Can FreeNAS use an Domain Controller that's running on a VM using FreeNas storage?

[mbalsam]

Just got a message: freenasHost: unauthorized system reboot. Let's deal with that later.

My Freenas is dependent an AD Domain Controler thats running in a Virtual machine. The Virtual Machine's storage in on FreeNas. Therefore during the freenas bootup, the domain controller is not available.

During reboot, I see these messages

Code:

Jun 23 14:39:53 freenas mountd[2643]: unknown group:
Jun 23 14:39:55 freenas /cachetool.py: [common.freenasusers:335] Directory Users could not be retrieved: Unable to find domain controllers for MYDOMAIN.NET
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/www/freenasUI/common/freenasusers.py", line 332, in __init__
	self.__users = dir(**kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/www/freenasUI/common/freenasldap.py", line 2568, in __init__
	super(FreeNAS_ActiveDirectory_Users, self).__init__(**kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/www/freenasUI/common/freenasldap.py", line 2439, in __init__
	super(FreeNAS_ActiveDirectory, self).__init__(**kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/www/freenasUI/common/freenasldap.py", line 1551, in __init__
	self.set_servers()
  File "/usr/local/www/freenasUI/common/freenasldap.py", line 1695, in set_servers
	self.set_domain_controller()
  File "/usr/local/www/freenasUI/common/freenasldap.py", line 1652, in set_domain_controller
	"Unable to find domain controllers for %s" % self.domainname)
freenasUI.common.fr
Jun 23 14:39:55 freenas /cachetool.py: eenasldap.FreeNAS_ActiveDirectory_Exception: Unable to find domain controllers for MYDOMAIN.NET
Jun 23 14:40:00 freenas /cachetool.py: [common.freenasusers:217] Directory Groups could not be retrieved: Unable to find domain controllers for MYDOMAIN.NET
Jun 23 14:42:41 freenas afpd[5983]: Login by backup (AFP3.4)
Jun 23 14:44:54 freenas uwsgi: [common.freenasusers:335] Directory Users could not be retrieved: {'desc': "Can't contact LDAP server", 'errno': 57, 'info': 'Socket is not connected'}

During the reboot, freenas sort of paused, and it appeared that I had to press a key for it to continue. That could have been a timing coincidence.

Is this a recommended configuration? Will freenas be able to recover from this once the VM's are started? AD is used to provide permissions for Samba shares, and the VM's are using NFS. So the VM's should not have permissions issues during restart.

Thoughts?

One option is: Put one of the DC's on the SSD attached to the Vmware host, so it will always be available if freenas is restarted.

 

[kdragon75]

Yes this can work but you do run into the chicken egg issue. It is not recommended to use FreeNAS VMs in any production environment at this point in time. In this particular case especially, no its not recommended. By me anyway.

 

[mbalsam]

I guess it boils down to: Can freenas be expected to recover on its own to not have AD available on bootup?