[General] Why easy things is so complicated?

[zbw]

My comments on the project gui. I wanted a simple server for my local network. Truenas always came up high in comparisons. As i can see, the reviewers only knew from screenshots. Basic stuff, set IP and smb sharing. Ok, installation, ip dhcp. Changing to static, dhcp away and.... where does one enter this address? There is no field. I search, there is not. I go to the console, graphical configurator, uncheck dhcp.... and still there is nowhere to enter the address. Ehhh, apparently I'm stupid. But I go on. Samba. I add a resource, but where to set permissions? I search, I fiddle with sampa permissions - well, no chance. I have entries in acl that I see for the first time in my life, removing them causes an error, adding my users doesn't configure samba correctly. The smb documentation on the site is some kind of prosthesis, there is no example of how to set it up. Samba has a very powerful access control system that I configure "with my finger" without any problems, in TrueNAS it is hidden somewhere that there is no chance to logically set it up. Is it really necessary to make simple things so complicated? With the current gui I gave up, probably like a lot of users as well. Simplified in the wrong places gui does not make things easier....

This is a post that you don't have to respond to, but maybe it will motivate you to improve your documentation or gui. I only needed these basic options and on them I relented, I didn't even delve further because I probably would have doubted myself.

 

[diogen]

... where does one enter this address? There is no field.

There is

[solved]Set static IP not possible?

Hi guys. I setup TrueNAS Scale on a bare metal PC. TrueNAS-SCALE-22.02.2.1 I look in the manual here: https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/scaleuireference/network/ I tried setting up a static IP address via the 1-9 options you get on the screen when booting up the server. There is no place to...

www.truenas.com

A bit more reading is needed... Same about SMB...

 

[danb35]

He's definitely got a point about setting up a static IP, though--who thought that hiding that under "aliases" (and not documenting it anywhere) was a good idea, to say the least, made a big mistake. Overall I'd say the SCALE UI is a big improvement over CORE, but this is a definite regression--and it certainly isn't something that's mandated by the underlying OS.

 

[diogen]

...who thought that hiding that under "aliases"... was a good idea... made a big mistake.

I forgot who said it, Kernighan or Ritchie - "it shall not be easy!"...

 

[morganL]

He's definitely got a point about setting up a static IP, though--who thought that hiding that under "aliases" (and not documenting it anywhere) was a good idea, to say the least, made a big mistake. Overall I'd say the SCALE UI is a big improvement over CORE, but this is a definite regression--and it certainly isn't something that's mandated by the underlying OS.

Its a reasonable criticism... does someone want to make a suggestions ticket?

 

[indivision]

Is it really necessary to make simple things so complicated? With the current gui I gave up, probably like a lot of users as well. Simplified in the wrong places gui does not make things easier....

I don't think this is a GUI problem. You have to understand that there is a learning curve for configuring and maintaining a server. It can't be done with one finger or a day of reading.

The good news is that all of the resources you need are available (either in docs, in guides here or in someones brain on the forum). And when you do get things all set up right it's well worth the effort.

 

[zbw]

Ok, i found later on forum about IP, but why not in official documentation? With samba problem is more complex. I not found nothing about. In documentation is one page about enabling samba and.... end. How set it up? ACL-s is bad idea where in samba we have a good config directives, we need define r, rw or block and that's all. In server we not need define local login users to set locks on filesystems, but remote access where samba have enough access mechanism. With acl's we have sometimes a big headahe why we still get permission denied or other strange problems without clear reason...

 

[zbw]

Sorry for second post, i cannot edit above. Why we need waste day to set basic options which should be intuitive? BASIC options. All others come with time, but not even basic usage....

 

[danb35]

Its a reasonable criticism... does someone want to make a suggestions ticket?

Jira

ixsystems.atlassian.net

Edit--looks like your migration to cloud issue tracking has resulted in the link previews here not being as useful as they once were.

 

[cobrakiller58]

Jira

ixsystems.atlassian.net

Edit--looks like your migration to cloud issue tracking has resulted in the link previews here not being as useful as they once were.

perhaps it needs to be approved first at the moment I am logged in and get

You don't have access to this issue​

Make sure the issue exists in this project. If it does, ask a project admin for permission to see the project's issues.

 

[danb35]

That's weird, it has a security level of "iX Private", and I can't change it--Morgan, any idea why that's the case?

It's also strange that Jira (now, at least) doesn't have separate "product" classifications for CORE and SCALE--since they are very different products. This means that a suggestion (which my ticket is) can't be tagged to apply to one or the other of those. Don't know if this is another artifact of the Jira cloud migration or something else, but seems like it could be improved.

 

[Redcoat]

doesn't have separate "product" classifications for CORE and SCALE

but seems like it could be improved.

I completely agree wirth @danb35 on this. Actually I find the current forum(s) in general frustrating to use as so many posts don't identify "Core or Scale" , leaving to the reader to make that diagnosis from the facts presented (often difficult of late).

 

[cobrakiller58]

We are currently in the scale section so in theory all posts in here should be related to scale, but organizationally there have been regression in the forums since TrueNAS rebranding

 

[danb35]

Actually I find the current forum(s) in general frustrating to use

It does seem like someone is just randomly creating subforums without much of a plan behind them. See also:

Separate forums for each major version?

The more additional subforums are created, the less sense it's making to me. Back in the old days (i.e., before rebranding everything to "TrueNAS"), there was a pretty well-defined set of subforums for FreeNAS, with divisions that pretty well made sense. Although there were tweaks to it, the...

www.truenas.com

But the issue with Jira is rather different--if these are and will continue to be, as iX keeps telling us, separate products, then conflating all the suggestions into a single pool seems needlessly confusing.

 

[danb35]

Oh, and @zbw, if all you're wanting to do with the NAS is serve files over SMB, you may find that CORE is more to your liking than SCALE. And its console menu actually gives you a clearly-labeled option to set a static IP address.

 

[zbw]

Oh, and @zbw, if all you're wanting to do with the NAS is serve files over SMB, you may find that CORE is more to your liking than SCALE. And its console menu actually gives you a clearly-labeled option to set a static IP address.

Generally no. I use now OpenMediaVault. In gui to 5.x permissions were also twisted, though much more logical than in TrueNAS. In gui 6.x, they reverted to the old user/permissions table where all you had to do was put a checkmark on what who could do. Simple and quick. Synology have too easy table. Why on open solutions this must be complicated? TrueNas core is on FreeBSD - this always make me a lot of problems on modern hardware, even if generally works, always is any problem with stability or throughput, or any other strange things. And in Scale we have great apps catalog and virtualization solution (to replace proxmox). But this should be easy in basic things.

 

[danb35]

And in Scale we have great apps catalog and virtualization solution (to replace proxmox).

SCALE may one day be a Proxmox competitor, but this is not that day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.

I think it's fair to say that permissions have been a sore spot for many users over the years. I'm not really sure how to improve that, though the fact that TrueNAS now has a permissions editor definitely helps. But if there's a product that works better for you, no reason not to use it.

 

[indivision]

ACL-s is bad idea where in samba we have a good config directives, we need define r, rw or block and that's all.

Maybe some default ACL is applied. But, I don't think it's really required for you to mess with them. You can still use users/groups, chmod and chown instead. That's what I do.

 

[zbw]

Ok, since no one else sees a problem with the gui on this issue I won't say any more. In OMV they went back to the user/resource table, but unfortunately the gui itself was heavily simplified and defacto destroyed. In the synology example, despite the simple gui, it is possible to click almost everything you need. in OMV there is pure debian underneath, but I'm tired of configuring everything via unix style. I miss a clear and logical menu. Now in OMV they messed up the menu, and in Scale it is illogical. And wizards won't save it, menus need to be refined. Xpenology stays?

And I'm not criticizing anyone, you've put a tremendous amount of work into creating a debian based system (the most polished distribution I think), I just miss a working and usable universal NAS solution without the wars that are in the linux world. Now menu in Scale look great, need only rebuild to easy basic set for most users usage in home. Unless it is a system designed for a different end user....

 

[zbw]

Maybe some default ACL is applied. But, I don't think it's really required for you to mess with them. You can still use users/groups, chmod and chown instead. That's what I do.

Yes, i search this in menu! And not find! Maybye is hided under strange submenu like static ip? In documentation is not any word about....