FreeNAS setup help?

scottalanmiller

if you do this we can see all of the available logs...

ls /var/log

Mike Ralston

@scottalanmiller Doesn't work. Neither the virtualized WebUI console, nor the physical server, accept any commands.

All the logs are under /var/log but they are stored in memory and not preseistant. You need a syslog server if you want them presistant.

scottalanmiller

@Mike-Ralston said:

@scottalanmiller Doesn't work. Neither the virtualized WebUI console, nor the physical server, accept any commands.

Well that's another issue altogether. Maybe you need a working OS before trying to get the apps on top of it running This is like telling your mechanic that something is wrong and you can't get to the store when you know that the issue is that the garage door hasn't been opened yet. Let's get the garage door open before we look at the car, the car might run just fine.

What is a virtualized WebUI console? You have two FreeNAS devices, one virtual and one physical?

Mike Ralston

@scottalanmiller FreeNAS is the OS level software. The only way you can properly access it is by navigating to it's IP from a PC within the LAN.

art_of_shred

Wait... is FreeNAS an application or deployed as a VM?

coliver

@art_of_shred said:

Wait... is FreeNAS an application or deployed as a VM?

It is a software appliance. So it would be deployed as a VM.

art_of_shred

Ok, so it IS the OS, doesn't sit on an OS. Would you deploy that on a blank machine, or on a hypervisor? Sorry for the dumb questions, I just know absolutely nothing about it but want a better grasp so I can help troubleshoot.

scottalanmiller

@art_of_shred said:

Wait... is FreeNAS an application or deployed as a VM?

It's an OS + extra stuff. So could be a VM or could be installed directly to hardware. It's not an application.

scottalanmiller

@Mike-Ralston said:

@scottalanmiller FreeNAS is the OS level software. The only way you can properly access it is by navigating to it's IP from a PC within the LAN.

Correct. That doesn't relate to what I had asked though. You said something about being virtual.

scottalanmiller

@art_of_shred said:

Ok, so it IS the OS, doesn't sit on an OS. Would you deploy that on a blank machine, or on a hypervisor? Sorry for the dumb questions, I just know absolutely nothing about it but want a better grasp so I can help troubleshoot.

Either. Depends on the situation. Best practice would be "nearly always" on a hypervisor except in cases where it was just mammoth and you were using it to manage software RAID on huge numbers of drives.

art_of_shred

so we could install free VMware and then spin it up as a vm on that. makes more sense to me than right on bare metal.

scottalanmiller

@art_of_shred said:

so we could install free VMware and then spin it up as a vm on that. makes more sense to me than right on bare metal.

Yup, exactly.

scottalanmiller

This one was an easy fix, but that the issue exists at all is a fragility unique to FreeNAS that does not exist if you only use FreeBSD:

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/911053-freenas-database-corrupt