value of the file will change even when the file is not saved. This means that this version is recognised as a new version. If no storage date is available, the old storage date of the original version will be applied, and a new version of the file will be created in the drive.

First, check whether automatic synchronisation is turned on (in the “Extra” menu). If there is no progress when uploading or uploading data and you are connected to the Internet, this is a clear indication of a synchronisation problem. To rectify this problem, please take the following steps:

• Shut down the Hornetdrive client and restart the program.
• Please check your firewall settings
• Please check your proxy settings

To resolve the problem, please add three IP ranges that are used by Hornetdrive as exceptions to the firewall or proxy.

83.246.65.0/24

94.100.128.0/20

Hornetdrive uses only the 80, 8080, 443 ports to communicate with cloud servers. It is sufficient to limit the exceptions for inbound and outbound traffic to these three ports.

Due to the end-to-end encryption, Hornetdrive can only be used in conjunction with a client because the files are encrypted and decrypted in the local client. Exception: Hornetdrive users can share individual files – these can then be accessed through a browser via an encrypted link, with the files being decrypted in the process.

We cannot recommend to do it.  In case a member of sales  Team opens a file and after a while another member does the same, and both save the file, Hornetdrive will show a conflict between versions without the possibility to solve it, because both versions where made from the same user. (Same Hornetdrive account). – It’s possible to use the same Hornetdrive account from different devices, but not at the same time.

You can, but we do not offer a supported /tested version for Windows Server. If you insist it is at your own risk.

It’s not recommended, because everytime Hornetdrive detects a change it would generate a new version of that file. In other words, it does not do incremental backups.

In addition the synchronization takes place, only when the file is not in use.

First go to Menu Extras > Settings > General.  Copy the file path below Hornetdrive Cache, Temporary Transfer and Data Location.

Paste the path int Windows file explorer, press enter and open up the logs folder. Then you can send us the last .log file with .txt extension.

In principle, all Windows or Mac clients store the keys in a backup folder on the local computer. From there you can copy the keys onto an external device, e.g. a USB stick. Later you can use those backups and load them into a new Hornetdrive installation. This will grant you access to your stored files.

Alternatively, Hornetdrive offers the possibility to store the keys in a central repository in the cloud, where they are encrypted as well, but the protection level is reduced to the level of the user login credentials. Whether this offers sufficient protection for your application is subject to your own judgement.

Open the context menu by right-clicking on the relevant drive for which you wish to activate messaging. This gives you the option to send an email to members.
This option enables users to send emails to individual members or all members of a drive.

When a user receives an invitation to join the drive, it usually appears automatically in the Hornetdrive client.

By clicking on the green button “Accept”, you can join the drive. If the button is grey, it is very likely that one of your existing drives has the same name. In this case, change the drive name in the top line of the invitation. If the problem persists, please send the following information to the Hornetdrive reseller or Hornetdrive Support:

• A screenshot of the invitation in the list of invitations
• The latest log file
• Your username
• Description of the current state – i.e. what Hornetdrive does
• Description of the target state – i.e. what do you want Hornetdrive to do

Depending on their assigned role, drive members are granted different rights. The default roles are the only ones that cannot be modified. To assign rights depending on your requirements, you can create new roles in addition to the default ones. This can be done in the client under “Extras” and “Settings”. Hornetdrive Version 4 does not include this option.

If you can no longer access your encrypted files for any reason (hard drive crash or similar event), you will need the digital keys to your drives. These files (*.tdbk format) are always stored locally on your client. You will need these keys to access files on Hornetdrive, so you should store them with utmost care. Ideally, you should copy these keys to an external storage device to enable you to access Hornetdrive files in case of emergency.

Except for mobile clients, you will always be able to access files on a shared drive provided the data has been synchronised at least once. This is because the files are located in the folder on the local machine that you specified during the installation. When you edit the file, the file will be synchronised with Hornetdrive the next time an Internet connection becomes available. In the case of mobile clients, you must first enable offline availability for individual files or folders. The relevant files will then be downloaded automatically.

Files are stored unencrypted on the device. All files are fully encrypted before they are stored on the device.
Android smartphones store files automatically in the root directory. The files must be accessed via the Hornetdrive app, but can be opened in various apps depending on the file format.
When the option “Available offline” is deselected, the files can be deleted locally by clearing the cache under settings.

This feature is currently unavailable for iOS or Android devices. A request for this feature has already been submitted.

The Mac default paths are as follows:
/Users/{user}/.hornetdrive -> cache
/Users/{user}/Documents/Drives -> Drives

Hornetdrive uses a hybrid encryption technology. When you first log in to a new Hornetdrive client, it generates a public key and a private key.
The public key is stored on Hornetdrive servers, while the private key is stored on the local client. This key is again encrypted and can only be decrypted through the client (protected by a username and password). When you create a drive, the client generates a new key, which is encrypted using the RSA-2048-bit method. All content transferred to Hornetdrive servers is encrypted using the AES-256 method before it is stored on Hornetdrive servers.

The key that is only available locally contains the key to decrypt the symmetric 256-bit encryption. When a user is invited to join a drive, the client of the inviter will request the public key of the user from the Hornetdrive server. The key file is encrypted using the public and the private key and sent to the invitee.

The encrypted key file can only be decrypted with this user’s private key and his or her own public key. This asymmetric encryption ensures that only invited users can use a key file to decrypt the contents of the drive.

First, shut down the Hornetdrive client and restart it. When uploading or downloading large amounts of data, it is also recommended to increase the cache of Hornetdrive.

The file to be synchronised should be closed to allow the upload or download to be completed successfully. An open file, however, can delay or block synchronisation.

Scenario: A company uses a central storage system such as SharePoint to share corporate templates, which can be accessed by the entire staff. The problem is that the staff do not always use the latest version of the Word template, but use older versions previously downloaded to their computers.

Solution: With Hornetdrive as the central filing system for important documents, users automatically have access to the latest version of the template, even when they are offline. In addition, users have the option to notify other users of important changes by email.

Scenario: Especially in the case of laptops, backup is an ongoing problem. In many organisations, it is the responsibility of users to back up their files. It is often the case that the files to be backed up must be saved to network drives to be integrated into the company’s backup. Accessing network drives on the go is often difficult, inconvenient and slow. As a result, many files on laptops are not backed up at all or only irregularly.

Solution: All data stored in Hornetdrive are saved automatically across multiple systems. As a result, the Hornetdrive servers are themselves redundant, and additional, identical versions of the files are available on the individual computers of users. With the help of version management, users can access older versions of the files. Even when a file is deleted accidentally, it can be recovered easily from the recycle bin of the drive.

Scenario: Marketing staff commission an external media agency to create the newest product video. The file size of the video is around 300 megabytes, and therefore the file is too large to be sent by email. A transfer via FTP is not protected by default and encrypting the file would be time-consuming.

Solution: With Hornetdrive, you can specify a central storage location, which can be accessed by the marketing staff as well as the media agency staff. At the same time, the file is located on the local computer and is easily accessible without latency.

Scenario: The key account manager has prepared the draft agreement for cooperation between his employer and a customer. Before the final version can be completed, the text is edited again by the managing director, the customer, and the law firm. As a result, there are multiple versions of the agreement before the final versions can be created and signed.

Solution: All the parties involved will have access to the draft agreement saved to a central location in the Hornetdrive. They are free to edit and save the document. Thanks to automatic synchronisation, they always have access to the latest version of the agreement. What is more, Hornetdrive allows them to view older versions of the document because they have also been stored.

Scenario: A salesperson is out of the office and needs the up-to-date product presentation. This would usually be solved by asking a colleague to send the file by email.

Solution: If the presentation is not yet on Hornetdrive, a colleague can save the file there. Once it is saved on Hornetdrive, the salesperson will be easily able to download it to his or her mobile phone, tablet or laptop.