I don't understand shares. At all.

[Octopuss]

I am a hopeless Windows person. I never ever saw Linux and I don't even plan to.
I've been looking at the documentation and I don't understand it one bit :(
Could anyone give me an idiot guide how to achieve the following?
1) enter NAS's IP address in explorer
2) see folder list
3) open folders and access files?

optional: have certain users be able to only specific folder


I call a terminal fail on my end :(

 

[Chris Moore]

Here is a video that takes it step by step. It was made with version 11.1, so you can see the same interface with 11.2 if you logout and login to the 'legacy' interface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZ-s8wHkHw

 

[Octopuss]

That unfortunately make no sense. The new interface has completely different things in the menus.
Is there no "modern" guide?

Heck I don't even understand how to create "admin" account so I don't have to log with this root thing.

 

[Chris Moore]

Heck I don't even understand how to create "admin" account so I don't have to log with this root thing.

The 'root thing' is the admin account. It is a Unix / Linux standard that the root account is the ultimate super user and can do anything. Although, in modern times, it has happened that some versions of Linux have disabled the root account to restrict access for security reasons.
There is a way to login to the new FreeNAS 11.2 using the legacy FreeNAS 11.1 user interface. If you are not able to make that happen, you will need to install 11.1 instead or wait until 11.2 is better documented. It is still very new, having been out for only days more than two months.

There is always this:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/freenas.html

 

[Chris Moore]

Download version 11.1

https://download.freenas.org/11/latest/x64/FreeNAS-11.1-U7.iso

 

[Octopuss]

I'd rather stick to the new rather than learning the old that will eventually be phased out.
Root, ok. Makes no sense to a Windows guy, but allright.

But how do I make the NAS prompt me for credentials upon opening it in explorer, and displaying folders relevant for the account used?
I created some users, each of whom has a "home directory", but when I open the NAS, it's empty. How do I access this?

 

[Chris Moore]

Is there no "modern" guide?

It takes a while for people that do it on their own time for NO PAY to get around to updating or writing a new guide and the user interface just changed two months ago. It isn't like these guides are that out of date. This one is very comprehensive and should work fine with FreeNAS 11.1

Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS Configuration Guide
https://www.familybrown.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fester:intro

 

[Chris Moore]

I'd rather stick to the new rather than learning the old that will eventually be phased out.

It is just a way for you to be able to follow a guide. If you learn how it works, it should translate over to the new interface pretty easy. There is a user guide that was made by iXsystems that is very helpful, did you look at it?

But how do I make the NAS prompt me for credentials upon opening it in explorer, and displaying folders relevant for the account used?
I created some users, each of whom has a "home directory", but when I open the NAS, it's empty. How do I access this?

Since the answers to all your questions are already thoroughly documented in the guides, I think most people are going to want you to put forth some effort to read and understand what has already been written. I am certainly not going to post a step-by-step with screenshots.

 

[Octopuss]

The documentation is so huge I don't even know where to start with specific problems/questions.
When I open the NAS by its IP, it just opens and shows any folders/shares/whateverisitcalled (that's not what I want, or at least not what I believe it should happen). It doesn't ask for any permissions whatsoever. That's how Synology worked and that's how I expect it to... (it makes sense, doesn't it?)

Telling me to "put forth some effort" is insultive at the very least. If the damn documentation made any sense to me I wouldn't be posting any threads asking for shit.

 

[Octopuss]

Another thing I don't understand is that when I create "octopuss" user, a folder (or whatever) of the same name appears on the NAS. What is this? It can't even be deleted.
It doesn't happen for any other user I create.

 

[Chris Moore]

The documentation is so huge I don't even know where to start with specific problems/questions.

There is an index.
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/sharing.html#windows-smb-shares
There are also many links embedded in the text to give you more information. FreeNAS is a massive product, it makes sense that the documentation is massive but the index can help you find what you are looking for. It will take time and you will need to read the manual.

When I open the NAS by its IP, it just opens and shows any folders/shares/whateverisitcalled (that's not what I want, or at least not what I believe it should happen). It doesn't ask for any permissions whatsoever.

It can be configured either way. I have my home NAS setup so that there is no password prompt to access the data, but it is a personal network that you must be physically in the house to use, so I am comfortable with that. If you want to have a password, that is a different configuration. Just a matter of making some changes.

That's how Synology worked and that's how I expect it to... (it makes sense, doesn't it?)

I am sure that that other company has some configuration options also, but they are using a different operating system and, although it may appear similar, because it is meant to, it is a bit different under the hood.

Telling me to "put forth some effort" is insultive at the very least. If the damn documentation made any sense to me I wouldn't be posting any threads asking for crap.

Seriously. There are multiple videos and step-by-step documents that explain this and I have pointed you at a couple of those already. I think the biggest part of the problem is that you have a mental block because it is not Windows. It is just a matter of looking at the documentation and finding the answers.

Another thing I don't understand is that when I create "octopuss" user, a folder (or whatever) of the same name appears on the NAS. What is this? It can't even be deleted.

Screenshots go a long way to making things clear. Especially since you don't know what words to use, maybe you could show some pictures?

 

[danb35]

This one is very comprehensive and should work fine with FreeNAS 11.1

...and it will even work fine with 11.2, if you use the legacy UI.

Telling me to "put forth some effort" is insultive at the very least.

No, asking the community to spoon-feed you answers that are already thoroughly documented is insulting.

The legacy UI is still available in 11.2, and if you switch to that, you should be able to follow older guides (at least more recent ones) without any issues. The operational layout of the new UI isn't significantly changed from the old one, but it definitely looks different.

 

[Octopuss]

I tried a few more times and the results are even more confusing than before.
Anyway, what I did step by step:

I created "pool1". Then I enabled SMB service.
At this point when I open the NAS in explorer (or whatever), it looks like this:

There are no users so it just opens, which makes sense to me I guess.

Then I created a share "Users" where I'd like the users' folders and files to be.

Making it "home folder" makes sense by looking at the description as there seemingly wouldn't be any garbage files in the actual user folders (that's how I understood it).

Underneath that I create folder(?) "user1"

,
at which point the root folder starts showing this:

That's the first thing I don't understand - why isn't user1 under homes? (I presume homes is automatic name for a folder that is made "home".

Then I create the actual user1 account and assign it the user1 folder/share/something:

Then I create a share "octopuss" and the account as well in the same way as the previous one, but this one doesn't show in explorer at all.

Also after a while the NAS stopped opening "just like that" and started to ask for credentials which is what I want I guess. But when I enter the (correct) credentials for user1, I get "\\192.168.2.6 is not accessible..." error.

At this point I gave up because none of this makes any sense to me at all. At all.

No, asking the community to spoon-feed you

Ok, first one to feed ignore list with. Bye.

 

[Chris Moore]

Ok, first one to feed ignore list with. Bye.

You are not going to hurt his feelings, but if you ignore @danb35 you will miss out on a lot of great information he has posted over the years, almost 9500 posts as of now, and five resources in the Resource section. You just won't be able to see any of that content.
You need to understand that hundreds of people come here every day, 328 people on the site right now, and there is no way we can give detailed, custom answers to everyone. We have guides that you can follow and literally thousands of other people have followed those guides successfully, so if you are having a problem, you are the one with a problem. Read the guide again. Read the manual front to back and again back to front. Eventually, it will makes sense.

 

[Octopuss]

What the hell do I even post screenshots here for.
Thanks for nothing.

 

[Octopuss]

The awesome detailed documentation I allegedly didn't bother to read is not so awesome, but thankfully my friend figured it out for mespoon-fed me.
Datastore needs to be created before any accounts, otherwise it wouldn't work. And when a folder is set as "home folder", there is no need to create subfolders for every user, because those are created automatically when the conditions are met.

 

[Mannekino]

How do you set a folder as a home folder? I though that was purely a Samba thing with setting a "homes" folder. Or do you mean that a share is automatically created for each user?

 

[Octopuss]

This thing here. Maybe I just messed up the terminology again.

 

[Mannekino]

Ah yes, that has to do with the shares. You want to enable that for one share (the root of your homes/users folder) and then also uncheck "Browsable to Network Clients". This way the Samba server will present a users' home folder as a share on the network which only the user can see/access. You would still have to actually create the specific home folder for a user on the file system. I always create a dataset under the root of the homes/users folder for this purpose.

 

[Octopuss]

Interestingly, the specific users' folders are created automatically when you simply point to the actual home share in account settings.