FTP problem

[Pontus Wång]

So I've managed to create a user, I made him his own dataset at \mnt\Users\private\username
I've managed to setup the ftp and log in to that users home directory
Now I have: \mnt\Users\music, \mnt\Media\movies and \mnt\Media\shows datasets..

Ive searched the net BUT CAN NOT find any instructions on how to accomplish that, should it be so hard to make this system even remotely user friendly?

I am not an idiot when it comes to computers, I speak fluent C, C++, C#, 6502-assembly and somewhat fluent x86-assembly but this system seems to be made for geeks speaking zeroes and ones explicit!

 

[DrKK]

6502-assembly is pretty boss if this were 1982.

 

[Pontus Wång]

DrKK:
My point exactly 42 views, one comment and it was on my skillset, 6502 assembly is pretty useful from time to time, i now at least four modern state of the art cars being controlled by 6502-assembly.

I guess my real problem is impossible to solve.

 

[JohnK]

have you read:
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/FTP

I find the manual to be actually really good.

 

[Pontus Wång]

It doesnt say a single word of what I want to accomplish so it isnt good for me, i t was good when setting up the ftp but it since it doesnt cover what a normal user would like to do it is quite bad after you have the ftp up and running...

 

[JohnK]

Can you be a bit clearer on what you are trying to do and what you are having problems with. I just setup FTP following the instructions and it worked just fine.

 

[Pontus Wång]

As I said, Ive gotten the ftp to work, no worries there, but there isnt a single document that describes how I can expose datasets outside the ftp-users homefolder to him!

 

[cyberjock]

No, the guide doesn't give exact directions for every possible design. Instead it teaches you the basics of how to understand the options so you can take that knowledge and apply it to your situation.

To be honest, if you are saying that FreeNAS isn't user friendly try using FreeBSD. Probably 95% of this forum has no chance in hell of ever using FreeBSD to manage their server.

Use FreeBSD for a week, then come back and tell us that FreeNAS isn't user friendly...

And to be honest, you could know 50 computer languages. But that doesn't make you knowledgeable in everything that is "computing". And it certainly doesn't give you the knowledge to sit down and build a FreeNAS server without outside help. You might be a great programmer, but that may be all the knowledge you have. And being a programmer is potentially useful for troubleshooting bugs, but that's as far as you are likely to go.

FreeNAS isn't for everyone. It takes time to learn a new OS. It took me a month of dedication to feel comfortable using it. If you aren't looking for that kind of project maybe you should use whatever OS you natively use instead.

 

[JohnK]

I think here you need someone with more Unix knowledge, but my understanding is that you can either limit a user to only his home directory or you need to give access to all datasets by placing "/mnt" as the path. Not both.

 

[Pontus Wång]

@Cyberjock: So you have no answer to my direct question? And I do know that neither *BSD or *nix is especially userfriendly but freenas IS marketed for homeusers and somewhat smaller networks and therefore its documentation should cover a bit more than the absolute basics. The OS I natively use is totally inappropiate for a NAS-solution since it is windows, it is expensive, resource-demanding and quite slow, freenas is super for my home network and if the documentation wasn't lacking important info on stuff that should be simple it would be great for my needs to share files with others outside my personal sphere. It also lacking svn, cvs or another source-control support but that isn't the main reason to choose it.

@JohnK: That sounds really weird, ofcourse I should be able to create some kind of symblink in my users directory to expose the files I want him to have read-only access to but as I said there isn't any easy to find material on how to accomplish this and what makes it weirder is that I most certainly wouldn't be the first one with needs for a solution like that...

 

[cyberjock]

I have no direct answer because there's about 10 things you could get wrong JUST with file permissions. Additionally, FreeNAS is marketed for enterprises and businesses. Not so much for home users, but it does work for home users that are going to take the time to learn the appropriate hardware and use the software properly. Most "home users" aren't quick to run out and buy server-grade hardware for a file server.

The documentation isn't exactly lacking on stuff, you just don't sound ready to sit down and read the manual and learn how to use it in a VM. Learning a new OS(especially one as technical as FreeNAS) isn't going to come in a week. And depending on how dedicated and how good you are at learning new skills you may pick it up in a few weeks or you may never pick it up. FreeNAS isn't for everyone and plenty of people that don't have the dedication and intelligence find other software solutions are better. You've probably taken years to get where you are in Windows. As such, you should not even come close to expecting to be a pro on a new OS in a few weeks. If that reality isn't good enough, Windows does offer Server solutions. They may be expensive and bloated, but that's the tradeoff. Some people will find that the tradeoff in time spent learning FreeNAS is well worth it. Other's would rather buy Windows and not spend their time learning a new OS. You'll have to make the decision for yourself as to if FreeNAS is for you or not. I think I did very well at learning the basics with just 1 month to learn it. I'm not sure I've found anyone that has beaten me for knowledge in the time specified. But feel free to spend as much time or as little time on it as you want. You can also optionally pay someone to build your server if you don't want to spend your time on it. Everyone knows the phrase "time = money" and this is no different.

Me personally, I took the manual from 8.0.4 and a month later had a server running better than my Windows server on less hardware, did everything I wanted, and required little help from the forum except to validate some assumptions and bugs in the software. Not to mention the 8.0.4 manual wasn't as good as the current manual and there were the forum stickies to help you learn alot of the stuff that people get wrong. Then, after I got FreeNAS up and running I've spent significant time putting together my noobie presentation which obviously didn't exist for me to learn from since I wrote it.

So feel free to use the manual and ask questions specific to error messages and issues you are encountering. But threads like "FTP is broken" isn't going to give you an answer as it lacks any kind of specific information to begin troubleshooting your problem. That's like me saying "my car won't work". Ok.. that's a bit too vague to begin to diagnose a problem.

 

[Pontus Wång]

But still my problem shouldnt be brainsurgery for an user as yourself so why cant you just help?
All I want is a description or a pointer on how I can expose one dataset as readonly within another, in linux I'd just make a symbolic link and be done with, in windows I would have to read the manual of the ftp-server and possibly add another to it's configuration, when it comes to freenas some people say it is common knowledge (wich can not be true because then this thread would have been flooded with answers) or say it is so complex that they need to know all about my setup because there are so many things that could go wrong but still I get no pointers in what direction I should look.

And no, the ftp isn't broken, the manual is broken since this topic isn't anywhere where I can find it and since the people in this or among those who has read thread cant help even with pointers on what to look for I got to ask mysself if freenas is usable at all for this since i aint getting any help in a forum directed at noobs, that is bad commercial.

For now I solved the problem by setting a ftp-server on my local computer that exposes my shares but that isn't a good solution dont you agree?

 

[JohnK]

Have you read this forum post? Seems like similar to what you are trying to do.

 

[Pontus Wång]

@JohnK: Thank you, I now see where I've gone wrong (I think). Is there a simple way of moving two existing datasets into two newly created datasets? I think I have made my structure to flat, /Media is a volume harbouring the datasets movies and shows, if I understand this right I need to create a dataset named xxx and move the two existing datasets into that dataset and also create the home directories within the dataset xxx to have a chance to get this to work properly.
Is there possibly any chance a possibility merge two volumes within a single dataset so I can have a structure like this:
Volume#1
-> xxx (dataset placed on Volume#1)
---> movies (dataset placed on Volume#1)
---> shows (dataset placed on Volume#1)
---> music (dataset placed on Volume#2)
---> homefolders/user x (dataset placed on Volume#2)

Volume#2
-> yyy (dataset placed on Volume#2)
---> music (dataset placed on Volume#2)
---> homefolders/user x (dataset placed on Volume#2)

Am I making myself clear at all?