FreeNAS newbie in trouble

[Peter Morris]

Hi everybody!

I am new to FreeNAS. I like the idea of being able to configure and customize your own mass storage solution. I have assembled a system with 6 hard drives; 5 of equal size (4 TB each), and 1 80 GB. The latter is for hosting the installation of FreeNAS. I would appraise my networking skill, between intermediate to competent...certainly not expert. I am more competent with PC mechanics than I am with networking.

The specification of the PC is more than adequate. It has an 8-core processor and 16 GB of RAM. The motherboard does not have UEFI, which is now slowly (...and maybe faster than most of us might think) replacing BIOS.

My small project at home, has to do with expanding the storage capacity of a Network Video Recorder (NVR), using a NAS. However, I eventually learnt from the supplier that it does not support NAS. Nevertheless, it supports FTP. FreeNAS also supports FTP, and more. Hence my subsequent pursuit to build a custom storage unit, powered by FreeNAS.

Ultimately, the objective is to automate the transfer of the sequential video clips, from the NVR to FreeNAS. Is this possible?

After setting up the PC, and installing FreeNAS 9.10, I consulted the official documentation, for instructions and guidance. It became clear that I also needed to consult with others, such as yourselves for more assistance.

The official documentation is very good for understanding FreeNAS and how it works. However, I suppose I am too impatient to go through the learning curve, or maybe I am just too slow. I think I did well, to configure the Disk Volume, and setup the Shares; but, the Services is what I am not too clear about.

Is there a Samaritan out there, who is more able than me, with the time and patience to steer me through this effort?

HELP!!

 

[Quebecman]

You can configure the FTP from "Services" in the GUI, but that won't start FTP. Once configured, you have to start it under "Services -> Control Services". Can't remember if FTP is started by default though, but it will show if it's on or not.

Would be interesting if you also listed the specifics of your system, motherboard, memory type (ECC is important), number of drives...

The preferred method to install the OS is usually 2 x USB sticks of 8GB+ in order to get redundancy, or some go with low capacity SSDs. Mechanical HDD not designed for NAS may not be optimal and you risk loosing your setup, along with higher failure probability of said HDD. It all depends how much you value your data. For the price USB sticks go for... but choose good reputable ones.

 

[Quebecman]

Oh, and... Welcome! Where's my manners ;)

 

[Bisquit]

Welcome to the forums!

 

[Peter Morris]

Thanks fellas.

I turned on the ftp service from the "Services -> Control Services" and, also configured the "Tasks -> Rsync Tasks" and "Services -> Rsync -> Rsunc Modules". I was able to access the ftp server and path, via a web browser.

However, my objective is to have FreeNAS pull data from my NVR Recorder. I also enabled the FTP protocol on the NVR, and configured it to point to the FreeNAS PC, and Directory path where the NVR data is to be sent.

Both the NVR and FreeNAS have the FTP service enabled, and configured. Now, once the schedule that was configured in "Tasks -> Rsync Tasks" began, and error was posted on the FreeNAS console. It reported that the "<urlopen error [Errno 8] hostname nor servername provided, or not known>".

Not so sure where to go from here...

 

[Quebecman]

Show us the rsync command.

Rsync documentation:
https://download.samba.org/pub/rsync/rsync.html
Searched "ftp" on that page.
This is what I find:

QUOTE:
To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile targets:

get:
rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
put:
rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
sync: get put

this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.

I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the command:

rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge"

This is launched from cron every few hours.
END QUOTE

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Both the NVR and FreeNAS have the FTP service enabled, and configured. Now, once the schedule that was configured in "Tasks -> Rsync Tasks" began, and error was posted on the FreeNAS console. It reported that the "<urlopen error [Errno 8] hostname nor servername provided, or not known>".

I'm not sure what your thought process is, but there is no connection between FTP and rsync. Stick to whichever is supported by the NVR, and forget about the other.

 

[SweetAndLow]

you haven't really asked a question yet. You also haven't explained what you are trying to do. I suggest reading this and try again for better results.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-ask-question-when-you-want-technical-help.htm

 

[Peter Morris]

Show us the rsync command.

Rsync documentation:
https://download.samba.org/pub/rsync/rsync.html
Searched "ftp" on that page.
This is what I find:

QUOTE:
To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile targets:

get:
rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
put:
rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
sync: get put

this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.

I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the command:

rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge"

This is launched from cron every few hours.
END QUOTE

Peter >>> REPLY # 1 (Jan 19, 2017)
--------------------------------
Wow! That is quite a mouth full, Quebecman. That link is very informative. I will need to take sometime reading through it, but I think we are on to something.

I actually performed the configurations, using the GUI. Did not use the console directly, except for troubleshooting.

 

[Peter Morris]

I'm not sure what your thought process is, but there is no connection between FTP and rsync. Stick to whichever is supported by the NVR, and forget about the other.

My small project at home, has to do with expanding the storage capacity of a Network Video Recorder (NVR), using a NAS. However, I eventually learnt from the supplier that it does not support NAS. Nevertheless, it supports FTP. FreeNAS also supports FTP, and more. Hence my subsequent pursuit to build a custom storage unit, powered by FreeNAS.

Ultimately, the objective is to automate the transfer of the sequential video clips, from the NVR to FreeNAS. Is this possible?

 

[Peter Morris]

you haven't really asked a question yet. You also haven't explained what you are trying to do. I suggest reading this and try again for better results.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-ask-question-when-you-want-technical-help.htm

My small project at home, has to do with expanding the storage capacity of a Network Video Recorder (NVR), using a NAS. However, I eventually learnt from the supplier that it does not support NAS. Nevertheless, it supports FTP. FreeNAS also supports FTP, and more. Hence my subsequent pursuit to build a custom storage unit, powered by FreeNAS.

Ultimately, the objective is to automate the transfer of the sequential video clips, from the NVR to FreeNAS. Is this possible?

 

[SweetAndLow]

My small project at home, has to do with expanding the storage capacity of a Network Video Recorder (NVR), using a NAS. However, I eventually learnt from the supplier that it does not support NAS. Nevertheless, it supports FTP. FreeNAS also supports FTP, and more. Hence my subsequent pursuit to build a custom storage unit, powered by FreeNAS.

Ultimately, the objective is to automate the transfer of the sequential video clips, from the NVR to FreeNAS. Is this possible?

We can't answer that question it all depends on your NVR device.

There is no such thing as supporting NAS so that's kind of a strange question.

If your NVR device supports FTP, turn that service on in FreeNAS and setup the NVR device to use it and your done. No need for any of this rsync stuff.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

That link is very informative

It is, but it won't help you get FTP working. The quoted section was just an example of how the author used it to backup data from a server that was also used for FTP.

 

[Quebecman]

Yah, that's my bad for not quite getting the difference.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol which handles files, like rsync is meant to handle files, which is why they don't go together. They do similar things but differently, rsync being pretty sophisticated in comparing files before copying.

You can rsync through ssh, which is why I thought perhaps you could do it via FTP, until I read it's not possible and noticed the difference, and then why.