server barely running

[Bill McCormick]

I have a server that seems to be barely running.

I can ping both both NAS NIC's and the only jail. I can ssh to the jail and get a prompt and configured services are running, and NFS seems to work enough that I can stream media to Plex clients.

But that's about it.

I can't get the WebUI to open; CIFS doesn't work; and I can't get a shell after SSH login.

This seemed to all start while re-silvering a failed SanDisk USB boot drive, which seemed to taking a LONG time, with successive zpool status checks reporting wildly different times remaining.

What to do?

Cheers!!

 

[anodos]

I have a server that seems to be barely running.

I can ping both both NAS NIC's and the only jail. I can ssh to the jail and get a prompt and configured services are running, and NFS seems to work enough that I can stream media to Plex clients.

But that's about it.

I can't get the WebUI to open; CIFS doesn't work; and I can't get a shell after SSH login.

This seemed to all start while re-silvering a failed SanDisk USB boot drive, which seemed to taking a LONG time, with successive zpool status checks reporting wildly different times remaining.

What to do?

Cheers!!

Copy your config off the USB stick, reinstall freenas, apply config.

When you say 'ping both NICs' does that mean you have two NICs connected to the same subnet without link aggregation? If so, disconnect one of them.

 

[Bill McCormick]

I have a recent config backup. Should I ... can I ... use that?

I had problems getting the link aggregation to work. I didn't realize having them both connected would be an issue, as it's been running like that for some time.

 

[Bill McCormick]

I have a recent config backup. Should I ... can I ... use that?

I had problems getting the link aggregation to work. I didn't realize having them both connected would be an issue, as it's been running like that for some time.

.... and how do I shut everything down CLEANLY?

 

[anodos]

I have a recent config backup. Should I ... can I ... use that?

I had problems getting the link aggregation to work. I didn't realize having them both connected would be an issue, as it's been running like that for some time.

Recent backup is fine. Regarding multiple NICs on same network, see here: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/multiple-network-interfaces-on-a-single-subnet.20204/

LACP requires a managed switch, and isn't beneficial for home users.

 

[anodos]

.... and how do I shut everything down CLEANLY?

Well, my advice past midnight is always somewhat questionable.

Can you connect a keyboard and monitor to the NAS? If so, use that to check status of your pool and see if anything is going on in /var/log/messages. It sounds like your boot USB is dying. You can pull it and keep it off to the side while trying a new install on a fresh USB flash drive. Prior to shutting down the main freenas, you can shutdown your jail through the 'warden' command in the CLI.

 

[Bill McCormick]

Forgot to mention ... the console is locked up as well. So unless there is some warden command to operate the freenas, am I correct in thinking that I have no choice but a hard power off?

 

[anodos]

Forgot to mention ... the console is locked up as well. So unless there is some warden command to operate the freenas, am I correct in thinking that I have no choice but a hard power off?

If you're at the console (keyboard and monitor), can you bit 'ctrl-alt-F2' and switch to a different terminal?

Also, what are your hardware specs?

 

[Bill McCormick]

Yes, I can switch to another terminal and I have a login prompt. But after entering user it hangs.

HW specs in my sig.

 

[Bill McCormick]

I don't seem to have a warden command. Is there some pkg I need to install?

 

[Bidule0hm]

Can you SSH to server? (not the jail)

 

[gpsguy]

Here are his spec's -

|| FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE || ASRock E3C226D2I ||
|| i3-413OT 2.9 GHz || Kingston DDR3-1600/ECC 8GBx2 ||
|| WD Reds 8[3x3+2x2+3x1] RaidZ2 ||Avago(LSI) SAS 9341-4i ||

To the OP, if you ask for help on the forum, please post your specs in the body of the message. Forum users on mobile devices can't see your signature.

 

[jgreco]

I had problems getting the link aggregation to work. I didn't realize having them both connected would be an issue, as it's been running like that for some time.

It's not an "issue". It just doesn't work the way the average person seems to think it does. @anodos already posted a link to the big explanation.

am I correct in thinking that I have no choice but a hard power off?

You can probably hit CTL-ALT-DEL and down the system that way. It will do its best to shut down gracefully, but if things like logins are hanging, that means the base system is probably pretty hosed or messed up. Give it some time and be ready to power it off the moment it hits the BIOS. Don't let it reboot into a hosed environment.

If you absolutely have to, yes, you can power down the system and that is supposed to be safe, but we don't recommend it.

 

[Bill McCormick]

So just to wrap this up ... had to hard power off. Nothing else worked.

Because I was feeling dangerous, I tried booting up off the same flash drives and had the same problem. After a couple more hard poweroffs and reboots, ended up with a GRUB error and couldn't boot at all.

So I pulled the latest from the download site and ran the upgrade on the same two flash drives and it came right up. Ran a scrub on the boot flash drives and no errors.

Thanks for the help.

 

[jgreco]

I'm not sure I would trust those boot devices. Of course, be sure to make a copy of your configuration at a bare minimum even if you don't replace them.