Can't connect to Truenas Control panel

[cuulblu1]

I installed TrueNas and initially was able to connect to the control panel. All seemed well so I disconnected mouse, keyboard and monitor and moved it to it's final location. I was still able to connect to the control panel. Now the next day I can not connect to the control panel. What could be happening to cause this?

 

[jgreco]

Did it reboot? Did you build this out of a proper server mainboard, or some random jankPC? The random jankPC's will often dislike booting without their peripherals, and even many server boards need to be configured to boot without waiting for F1 on error.

If you want more helpful advice, please do consider following the forum rules and provide at least some basic information about your setup. Otherwise, you've posted the NAS equivalent of, "My car won't start today, what should I do?"

 

[cuulblu1]

It is an old PC. It did reboot after moving it to it's final home and I was able to connect to the control panel. It's only after leaving it running over night that I can not access the control panel. I rebooted today to see if I could connect and could not.

HP Z400 Workstation W3550 3.06 GHz 4 cores, 8 GB DDR3, 128 GB SSD, 3- 1TB WD hard drives

• CPU Type: Intel Xeon
• CPU Speed: W3550 (3.06GHz)
• Memory Capacity: 8GB DDR3
• SSD: 128 GB

 

[jgreco]

Workstations are often configured to not boot without their keyboard, because the original PS/2 keyboard design did not support hotplugging. See section, "Hotplugging" in this Wikipedia article. As a result, for the last quarter century or so, most BIOS implementations for user-facing PC's are configured to halt and wait for a keyboard to be attached if one is not detected, and you may need to go into the BIOS and manually clear a tickbox of some sort to allow it to proceed. I don't have a Z400 so I don't know the correct option for yours, but on HP kit it is sometimes "Set Server Mode" under "Security options". There is also usually an option to disable "Press F1 to Continue" on error, which is the usual thing that you are actually getting stuck on. This is generally my first guess for this kind of problem on a non-server PC, and one of many reasons we encourage the use of true server mainboards.

True servers generally have IPMI (or iLO in HP terminology) interfaces that have a virtual USB attached keyboard on servers, and the BIOS is typically set up to accept that as a keyboard, so this usually isn't a problem for a server board. That's why it's important to describe your system when posting. You still haven't posted an adequate description, because there is both the FreeBSD-based TrueNAS Core and the Linux-based TrueNAS Scale, which each have their own quirks and gotchas with various hardware platforms, and even if you tell us "Z400 workstation", that leaves it up to respondents to have to Google for stuff like "what ethernet chipset does this have."

Failing to provide a good problem summary when you post generally results in poor community participation. Because the possible issue matrix is so large when a poster provides so few facts, many times posts such as your original post go unanswered, because there are so many possibilities. You haven't posted an error message or described what's on the screen, told us whether the machine is pingable, described what kind of ethernet hardware the machine has, etc. Please try to remember that community members, including moderators, are not iX employees, and are here on their own time to help you out. We're pretty good at digging the interesting bits out of a pile of "too much" information, but providing too little causes most people to head on to the next thread.

With such an old system, with the bare minimum of RAM, if it did manage to reboot without a keyboard but then later locked up, you'll probably need to put a monitor on it to determine what happened and why. 8GB RAM is getting just a bit shy on RAM. We expect TrueNAS Core to work fine on that in a basic configuration, while Scale is still a beta product, and that's less of a known quantity. I would suggest using TrueNAS Core. If the host is pingable but the web UI is down, that suggests a middleware failure. If the host is unpingable, then I'd suspect HP may have used a Broadcom ethernet chipset, some of which are known to work poorly with FreeBSD. But with such an old system, component age and stability are also factors that can lead to a system lockup. There are so many directions to go with this, and none of it is helped by the sketchy problem report.

 

[cuulblu1]

I"m running FreeBSD-based TrueNAS Core. I can attach an old keyboard to see if that solves the issue. I'll post if I am able to access the control panel.

Further details will require me to move the PC again. Currently I have another machine occupying that spot, so can't attach a monitor where it is now. If it still had Windows on it I would have software that would give more specifics about the system. In Linux I have no clue about a fast easy way to get system specs.

Thanks for all the info.

 

[cuulblu1]

From the replies and info I've been given here I see TruNAS isn't really designed for a home user. It doesn't play well with older PC hardware and probably not with standard PC hardware at all as this quote from jgreco indicates.

"one of many reasons we encourage the use of true server mainboards."

I've found other server software that is designed for home use on a PC. The moderators there are much friendlier than the unfriendly posts here from the moderators. I have a feeling this post will be deleted once the moderators here see it. Just be aware there is better more user friendly software available for the home user. It may not be free, but depending on the size of the tank, for $69 to $99.

 

[rogerh]

"I've found other server software that is designed for home use on a PC. The moderators there are much friendlier than the unfriendly posts here from the moderators."

"Just be aware there is better more user friendly software available for the home user. It may not be free, but depending on the size of the tank, for $69 to $99."

That's capitalism for you; I'd be friendly to anyone for $99.

Edit: I am not a moderator.

Edit1: Friendly does not necessarily mean giving accurate advice.

 

[cuulblu1]

The advice I got here, paraphrased was: "You need to get rid of the junk PC, buy a real server, spend hours studying how to set up a server so you can talk the lingo and give us all the specs, error reports and any other relevant info we think we need before we'll even spend the time to read your question."

With FreeNAS I could not even get access to the dashboard. And all I got when I asked for help was attitude. Would I prefer free? Yes.......if it worked.

And I'm done wasting my time here. I'll not be back. And I will not recommend FreeNas to any of my friends. Even if they insist on free. There are other free server OS to be found.