Hi! I'm a total FreeNAS noob, and I need help please.

[choochilla]

OK, I'll try that - but first, how do I "escape to the loader prompt?"
Do I literally press the escape key?

I'm sorry for being so green guys but I only saw freeNAS for the first time two days ago, and I've never used Linux or Unix - sorry.

 

[choochilla]

Oh, I just remembered. Someone asked how I installed FreeNAS to the USB stick - I used my newer computer, the one that replaced the older one I'm now trying to use as a server.
Downloaded the file and then used Win32DiskImager to write FreeNAS to my USB drive (as per instructions online). Hope that's what you wanted to know.

 

[jgreco]

http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Tunables

But you don't want to do this permanently unless it works - you want to make a temporary change, so what we're doing is setting it at the loader prompt and THEN, if it works, you make it a tunable.

 

[choochilla]

OK - I think I managed to work through that.
It now stops at:

kdb_enter+0x3b: movq $0,0x9e8212(%rip)
db>

 

[Yatti420]

Assuming the .img is good and isn't corrupted and has been written properly (by windiskimg) to the USB then it has to be a bios / acpi related issue.. If you can't get it going at all smoothly then I'd search for a new motherboard.. My P5KC didn't end up working correctly..

 

[choochilla]

Hey guys - I'm really appreciating all your help and input, and I really feel some progress has been made, but I have to leave for about an hour or so.
I'm really sorry about this but I have to go and collect someone. I'll be back in about an hour, which will let your superb collective brains cool a little. LOL.
See you soon...

 

[choochilla]

Just a lame question before I rush off - Win32DiskImager is OK to write a x64 image to USB isn't it?

 

[Yatti420]

Yes.. Just make sure you are using the .img for freenas embeddable install (freenas9xx.img usually) ... I'm not sure on your network setup but if your wireless there is a chance the installs can be bad when downloading.. I always check the SHA256 hash code using hashcalc.. Then I know it's a good image to write to USB..

 

[choochilla]

Hi guys - I'm back (and fed, and watered, and guests installed...)!

I don't use wireless for our desktop PCs, only our laptops or phones (anything portable) is wireless - everything else is hard wired.

FreeNAS was downloaded from http://www.freenas.org/ and the files were FreeNAS-9.1.1-RELEASE-x64.img.xz and FreeNAS-8.3.2-RELEASE-x64.img.xz.
These were uncompressed using 7-zip and the resulting image files were then written to 2 different USB drives using Win32DiskImager v0.9.
The USB drive for the 9.1.1 release is brand new, the other drive is 4 or 5 months old. They are both retail UK bought - not from the far east.

I have tried a couple of other enables/disables in the last few minutes but have had no luck yet.
The trouble is that I don't really know what a lot of the BIOS settings are for, basically I'm just guessing/hoping for the best.
I think the help text that appears in the BIOS should be much more comprehensive, don't you?

 

[choochilla]

I don't like to admit defeat on this one, especially as the MOBO was such a rock steady performer under windows, but if the worst comes to the worst and no-one can help...
What in your opinion is the best MOBO to track down so that I can reuse all of my other hardware?

The CPU is an Athlon 7750 dual core 2.7GHz,
The 8GB of RAM is 4 x 2GB sticks of Kingston DDR2 memory (KHX8500D2K2).
The HDDs are 2x Seagate ST3000VN000 3TB SATA NAS drives.

I intend to have 4x 3TB drives in it eventually Two 3TB drives, mirrored.

I hate having stuff left over, as eventually it just ends up in the dustbin, so I was really pleased when I heard about FreeNAS software. Older stuff can live again!

 

[keith w]

I have just re-commissioned an old computer as a server, basically so that we can store all our docs, pics and vids in one place. A friend said FreeNAS would be ideal but there is something wrong - it doesn't 'see' the HDDs. Unfortunately he works away and won't be back for seven weeks, so can anyone out there help me please?

The motherboard is an ASUS M3A78 Pro, the CPU is an Athlon 7750 dual core 2.7GHz, the 8GB of RAM is 4 x 2GB sticks of Kingston DDR2 memory (KHX8500D2K2). This worked fine as a PC. My new HDDs are 2x Seagate ST3000VN000 3TB SATA NAS drives and FreeNAS (x64) is installed on a 16GB Cruzer Fit USB drive.

I have tried both the 9.1.1 and the 8.3.2 versions of FreeNAS but it doesn't make any difference, neither can 'see' the HDDs. I connected to SATA 1 - 2, then 3 - 4, just in case the connectors were faulty. Someone suggested a SATA3 internal card might be better for the HDDs, but I though SATA was backward compatible (even though the transfer speed suffers)?

I'm sorry but I have no previous Linux or Unix experience so I do not know how to progress. Can anyone shed any light on this problem please. I followed the instructions on installing FreeNAS to a USB drive and it seems to boot up OK into the OS, so maybe it's as simple as something wrong in the BIOS (which DOES show the drives). The BIOS version is the latest one on the ASUS website.

As you can probably tell I'm not very computer literate (old age) but I can follow good clear instructions if anyone wants to take pity on me and help me get this beastie running! I'd be grateful of any help as I don't have a clue!!!

Thanks for taking the time to read this, but if you need more info you'll have to ask and I'll do my best to answer. I've done what I can (which is not much) so I'm now at your mercy. Anyone feel like helping an old fool?

just a total noob also so maybe a really stupid question as i don't understand the coding at all, presume you tried to "import volume" (from the GUI)?

 

[choochilla]

just a total noob also so maybe a really stupid question as i don't understand the coding at all, presume you tried to "import volume" (from the GUI)?

Hi Keith - sorry about the delay in replying but I've been to my sisters for the past day or so. I don't understand the coding either but I have been given some great advice by the folks on here and I have tried lots of things but, even though the BIOS recognises the drives instantly, FreeNAS just doesn't seem to be able to 'see' the drives.

I was informed about the 'camcontrol devlist' command to see any connected drives, but the NAS drives are not being shown in the OS (only the USB stick is). I even tried the drives one at a time to see if one of them had a fault of some sort but still no joy. As I have received some very helpful advice from this forum I don't feel I should give up just yet! I'll probably have another look at it tomorrow and see if there is anything I can figure out.

If anyone out there has a FreeNAS system running on an Asus M3A78 Pro motherboard I'd like to know what BIOS version/settings you are using! The MOBO was a rock steady component and never caused me an ounce of trouble with 'MS WinDoze' but for some reason it doesn't seem to allow FreeNAS proper use of it. I can access the FreeNAS server from the GUI on another computer but nothing I have done so far allows me to see the two new 3TB hard drives I bought for my newly set up FreeNAS server, which is a great pity and very frustrating.

Thank you for your suggestion though, I am open to any help as I have very little experience regarding FreeNAS (I only got told about it a couple of weeks ago, by a friend who suggested I gave it a try as he thought it would be ideal for my needs - and I'm sure it would be if I could only get it set up properly to see the installed disks!

One thing I am having trouble with is PuTTY - I was also kindly told about this program so I installed it, hopefully to allow me to cut and paste the start up information for you guys to see - but I can't get it to connect to my FreeNAS server. I put in the correct IP address and enter the user name OK but when I try to enter the password nothing seems to be happening and I have to close PuTTY down as it seems to be 'locked up'. I'm fairly sure it's something I'm doing wrong, rather than a problem with the PuTTY program or the server. Can anyone assist me please? I'm sorry to be such a nuisance but this sort of thing isn't within my skill set! Yet.

Just as an afterthought - would an internal SATA card with two SATA connectors on it make any difference, or help at all, instead of using the ones on the MOBO?

 

[Whattteva]

It's probably because you haven't set the SSH server up so PuTTY can't connect.
Try this command:

Code:

ps -ax | grep sshd

Do you see /usr/sbin/sshd running?

Also, check the contents of /etc/rc.conf
Do you see this line?

Code:

sshd_enable="YES"

If not, that means you haven't enabled SSH on the web GUI.

 

[choochilla]

It's probably because you haven't set the SSH server up so PuTTY can't connect.
Try this command:

Code:

ps -ax | grep sshd

Do you see /usr/sbin/sshd running?

Hi - I think so - it says:
3382 ?? Is 0:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
3329 v0 S+ 0:00:00 grep sshd

Also, check the contents of /etc/rc.conf
Do you see this line?

Code:

sshd_enable="YES"

If not, that means you haven't enabled SSH on the web GUI.

Hi - I think so - it says:
3382 ?? Is 0:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
3329 v0 S+ 0:00:00 grep sshd

I'm not sure how to check this yet, so I tried looking in the web UI and under 'services' there is a page showing lots of switches.
Looking at that shows the SSH 'switch' in the 'on' position. Is that the same thing?

When I try to connect PuTTY I type in the IP address of the server, it then says 'login as' so I type my user name - I can see it being typed in the window as I do it.
Then I need to enter the password, but as I type it the cursor does not move along and nothing is shown on screen. Is this normal?
When I hit enter it just says 'access denied' and requires the password again. So I can't log in...

 

[Whattteva]

I'm not sure how to check this yet, so I tried looking in the web UI and under 'services' there is a page showing lots of switches.
Looking at that shows the SSH 'switch' in the 'on' position. Is that the same thing?

Yes, that should be the same thing.

When I try to connect PuTTY I type in the IP address of the server, it then says 'login as' so I type my user name - I can see it being typed in the window as I do it.
Then I need to enter the password, but as I type it the cursor does not move along and nothing is shown on screen. Is this normal?
When I hit enter it just says 'access denied' and requires the password again. So I can't log in...

Yes, it is normal and intended for security (so others can't see what you're typing).
If it doesn't let you in, it's either you typed in the wrong password or the SSH server is not configured to accept password logins.
Make sure in the web GUI SSH service configuration, the box that says "Allow Password Authentication" is checked.

 

[choochilla]

The TCP port is shown as '22'
The box next to 'Login as Root with password' is checked.
The box next to 'Allow Password Authentication' is checked.

Allow TCP Port Forwarding and Compress Connections are not checked.

 

[Whattteva]

That is strange. You type your password in and you're still denied access?
You may have to run SSH with -v option so you can see debug messages.
What software are you using to SSH into the server?

 

[choochilla]

That is strange. You type your password in and you're still denied access?
You may have to run SSH with -v option so you can see debug messages.
What software are you using to SSH into the server?

I'm using PuTTY (as you recommended to me earlier in this thread) and the version is 0.63.

 

[choochilla]

Just to make sure the password was being typed correctly (without being able to see it) I used the GUI to change the password to something simple and all lower case.
It didn't make any difference, the login (via PuTTY) sequence of events remained unchanged.

 

[Whattteva]

Restart the service (put it to OFF, then back to ON), then try to login again and see if you still get denied access.
Try both your own username and root.

EDIT: Actually, I just remembered something else.
Post the contents of /var/log/auth.log here.