Network problems on new build

[bkeeler10]

Hi all,

I just finished building my first FreeNAS box. Got the latest stable version of FreeNAS installed last night, which proceeded without issue. I got to the user console and proceeded to set up network interfaces. This is where I ran into trouble.

I first tried setting a static IP address on my home network subnet (192.168.1.x with netmask 255.255.255.0). I assigned 192.168.1.2, which is outside of the DHCP pool. The console reported that the web interface would be available on that address. However, I could not get there from a browser on another computer on the same network. I also did not get a response when pinging that address.

Next I tried configuring the FreeNAS network interface for DHCP. This seemed to go fine, and the console reported an IP address of 192.168.1.180 which seems to suggest that communication occurred with the DHCP server. Yet, I got the same result from a web browser and from an attempt to ping that address.

Any ideas what I might be missing? Thanks.

 

[Kcaj]

Hello,

Since you received a DHCP address that suggests to me that your NIC is working. Leaving DHCP enabled, the first thing I would try from the FreeNAS shell is pinging the IP of the DHCP server which gave you the DHCP lease.

If that doesn't work, you will need to post some more information about your network topology and FreeNAS configuration for us to give any quality help.

 

[bkeeler10]

Hello,

Since you received a DHCP address that suggests to me that your NIC is working. Leaving DHCP enabled, the first thing I would try from the FreeNAS shell is pinging the IP of the DHCP server which gave you the DHCP lease.

If that doesn't work, you will need to post some more information about your network topology and FreeNAS configuration for us to give any quality help.

Thanks for that - I will try to ping the DHCP server from the FreeNAS box this evening and report back.

The "DHCP server" is an Asus RT-N56U router. From there I go to another 8 port switch, and then to the FreeNAS box. The router's web interface reports information for all connected clients, and it did not report any device with an IP address of 192.168.1.180, even though the FreeNAS console reported this address. I found that rather odd.

 

[Kcaj]

No problem.

..The router's web interface reports information for all connected clients, and it did not report any device with an IP address of 192.168.1.180, even though the FreeNAS console reported this address.

Is the router displaying active leases given out by the DHCP service or just IP addresses of the traffic traversing the firewall? It would be indeed odd if you received a lease and it wasn't displayed in a lease table, as that would lead me to believe you have a rouge DHCP server on the network.

Other things to also try first:

- If possible, connect FreeNAS directly to the Asus and see if you get expected results. This would suggest switch misconfiguration.
- From FreeNAS, try ping the IP of the default gateway (likely the same as your DHCP server in your topology) and check your routing table using the command netstat -r
- Triple check you are trying to communicate on the same subnet and netmasks are correct (likely /24 in your case)

Edit:
If those suggestions dont help, post the output of the following commands:
ifconfig
netstat -r
arp -a

 

[bkeeler10]

Well I moved the network connection over to the Asus router. I also noticed that FreeNAS 11.3 came out of beta yesterday and is a stable release, so i did a fresh install using it. Not sure what the real problem was, but no matter - I have network connectivity now, and I'm able to connect whether I set a static or dynamic address. So I guess this problem is solved. Thanks for helping me out.

 

[Kcaj]

Good stuff!