Email reports, DNS, settings, etc, need help

[MalVeauX]

Hello all,

I'm a bit of a numbskull on this one, so please forgive what may be such a common and simple issue.

Originally I had setup my email via a gmail account and had it working and it sent test emails just fine after following some information on setting up gmail options with FreeNAS. However, that was with DHCP enabled. Later on, I went to static IP and didn't allow DHCP to handle my FreeNAS box nor my IPMI address so that I could have a common static way to access them from any of my terminals/clients.

Now, my email is broken of course.

After some reading, it seems to have to do with DNS routing. However, this is where I am having my issues.

My user (root) has the appropriate working email address specified.
My system->email reporting has the appropriate SMTP server, port, login info, etc, for sending reports for gmail use (and the appropriate security on gmail's side updated).
My network->general settings is where my issue is. I have nothing under the IPv4/IPv6 gateways, nothing under any Nameservers, Domain is just "local" and Hostname is just my FreeNAS boxe's name.

Should I be getting a DNS number or gateway numbers from my router somehow?

This box has access to the internet via my router it's connected. It was working before as mentioned. After leaving DHCP and going to static things broke.

Very best,

 

[Fredda]

Later on, I went to static IP and didn't allow DHCP to handle my FreeNAS box

Should I be getting a DNS number or gateway numbers from my router somehow?

If you have a static IP you must configure the DNS and default gateway by yourself.
The gateway address should be the router IP.
For DNS check your computers what they got from your router via DHCP.

 

[masru]

There is a second option to solve this:

You can configure your DHCP server to provide a fixed IP address to your NAS box. That way your NAS box has always the same fixed IP adress, but still gets the DNS and and default gateway configuration from the DHCP server.

If you have more that one box with fixed IP this saves you trouble if there are changes in your network configuration (only one place to store configuration).

 

[masru]

There is a second option to solve this:

You can configure your DHCP server to provide a fixed IP address to your NAS box. That way your NAS box has always the same fixed IP adress, but still gets the DNS and and default gateway configuration from the DHCP server.

If you have more that one box with fixed IP this saves you trouble if there are changes in your network configuration (only one place to store configuration).

Plus: If you are lazy with documentation ... the DHCP server config is "your documentation" which fixed IP adresses you have set.

 

[Fredda]

You can configure your DHCP server to provide a fixed IP address to your NAS box. That way your NAS box has always the same fixed IP adress, but still gets the DNS and and default gateway configuration from the DHCP server.

Agree, that is probably the best solution, if the router supports that. I've seen DSL routers where you can't do that.

 

[MalVeauX]

Thanks all,

Super helpful. I did both ways just to learn to do it. Ultimately I did go ahead and just set a manual IP via my router to the FreeNAS box and its IPMI and then just added the router IP and I looked up my DNS and now it's working again. Learned a lot just from that little bump about using my router even. Sheesh!

So if anyone else stumbles on this:

Network -> Global Configuration:
I put my router's IP (LAN IP) for the IPv4 gateway
I put my DNS IP for the first Nameserver1 (in this case, I just put the same IP here from above IPv4 gateway, the router's IP)
(I did look up my own DNS Sever IP and put that and it works, but I figured, what if that changes? This way the router always will update the DNS IP it's using to the client)
That's it!

Thanks!

Very best,

 

[MalVeauX]

New question if I may:

I'm using an unimportant gmail account that I made just for the purpose of reporting for FreeNAS because it's so difficult to find emails that will allow this kind of use without specific app/software that is secure. My primary email is Proton Mail and I pay for it. It has SMTP access but only using it's bridge client to handle the security so I don't think it would work on FreeNAS that way since it cannot accept software. So I'm using Gmail at the moment for just sending reports to my primary email(s).

To get gmail to work, I had to do the "less secure app access" method I found in tutorials.

Is there a more secure way so that the account isn't left left secure? Not that I'm doing anything with the account, but still, one less thing to sweat later on if it were to be compromised. Anyone using a gmail account without having to set it to be less secure?

Thanks!

Very best,

 

[Spearfoot]

New question if I may:

I'm using an unimportant gmail account that I made just for the purpose of reporting for FreeNAS because it's so difficult to find emails that will allow this kind of use without specific app/software that is secure. My primary email is Proton Mail and I pay for it. It has SMTP access but only using it's bridge client to handle the security so I don't think it would work on FreeNAS that way since it cannot accept software. So I'm using Gmail at the moment for just sending reports to my primary email(s).

To get gmail to work, I had to do the "less secure app access" method I found in tutorials.

Is there a more secure way so that the account isn't left left secure? Not that I'm doing anything with the account, but still, one less thing to sweat later on if it were to be compromised. Anyone using a gmail account without having to set it to be less secure?

Thanks!

Very best,

I'm guessing you've acquired an app password for use with your gmail account? And you're probably using SSL/TLS encryption, too, right? That's probably good enough for system monitoring. Even if a hacker were to acquire the app key somehow, it would not give them access to your FreeNAS system.

 

[MalVeauX]

I'm guessing you've acquired an app password for use with your gmail account? And you're probably using SSL/TLS encryption, too, right? That's probably good enough for system monitoring. Even if a hacker were to acquire the app key somehow, it would not give them access to your FreeNAS system.

Thanks, yea it's just a monitoring account. Was just wondering, since you never know these days.

Very best,