Powerchurch over Synology NAS

[rmorisset]

Good morning PC community,

I am trying to convert from a single PC to a networked environment at our church. We are currently running Powerchurch version 12. Do you know if PowerChurch can be installed in a Synology DS920 NAS? If so, any recommendation/instruction available for that please?

Regards,

Richard M.

[Zorak]

There are very thorough networking instructions in the Knowledge Base:

https://www.powerchurch.com/networking

There is also an article linked in there for using a NAS or non-Windows server as a host:

https://www.powerchurch.com/support/487 ... age-device

[rmorisset]

Thank you very much. Very helpful.

[rmorisset]

I thank you for your help in my previous post. I have follow-up questions.

I am installing Check-in in the Synology NAS as well. Is there any limitation in running Check-in on a Synology NAS?
The reason of my asking is that when I get to configuring the server, I am having some issues. I ran the pcserver11.exe program (from the client pc) which brought up a "PowerChurch Software Service" window. In that window it shows the Server name to be the client. I did choose the UNC path pointing to the server (\\SERVER\FOLDER), but it still shows the local machine in the server name field.

The other question is that when I click "start" in that pop-up window, I get "The PowerChurch Plus executable does not exist in the given location". What file exactly is this looking for?

Thank you very much for your help.

Regards,

Richard

[Zorak]

The Check In Server component is a Windows service, so it will have to be running on a Windows computer. The UNC path you set up should be pointing to the PowerChurch Plus program directory, which would be wherever the pcplus12.exe lives on the NAS.

Setting the UNC path is a good idea, because when elevating the server application to Administrator access (so you can stop and start the service), you lose access to the regular server user's mapped drives.

[rmorisset]

Good morning Zorak,

Thanks again for your reply. In your statement: "The Check In Server component is a Windows service, so it will have to be running on a Windows computer", should I assume that it means that I may need to setup a windows vm in the Synology NAS in order to install/run the Check In Server component in our environment?

I was able to get PowerChurch installed and running in the NAS, hence I was thinking that the Check In portion should also work. Am I thinking incorrectly?

Regards,

Richard

[Zorak]

The PowerChurch Plus folder that you are hosting on the NAS is just a file share, to make those files available to other Windows machines that can actually run the program's exe. So, in this case, the NAS is serving the same purpose as a flash drive or any other storage device. It just has the network capabilities to share those files to other computers. PowerChurch Plus isn't actually running on the NAS, the files are just hosted there.

The Check In Server installs as a Windows service, that is basically running a local web server, waiting for Check In Kiosks to send requests, with data being passed back and forth, accessing the PowerChurch Plus data files.

Setting up a Windows VM on the NAS would solve a couple of problems. First, it would give you a virtual Windows machine to run as the Check In Server. Second, with it also residing on the NAS, that would eliminate another network connection/hop in between the Check In Server and the PowerChurch Plus data that it is accessing.