How to search your FreeNAS?

[an303042]

Hello everyone...
I've been looking for a good solution to this issue for a while now, but it's very hard to search online for something with the word "search" and get good results :) ..
My NAS is used mostly for films, tv and music. sometimes i'm looking for that one song that i know i have but isn't where i though it should be (which usually means its in some collection or soundtrack or whatever).
On my PCs i use "search everything" to index and quickly search for files, but i don't know how to do the same with my NAS files...
please? help a noob? (which is also to say - please don't send me to the console with long-a$$ commands to look for a file)... Thanks!!!

 

[an303042]

Wow, really? nothing?
I doubt the question i asked is too difficult for everyone here...
Any ideas?

 

[MtK]

well, FREENAS is not a filemanager, like the 'explorer' in Windows, so you wouldn't find such an option to search for a file from the GUI.

Command line would be one obvious option, but since you don't want that you can simply try sharing/exporting the location (via CIFS/NFS) and map it on you PC. From there you could use the 'search' you know.


Another option would be to install a media server such as Plex...

 

[Dusan]

Wow, really? nothing?
I doubt the question i asked is too difficult for everyone here...
Any ideas?

Not difficult, but as MtK already pointed out, you precluded most answers by this statement: "please don't send me to the console with long-a$$ commands to look for a file".

There is no such functionality in the GUI. There are several options in the CLI:

• Use the find command. It is very powerful and you can construct complex searches, however it is slow as it searches the filesystem file-by-file.
• Use the locate command. That one is much faster, but you first need a DB/index of your files and it can do only file name searches (find can also search by file size, data, permissions, ...). There's a relevant thread here: forums.freenas.org/threads/quickly-search-index-of-all-files-on-nas.16532/

Other option would be to index the files on the client side. In Windows you have the Indexing Service but it seems that to get it to index a network share you will need to use CLI anyway: http://social.technet.microsoft.com...-network-mapped-drive?forum=w7itpronetworking

 

[cyberjock]

The workaround at the link that Dusan provided does work, for the most part. I've had it work for me, but a friend never had it work right.

Normally, if you had a Windows Server and tried to search the NAS the search query was actual sent to the server and it would do the searching and return the appropriate results to your machine. Obviously this is very ideal as the server doesn't have to send you a whole database of entries nor is any other method limited to your LAN/WAN speed and latency. Unfortunately, FreeBSD has no local Windows Indexing Service to do this job. It might be in Samba4, but I'm not sure. FreeNAS doesn't have Samba4 at present anyway, so it's a mute point.

One program you can try is called "Everything". It's free and does network indexing. I will say its the absolute fastest searching tool I've ever used in the Windows world. It is just amazing once its installed and the index has been created. I used when I had my old server and I had about 2.5 million files. Searches were near real-time. :)

 

[an303042]

Thanks for you replies everyone...
my request not to focus on command lines was not because i have something against command lines :) . It's simply that I'd like to keep my regular workflow when suddenly in the need to search for a file.
@cyberjock - you may have missed my comment on my original post, but i mention "Everything" there. I use it on my PCs, and really would love to be able to search my NAS with it. As far as i know it can't index network locations, but I'm happy to learn something new!

 

[russnas]

1.10 Can "Everything" index a mapped network drive?

No, "Everything" only indexes local or removable NTFS volumes.

To search a networked computer you will need to run Everything on both computers.
One computer will need to Start an ETP server.
The other computer will need to connect to that ETP server.

http://www.voidtools.com/faq.htm#What_is__Everything

unfortunately i havent found a solution on windows while mac has a Great program called easyfind, search your samba share without indexing, results are very quick, this is what you need to find your file,
i dont know why but with mac its alot easier to manage your network than with windows.

 

[MtK]

I just did a simple samba index windows 7 search and found this:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...-network-mapped-drive?forum=w7itpronetworking

does that help?

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah, I forgot you mentioned it. I forgot it was limited to NTFS locally and servers that run the service on the server. Sorry my advice wasn't too useful.

 

[russnas]

I just did a simple samba index windows 7 search and found this:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...-network-mapped-drive?forum=w7itpronetworking

does that help?

this should work, adding folders into a library by including the locations of the cifs , i dont want windows to have permission on my files so read only wont work

Library can be treated like a folder with a group of subfolders inside it

this guide gives you the idea

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-7-libraries-–-and-why-you-want-them/

 

[SeanB]

http://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/folder_indexing/

Turns out you can index a network location, according to everything. I'm trying it now, will let you know if it doesn't work.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

1.10 Can "Everything" index a mapped network drive?

No, "Everything" only indexes local or removable NTFS volumes.

To search a networked computer you will need to run Everything on both computers.
One computer will need to Start an ETP server.
The other computer will need to connect to that ETP server.

http://www.voidtools.com/faq.htm#What_is__Everything

unfortunately i havent found a solution on windows while mac has a Great program called easyfind, search your samba share without indexing, results are very quick, this is what you need to find your file,
i dont know why but with mac its alot easier to manage your network than with windows.

That's weird, i found this:

Folder Indexing
Folder indexing allows Everything to include any folder in the Everything index.
Indexed folders can go offline and remain the Everything index.
For example, with folder indexing you can index:

• Network shares or mapped network drives.
• FAT32 and other volumes.
• Any physical folder.

http://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/folder_indexing/
And it seems rather easy too :)

 

[cyberjock]

The program Everything is awesome. I've used it for years. :P

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Too bad it's only Windows :(

 

[phoenix]

Too bad it's only Windows :(

There are file/folder indexing functions in KDE (and probably most desktop environments), I use it on openSUSE and don't have any problems finding files on my FreeNAS shared folders. Are you using something other than linux or windows?

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Yeah I know, I could also use the command line, but I haven't found something that works like Everything yet.

 

[FritVetBE]

Hi there

I had to look for files containing special charactters, but the default windows search in Win7 would not allow me to do so. Then i went onto google and it brought me to this software: https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack

Within the software it is possible to give up a network location as searchbase, it does not index or anything, it only executes a search and therefore it might take some time, but it does what it must do and it does it right