How to troubleshoot inability of Win pc to see freenas server.

[Craig Kawahara]

I have returned my Freenas server to it's original defaults, the goal being to create a user based file retention(archive) server. (The setup prior to reset was one with no users and permitted files to be stored onto the volumes that were created, as well left the files open to all sorts of possible corruption).

This screen grab shows my setup with cmk as the user-


The problem now, is that the Windows workstation does not see Freenas at all. The only difference (I thought) was adding a user.

I used as a guide the blog found here: http://blog.programster.org/freenas-create-a-windows-user/.
Request: Is there a similar guide specific to version 9.10 -or- is there a earlier post that I can reference to troubleshoot the possible configuration issues that prevent me from seeing the Freenas computer?

Craig

 

[pirateghost]

What's wrong with our official documentation? Why do people resort to these random guides found on random websites when we have lots of documentation and guides available right here?

http://doc.freenas.org/9.10/freenas_sharing.html#windows-cifs-shares

 

[depasseg]

The problem now, is that the Windows workstation does not see Freenas at all.

What do you mean that the client doesn't see freenas?

 

[Craig Kawahara]

@pirateghost: Congratulations on being another know it all in my books. There is no troubleshooting section in the guide...in fact not in any of the 300 pages of it. As a first time user trying to get a grasp on a non-windows environment, the usage of many new terms requires one to use references such a dictionary (or Google) to even gleam a basic definition. Example...the paragraph mentioning mapall and maproot...where does it explain what it is, what it does, and when to select it? The random guide offered some explanation as to the relationship of user to share to cif. I do thank you at least taking the time to read the post.

@depasseg: The screen grab in the first post is what the Windows 7 Home sees. This is what I have tried:
- Windows is in the group 'workgroup' . Freenas CIFS Settings workgroup entry says 'workgroup'
- the user cmk is the user of the workstation
- ping to the ip of Freenas gets a return
- I have tried with a home directory entry and without, as home directory only can be assigned to one of the two volumes.
- I have permitted guest login, as well as done a no password required setting in Freenas
- there are alread two freestanding NAS devices using static IP and they function

As stated, when I had Freenas initially running with no user, no password (just the two volumes using CIFS) I could access the volumes. That is why I think there is something I have missed in defining the user or the share options properly. I found no option in Windows 7 to control acces other than the firewall, and before I did a user, the firewall permitted Freenas to be accessed.

 

[pirateghost]

Know it all?

Looking to alienate yourself early on huh?

 

[Craig Kawahara]

@pirateghost: Your opinion is valued, no matter how I perceive it's value. For what it's worth, any manual is only as good as its ability to be put to use. As I said, for a new Windows used to individual, the manual is not sufficient for a personal of my Freenas/Linus experience to put it fully to good use.

 

[pirateghost]

Notice how I never stated there was a TROUBLESHOOTING guide and rather asked why people refuse to read the official documentation for setting up their NAS?

Example...the paragraph mentioning mapall and maproot

mapall and maproot are NFS related and not related to CIFS at all, which is what your setup is using and you are having issues with...

I said, for a new Windows used to individual, the manual is not sufficient for a personal of my Freenas/Linus experience to put it fully to good use.

You never stated that, but FreeNAS isn't Linux, so please do not confuse them as such.

We have documentation. We have the forums. We want to know why people go outside of our documentation and forums and follow random guides/videos found on the internet/blogs. What needs to be made better about it? Why did you feel the need to go outside the forums for configuration? See how I am asking why our documentation is not 'suffice'? It all makes sense to me, so what needs to be improved upon?

If your entire issue is with Windows 'seeing the server in "Network"', then blame Windows. It is broken and has been for quite some time. It works 'sporadically'. You haven't stated what you mean by 'Windows can't see it'. Your error message is vague at best.


EDIT: What happens if you open windows explorer and simply type in \\ip.of.freenas.server ?

 

[Craig Kawahara]

If not clearly state before...I am new...the vague topic of this post is because I haven't a clue as to where I begin to get Freenas and the Windows workstation to communicate. Perhaps it could be that I should be posting in a Windows for Dummy forum. The error could in the user definition, the share or the share settings, Windows...or any combination. The firewall and av have been turned off in the latest attempt to find the cause. (Again, Freenas not shown.) If I can eliminate the Freenas set-up, then that is big bonus and its off to a Windows forums. By randomly changing things, I do noting but add confusion...hence my request for at least a starting point.

\\192.168.1.50 (a static IP) if done from the start icon (lower left corner) generates a pop-up window titles 'Open Folder' and reads:
\\192.168.1.50 is not accessible. You might not have permission to use the network resource. Contact the administrator of the server to find out if you have access permission. (Next paragraph is) Login failure: account currently disabled.

Using Firefox, 192.168.1.50 opens the gui.

 

[BigDave]

Ownership/groups/permissions/users is gonna take some time for u to grasp.
You are going to have to experiment some to see what works for your use case.
This post by @m0nkey_ has alot of positive comments, I suggest you start there.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-freenas-and-samba-cifs-permissions-video.41210/
Also read the posts and replys from member @anodos as he seems (at least to me) to have a really
good grasp of this subject.

 

[depasseg]

The screen grab in the first post is what the Windows 7 Home sees

The screengrab in the first post is a shot of the FreeNAS webgui, unless I'm missing something.

 

[Craig Kawahara]

@BigDave: Thank you. Will check into it. Also found this older post which although slightly different, seems to mirror my issue in certain aspects. https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...s-share-to-windows-pcs-on-home-network.13856/.

@depasseg: My bad.

The two unconnected network devices are NAS boxes (not pc's) that I hope to replace with Freenas.

 

[pirateghost]

(Next paragraph is) Login failure: account currently disabled.

Here is your clue. It is trying to use credentials (did you save some creds at some point?) to login to your NAS and the account is disabled.
In control panel in Windows is a 'credentials manager'. You should look at it and see if you have some mappings of some sort to the NAS.

Using Firefox, 192.168.1.50 opens the gui.

as expected.

If you search the forums we have TONS of information on CIFS setups and how users/groups are configured. One thing you will need to do is familiarize yourself with using SSH (PuTTY) to get a proper terminal session on your server for log viewing and troubleshooting. This too, is covered ad nauseum in these very forums.
In order to even begin troubleshooting, you need to be able to step a little outside of your comfort zone and use some command line action on one side or another. There are also ways to mount your shares via command line in Windows, but I do not know them off-hand (see? I am not a know-it-all)

 

[depasseg]

The two unconnected network devices are NAS boxes (not pc's) that I hope to replace with Freenas.

Are the non-freenas machines 192.168.1.120 and .121, right?

What is the IP address of freenas? 192.168.1.50? If so, in the address bar, type in \\192.168.1.50 and take a screenshot of what comes up.

Have you ever connected to a windows share that existed at the same IP address as what the FreeNAS is using?

 

[anodos]

Are the non-freenas machines 192.168.1.120 and .121, right?

What is the IP address of freenas? 192.168.1.50? If so, in the address bar, type in \\192.168.1.50 and take a screenshot of what comes up.

Have you ever connected to a windows share that existed at the same IP address as what the FreeNAS is using?

The 'account currently disabled' message may indicate that you've inadvertantly disabled password authentication for the user account you created in the freenas GUI. You should try resetting the user's password.

Posting the contents of /usr/local/etc/smb4.conf would be helpful. Also review contents of /var/log/samba4/log.smbd.

NetBIOS name resolution has always been annoying and always will be annoying.

 

[Craig Kawahara]

@pirateghost:
"...(did you save some creds at some point?) to login to your NAS and the account is disabled.
In control panel in Windows is a 'credentials manager'."
Reply: In Credential manager, there are no entries in any of the three categories. Aside from the Freenas setup of passwords, nothing was created.

"You should look at it and see if you have some mappings of some sort to the NAS.""
Reply: Attempted a "Map Network Drive" however regardless of the path entered (\\192.168.1.50, \\192.168.1.50\cmk\cmk\freenas01\ds01, etc. etc.) and all return the same error (ie. ..mapped network drive could not be created..the file could not be accessed...) The issue I believe is the my server is not visible to whatever Windows uses to see another network device. The error when trying to force a mapping differs from the previous one I posted.

@depasseg:
Yes, ip .120 and .121 are the nas devices. They are powered off.

The Freenas box (Dell PE840) has always had the static ip of .50 assigned after the initial setup is completed. All NAS devices are assigned static IPS and also entered into the dhcp (Verison FIOS) router (the dhcp server). All pc's and mobile devices use dhcp assigned ip's.

@anodos:
"You should try resetting the user's password"
User password: Under the user cmk, I have checked "disable password login". Guest login has also been enabled in one of the other settings area. Do you think I should assign a password, even if just to see what happens?

"Posting the contents of /usr/local/etc/smb4.conf would be helpful. Also review contents of /var/log/samba4/log.smbd."
I do not know how to get to these two files so as to copy them to a flash drive to attach to this reply.


General comment:
First: Thanks all, but I think I am just wasting everyones time. It seems to me that Windows is not seeing the Freenas box on the network, and I believe that the passwords and shares are a secondary issue, if that. Without seeing the Freenas computer, trying to get windows to see shared volumes is useless.

I think at this point, I will try to revert back to a no user, no group configuration I started with. That configuration just used the wizards. I just accepted all the defaults presented by it. The ability to store data was the goal (be it not very secure) at I did accomplish that.

Should anyone come across the minimum necessary setting for a Windows computer to (at least) acknowledge that a Freenas computer exists on the network, I would appreciate that. I am going to take screen shots of this configuration for comparison against the configuration of a no user/no group setp for later study.

If I can get the computers to see each other, I can try to add users later, right?

 

[pirateghost]

Have you restarted the CIFS service after making changes? I assume you have rebooted at least once during all this?

 

[depasseg]

So to be clear - The issue is that the freenas (192.168.1.50) is not showing up under the "network" section of Windows Explorer. Is that correct?
Because that isn't the permissions issue being diagnosed up above. This is the same issue you had in a different thread, where you could access the freenas shares via ip address, but they didn't appear correctly.

Please confirm or deny that this is or isn't the problem, so we can help fix the right issue.

 

[anodos]

@pirateghost:
"...(did you save some creds at some point?) to login to your NAS and the account is disabled.
In control panel in Windows is a 'credentials manager'."
Reply: In Credential manager, there are no entries in any of the three categories. Aside from the Freenas setup of passwords, nothing was created.

"You should look at it and see if you have some mappings of some sort to the NAS.""
Reply: Attempted a "Map Network Drive" however regardless of the path entered (\\192.168.1.50, \\192.168.1.50\cmk\cmk\freenas01\ds01, etc. etc.) and all return the same error (ie. ..mapped network drive could not be created..the file could not be accessed...) The issue I believe is the my server is not visible to whatever Windows uses to see another network device. The error when trying to force a mapping differs from the previous one I posted.

@depasseg:
Yes, ip .120 and .121 are the nas devices. They are powered off.

The Freenas box (Dell PE840) has always had the static ip of .50 assigned after the initial setup is completed. All NAS devices are assigned static IPS and also entered into the dhcp (Verison FIOS) router (the dhcp server). All pc's and mobile devices use dhcp assigned ip's.

@anodos:
"You should try resetting the user's password"
User password: Under the user cmk, I have checked "disable password login". Guest login has also been enabled in one of the other settings area. Do you think I should assign a password, even if just to see what happens?

"Posting the contents of /usr/local/etc/smb4.conf would be helpful. Also review contents of /var/log/samba4/log.smbd."
I do not know how to get to these two files so as to copy them to a flash drive to attach to this reply.


General comment:
First: Thanks all, but I think I am just wasting everyones time. It seems to me that Windows is not seeing the Freenas box on the network, and I believe that the passwords and shares are a secondary issue, if that. Without seeing the Freenas computer, trying to get windows to see shared volumes is useless.

I think at this point, I will try to revert back to a no user, no group configuration I started with. That configuration just used the wizards. I just accepted all the defaults presented by it. The ability to store data was the goal (be it not very secure) at I did accomplish that.

Should anyone come across the minimum necessary setting for a Windows computer to (at least) acknowledge that a Freenas computer exists on the network, I would appreciate that. I am going to take screen shots of this configuration for comparison against the configuration of a no user/no group setp for later study.

If I can get the computers to see each other, I can try to add users later, right?

Disabling password login breaks authentication for your CIFS user. Uncheck that box then set a password.

Windows told you right. You disabled your account.

 

[Craig Kawahara]

@pirateghost: Yes, after every change, CIFS services was turned off, the turned on.

@depasseg: Yes, you are remembering perfectly. To recap.
Attempt #1. Using only the wizard, I did create a Freenas box with two volumes.
Attempt #2. The forum posting. This install was created by resetting the Freenas installation to the defaults from the keyboard of the PE840 computer. The configuration this time did not use any wizards. I created the group, the user, the volumes, and the shares manually using a combination of tutorials, forum posts, and the manual.

My task now, is to try to verify that it is not my user/group setting that is preventing Windows workstation from seeing the PE840 Freenas computer. I have deleted the user (cmk) and the group (cmk). I rebooted the PE840 and the workstation. The Freenas is not shown. So to take a step further back, I am going to reset the Freenas to it's original installation configuration. This should eliminate any of the modifications I made to the CIFS, etc. I will then use only the wizard to see if I can get the PE840/Freenas to be seen by the workstation. Should the workstation and the PE840/Freenas still not see each other...well we shall have to think this over.

If I have any sucess, I will report back so that future forum users may stumble across possible help.

Craig

 

[Ericloewe]

Be aware that NetBIOS discovery (aka Windows showing you other things on the network in Windows Explorer) is known to be unreliable.

Do yourself a favor and stop troubleshooting once you get to the point where you can access the server via \\HOSTNAME or \\IP_ADDRESS.