Do no see any Disks showing but GPART List does

twilightofman

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Hello, I am very new to FreeNAS. I am planning to repurpose a Dell PowerEdge M630 Server blade with FreeNAS, but I wanted to do proof of concept with a local PC first to figure out the GUI and the CLI. I did some research, downloaded the OS to an 8GB Thumb Drive, and booted to it on my spare Dell OptiPlex 7070 with 16GB RAM, 256 SSD. I ran the installer according to the directions. It seemed to install fine except 1 error after the reboot stating Failed to run middleware call. Daemon not running? I still received an IP address, and the GUI still loads. I haven't done ANY configurations other than checking Storage>Disks and Import Disk, which is completely blank. Disks doesn't even have a "plus" or add option anywhere on the screen like it says in the directions, which makes me wonder if it recognizes the storage at all. There is 256GB internal SSD attached to the machine and the 8GB thumb drive attached to the USB port of the PC, which is used for boot because I read not to use the internal storage for the FreeNAS boot.
At first, I thought it was just because the storage isn't recognized, but when I got to Shell and type gpart list it shows the internal storage as nvd0, with many of Dell's already built in Win 10 OS parititions. I thought the install would have written over it, but it didn't. Then, I follwed the directions at https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gpart&sektion=8&format=html to Destroy the nvd0, recreate it, and add partitions. I rebooted the FreeNAS yesterday, and today, it still doesn't see the internal storage. What am I doing wrong?

Attached are screenshots of gpart list before and after destroy.

To be clear:
I followed these steps to destroy the disk and partitions.
Rather than deleting each partition and then destroying the partitioning
scheme, the -F option can be given with destroy to delete all of the par-
titions before destroying the partitioning scheme. This is equivalent to
the previous example:

/sbin/gpart destroy -F da0

I then followed these steps to recreate it for FreeNAS.
MBR
In this example, we will format ada0 with the MBR scheme and create a
single partition which we subdivide using a traditional BSD disklabel.

First, we create the partition table and a single 64 GB partition, then
we mark that partition active (bootable) and install the first-stage boot
loader:

/sbin/gpart create -s MBR ada0
/sbin/gpart add -t freebsd -s 64G ada0
/sbin/gpart set -a active -i 1 ada0
/sbin/gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot0 ada0

Next, we create a disklabel in that partition ("slice" in disklabel
terminology) with room for up to 20 partitions:

/sbin/gpart create -s BSD -n 20 ada0s1

We then create an 8 GB root partition and a 4 GB swap partition:

/sbin/gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -s 8G ada0s1
/sbin/gpart add -t freebsd-swap -s 4G ada0s1

Finally, we install the appropriate boot loader for the BSD label:

/sbin/gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot ada0s1
 

Attachments

  • Gpart List After destroy.png
    Gpart List After destroy.png
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  • Gpart List before destroy.png
    Gpart List before destroy.png
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joeschmuck

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I'm a bit confused so let me see if i understand what you did...

1) You deleted the partitions from flash drive da0 and from SSD ada0.
2) You left da0 unpartitioned.
3) You formatted and created partitions on ada0 and made it bootable and installed a bootloader on it.
4) Why?

Question: Were any of the drives used in a RAID hardware configuration? Looking at a partition issue.

I would have deleted the SSD partitions and created a single partition or a Secure Erase operation. Then delete any partitions on the Flash drive and format it to just work normally. Lastly I would use an installation CD/DVD to install FreeNAS/TrueNAS onto the Flash drive. Once you boot up then you should see the one SSD available.

but I wanted to do proof of concept
You could use a VM (VMWare Workstation Player) to test out the GUI of FreeNAS/TrueNAS.

I did some research, downloaded the OS to an 8GB Thumb Drive, and booted to it on my spare Dell OptiPlex 7070
So the flash drive is your installation media, if you could install a second blank 8GB Flash, you could install to that vice the SSD.

I haven't done ANY configurations other than checking Storage>Disks and Import Disk, which is completely blank. Disks doesn't even have a "plus" or add option anywhere on the screen like it says in the directions, which makes me wonder if it recognizes the storage at all.
You don't have any data drives according to your posting, you have the Flash drive which is the installation software, and the SSD which is the bootable drive. You have no other drives, right?
 

Patrick M. Hausen

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Storage>Disks and Import Disk
That is not the way to add disks to TrueNAS for storage. "Storage --> Pools --> Create" is. You should probably read the ZFS primer:
 

twilightofman

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Joined
May 4, 2021
Messages
11
I'm a bit confused so let me see if i understand what you did...

1) You deleted the partitions from flash drive da0 and from SSD ada0.
2) You left da0 unpartitioned.
3) You formatted and created partitions on ada0 and made it bootable and installed a bootloader on it.
4) Why?

Question: Were any of the drives used in a RAID hardware configuration? Looking at a partition issue.

I would have deleted the SSD partitions and created a single partition or a Secure Erase operation. Then delete any partitions on the Flash drive and format it to just work normally. Lastly I would use an installation CD/DVD to install FreeNAS/TrueNAS onto the Flash drive. Once you boot up then you should see the one SSD available.


You could use a VM (VMWare Workstation Player) to test out the GUI of FreeNAS/TrueNAS.


So the flash drive is your installation media, if you could install a second blank 8GB Flash, you could install to that vice the SSD.


You don't have any data drives according to your posting, you have the Flash drive which is the installation software, and the SSD which is the bootable drive. You have no other drives, right?

Thank you so much for the response joeshmuck. Sorry for my confusion. In my attempt to over clarify, I misstated a few things.
In re to my steps:
1. No. I didn't do anything with the da or ada storages. The gpart list in the screenshot shows that FreeNAS recognized the storage as nvd0, which I'm not familiar enough with to completely understand the difference between da, ada, or nvd. I ran the command
1620149816322.png

2. Again, I didn't do anything with da other than install FreeNAS to it during the initial setup.
3. At this point, I checked the disks as I was building out partition. As I'm not completely familiar with what FreeNAS is wanting, I just followed the steps.
4. see 3 above

Questions:
Raid. No, the pc is new out of the box from dell. It was just sitting in storage as a spare.

Vmware. I read in several forums not do this with vmware, so again, this is why I am trying it on a spare PC. I will want to come back around to this to ask you questions about because this is part of the end goal.

The Drives. I did make DVD ISO of the latest FreeNAS download and installed the OS to the 8GB thumb drive flash attached to the PC via USB port. And no, the FreeNAS GUI doesn't list any drives whatsoever, which is why I tried using the shell to partition it. (I'm more use to diskpart with Windows than Linux, sorry.) I'm attaching another picture of what the FreeNAS GUI interface shows for Disks.
1620150359457.png


Here is the About for the version and proc.
1620150395705.png
 

twilightofman

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Messages
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That is not the way to add disks to TrueNAS for storage. "Storage --> Pools --> Create" is. You should probably read the ZFS primer:

Thank you Patrick. I did skim through the primer (admit that I can't take a pop quiz on it or anything) and tried creating, but I figured that I needed to add Disks before creating a pool, since there are no Disks to choose from when creating a pool. I'm sure this is my ignorance but here is a screenshot.
1620150577901.png
 

Patrick M. Hausen

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but I figured that I needed to add Disks before creating a pool
No. They will just be available at pool creation if FreeNAS recognises them. "There is no step three" :wink:

Possibly FreeNAS does not offer you the disk drive in question because there is already Windows data on it - that would be a feature added more or less lately, I did not know it existed.
So you could wipe all partitions from the disk (if you are sure this is the one you want to use with FreeNAS - don't confuse the devices).

I.e. for all partitions: gpart delete -i <partition number> nvd0
When they are all gone, finally: gpart destroy nvd0

The disk should be visible in the pool creation dialog after that.
 

joeschmuck

Old Man
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Messages
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I read in several forums not do this with vmware
I'm not saying that you run VMWare as a hypervisor on the bare PC but rather run VMWare Workstation/Player on a Windows OS and inside that you would create a virtual FreeNAS. It's an outstanding way to become familiar with the GUI and operations. But many of us do run FreeNAS on VMWare ESXi, it works great and I have been using it for many years. It makes sense in certain situations and not in others.

I would start out by looking at the log file /var/log/dmesg.today to see if there are any issues and it will also tell you which drives were recognized. Maybe there is some incompatible interface? I would reboot and then look, makes it simple to locate the correct log file.
 

twilightofman

Dabbler
Joined
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Messages
11
No. They will just be available at pool creation if FreeNAS recognises them. "There is no step three" :wink:

Possibly FreeNAS does not offer you the disk drive in question because there is already Windows data on it - that would be a feature added more or less lately, I did not know it existed.
So you could wipe all partitions from the disk (if you are sure this is the one you want to use with FreeNAS - don't confuse the devices).

I.e. for all partitions: gpart delete -i <partition number> nvd0
When they are all gone, finally: gpart destroy nvd0

The disk should be visible in the pool creation dialog after that.

Patrick,
I tried deleting the partitions, but the command didn't work. I then tried deleting the slices, but the command didn't work. I eventually just tried
Code:
gpart destroy -F nvd0
and received nvd0 destroyed. I then went to Pool > Add. The disks didn't show up, so I reboot the OS. And they still don't show up.
Do I need to format the SSD or create any partition table first?
 

twilightofman

Dabbler
Joined
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Messages
11
I'm not saying that you run VMWare as a hypervisor on the bare PC but rather run VMWare Workstation/Player on a Windows OS and inside that you would create a virtual FreeNAS. It's an outstanding way to become familiar with the GUI and operations. But many of us do run FreeNAS on VMWare ESXi, it works great and I have been using it for many years. It makes sense in certain situations and not in others.

I would start out by looking at the log file /var/log/dmesg.today to see if there are any issues and it will also tell you which drives were recognized. Maybe there is some incompatible interface? I would reboot and then look, makes it simple to locate the correct log file.
I rebooted the system. I tried the command, but it says not found. I tried a different variant and was told Permission denied. See screenshot.
1620159876061.png
 

Patrick M. Hausen

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Do I need to format the SSD or create any partition table first?
No. Blank disks show up in the pool creation form. Anything else is decidedly weird ...

Could you take the trouble to reiterate your hardware configuration in a more concise way? Forget all the partitioning, deleting, etc. - none of this is necessary. A short and precise overview of what you are actually running would be great.
 

Patrick M. Hausen

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I rebooted the system. I tried the command, but it says not found.
To look at a file you would use the cat command e.g. cat /var/log/dmesg.today. But I don't have that file, possibly @joeschmuck got a bit confused here, I cannot tell. The output of these commands would be interesting nonetheless:
Code:
camcontrol devlist
nvmecontrol devlist
cat /var/run/dmesg.boot
 

twilightofman

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Messages
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Update.
Cannot create a new partitioning scheme other than nvd0
As Patrick advised (please see my reply to him), I attempted to gpart destroy the internal SSD drive again. It was previously listed as nvd0, which I've googled and do not know that is supposed to mean. It will not let me create a new partitioning scheme for ada0. Perhaps this is related.

Also, Cannot create a pool using CLI so that the FreeNAS GUI will recognize it.
I followed the directions https://clinta.github.io/freenas-multipurpose-ssd/ to create the partitions, and then I followed the steps at https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/zfs/ to create the pools. See the screenshots and you can see what I did, and you can verify that CLI sees it.
*sorry for all of the screenshots, but I'm hoping it's easier than guessing what I'm doing.
1620163013861.png

1620163025560.png


However, when I switch over to the GUI, it still does not let me create the Pools, and it still does not see the disks.
1620163129441.png

1620163077574.png

1620163107419.png
 

twilightofman

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Messages
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To look at a file you would use the cat command e.g. cat /var/log/dmesg.today. But I don't have that file, possibly @joeschmuck got a bit confused here, I cannot tell. The output of these commands would be interesting nonetheless:
Code:
camcontrol devlist
nvmecontrol devlist
cat /var/run/dmesg.boot
Here you go.
1620163274089.png


Still parsing the last bit so as not to give more information than should.
 

Patrick M. Hausen

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You don't need to gpart create anything! And that zfs_enable is pure nonsense. Just don't. Please configure your FreeNAS so you can login via SSH and then post the output of the commands I posted here: #11

Preferrably as text instead of screenshots.

Kind regards,
Patrick
 

joeschmuck

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twilightofman

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Messages
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You don't need to gpart create anything! And that zfs_enable is pure nonsense. Just don't. Please configure your FreeNAS so you can login via SSH and then post the output of the commands I posted here: #11

Preferrably as text instead of screenshots.

Kind regards,
Patrick
Patrick,
1. I setup a new user, connected via ssh, and ran the commands under su. see below.
2. The cat /var/run/dmesg.boot is too long to post here. Is there anything in particular that you are looking for?
3. I also removed the pool, partitions, and such for nvd0 that I tried yesterday.
4. In the GUI, I still cannot create a pool, so I guess this falls under the "weird" situation. I also don't see the new user in the GUI that I created in the CLI either. I'm beginning to wonder if I should just scratch this proof of concept all together and try this out in vCenter? If so, I would like to ask your advice on the actual end game in mind.

Code:
root@freenas[/home/newadmin]# camcontrol devlist
<HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GU90N A1C3>      at scbus1 target 0 lun 0 (pass0,cd0)
<AHCI SGPIO Enclosure 2.00 0001>   at scbus3 target 0 lun 0 (pass1,ses0)
<  8.07>                           at scbus5 target 0 lun 0 (pass2,da0)
root@freenas[/home/newadmin]# nvmecontrol devlist
nvme0: KXG60ZNV256G NVMe TOSHIBA 256GB
    nvme0ns1 (244198MB)
 
Last edited:

Patrick M. Hausen

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2. The cat /var/run/dmesg.boot is too long to post here. Is there anything in particular that you are looking for?
Why not attach it as a file?

3. I also removed the pool, partitions, and such for nvd0 that I tried yesterday.
What pool? I thought you could not create one? If nvd0 is blank, i.e. does not contain a partition table, it must be visible in the "Storage --> Pools --> Create" form.

4. In the GUI, I still cannot create a pool, so I guess this falls under the "weird" situation. I also don't see the new user in the GUI that I created in the CLI either.
Why on earth did you create a user in the CLI? Either just enable root login for SSH - especially in a small proof of concept - or create the user via the UI. *Never* configure things on the CLI unless you know exactly what you are doing.

Would you mind posting another output of gpart show? Lets see if that nvd0 really is blank.
 

twilightofman

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What pool? I thought you could not create one? If nvd0 is blank, i.e. does not contain a partition table, it must be visible in the "Storage --> Pools --> Create" form.
This was the pool that I created through the Shell using CLI as mentioned in my comments above. I was attempting to create a pool through the shell to see if it would show up in the GUI, which it did not.

Why on earth did you create a user in the CLI? Either just enable root login for SSH - especially in a small proof of concept - or create the user via the UI. *Never* configure things on the CLI unless you know exactly what you are doing.
I was just testing some things to see what happens with the CLI.
 

twilightofman

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Correction. They just showed up after another reboot now. I'll list the steps that I did shortly. Crazy.
 

twilightofman

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Sorry for the delay, but since you all have hung with me, I wanted to get this out there. What I did was this:
  1. Connected SSH via Putty
  2. couldn't connect with root, so created a new user from shell via CLI
  3. Put this user in the same "wheel" group as root
  4. Tested new user over SSH and verified su elevation worked
  5. From CLI over SSH
  6. Tried deleting nvd0 partitions but said it was corrupt
  7. Ran gpart list, status, show. nvd0 never showed up. only the da0 showed.
  8. Did gpart recover for nvd0
  9. Ran gpart list and nvd0 and it's parititions showed up
  10. Was able to delete all nvd0 partitions
  11. Ran gpart destroy nvd0
  12. Ran gpart list verified not in the list
  13. Checked GUI, disks didn't show. No disks at all showed up.
  14. Ran reboot
  15. After system came backup, from the GUI, I went to Storage > Disks and for the first time da0 and nvd0 showed up.
  16. I then went to Pools > Add and was able to create the pool with the nvd0 disk
From there, I was able to setup an iscsi zvol, present it via the FreeNAS static IP to my already in Production vCenter environment (actually to one of my ESXi hosts to be technical) and added it as another Datastore. Working like a champ now!

What was the final fix? Not completely sure, but I'm leaning towards the recover as the fix. I'm thinking that FreeNAS labeled nvd0 as just corrupt, which is why it couldn't show it in the GUI.

Here are the steps for anyone else interested in presenting freenas to vCenter.
 
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