Plex install went badly..

[FrontierFred]

I'm a new FreeNAS user, installed 11.2 two weeks ago on Intel dual core machine, 8GB mem with two 4TB
drives in mirror configuration. Bootloader resides on 8GB usb (not backed up).
Last week I setup a VM and installed PiHole ad blocker (via youtube tutorial) - worked beautifully.
Yesterday I attempted to install the Plex Server plugin; after configuring the IP data and hitting SAVE there
was a long pause before an error popped up (sorry, didn't make note of error but recall it was having
trouble downloading something). About that time I lost all internet access across my whole network - I assume
PiHole DNS may have been corrupted. I logged into my router and defaulted the DHCP Name Server to automatic
and slowly my internet access restored.
Attached is a picture of what appeared on the FreeNas monitor at the time.
I can access all my data and the system for the most part seems normal except PiHole GUI shows 'Lost
Connection To API'.
I have not attempted a reboot, not sure what my next steps are? Is it possible the Boot environment is
damaged? Is it as simple as repairing PiHole config?
I saved a Debug Log but haven't looked at it yet.

Any Tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Skro]

The experts around here will probably want to know more about your hardware than what you've provided, but my first guess is that your system isn't up to the job. The current minimum reqs for a media server include a 16 GB boot drive (preferably mirrored SSD) and 16 GB RAM. You can still use usb drives for boot, I do and it works but they should be high quality and mirrored, and even then you're going to be told that an SSD is the way to go because of the high failure rate with USB drives.

 

[Meyers]

Are you using jails or VMs?

Have you tried restarting the Pi-hole VM/jail?

The messages on the console are only the USB keyboard being removed I think.

 

[FrontierFred]

Thanks for the feedback - PiHole is running on a VM.
As you suggested I stopped/started PiHole and it seemed to restore, although I haven't repointed
my DNS yet.
Still leery of rebooting FreeNas in case something happened to the boot config.
Apparently there is an automatic backup of config everyday at 3:45 (according to user docs), are historic versions created
or is it overwritten each day?
I ask because the incident is 24hours old - I'll know to create a backup prior next time I attempt changes.

 

[Meyers]

What do your memory graphs look like for around that time? Did you maybe run out of memory? You probably don't have enough installed to be using VMs. Minimum memory needed is 8GB. More if you use jails/VMs, etc. From the docs:

Virtual Machines require additional RAM beyond any amounts listed here. Memory used by virtual machines is not available to the host while the VM is running, and is not included in the amounts described above. For example, a system that will be running two VMs that each need 1 GiB of RAM requires an additional 2 GiB of RAM.

I'd install at least 16GB. Oh and "If your data is important, use ECC RAM. " I wouldn't run FreeNAS / ZFS with non-ECC ram ever. Even at home I run server class systems with FreeNAS.

 

[FrontierFred]

The experts around here will probably want to know more about your hardware than what you've provided, but my first guess is that your system isn't up to the job. The current minimum reqs for a media server include a 16 GB boot drive (preferably mirrored SSD) and 16 GB RAM. You can still use usb drives for boot, I do and it works but they should be high quality and mirrored, and even then you're going to be told that an SSD is the way to go because of the high failure rate with USB drives.

Thanks, I see your point - next trip to town, I'll pickup a couple larger USBs and create mirror. As for Min 16GB Ram for media server, I'm
surprised by that but if that's the case I may have to forgo Plex for now.

 

[Skro]

Also, you might try and see if it is possible to install pihole in a jail rather than a VM. It would be much smaller and less resource intensive that way.

Edit: I may have spoken too soon, I dont see any ports/pkgs for pihole.

 

[SweetAndLow]

what is your hardware? Now many nic's are in this system and are they all plugged in?

 

[Ixian]

As for Min 16GB Ram for media server, I'm
surprised by that but if that's the case I may have to forgo Plex for now.

It has little to nothing to do with being a media server and everything to do with ZFS. You should research it a bit, then you will understand why.

Why did you pick FreeNAS? It's a great system, I personally love it, but it isn't all things to all people and there are easier ways to accomplish what you want to do. If you want to continue down the FreeNAS path, put in the time to understand what it can do for you, and what you need to do to achieve that.

At the very least you are going to want more memory. Also seconding you posting more detail on your hardware.

 

[FrontierFred]

what is your hardware? Now many nic's are in this system and are they all plugged in?

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate the help. The hardware is comprised of an Asus P8B75-MLE MB, Intel Celeron G530 CPU @ 2.4GHz, 8 GB RAM, a 5 bay BTU-350sata disc rack, two Seagate 4TB HDs mirrored. The mother board has one network adapter port - I think I see what you're getting at; between the file server, DNS server and potentially Media server, there is a lot of demand on a single NIC.
My prime reason for setting up FreeNAS is getting reliable central data storage and management for my home network, it would be nice to use Plex on it but I can put that on another machine if I have to. As for PiHole, I only added it because the youtube tutorial I watched for setting up FreeNas had it as a follow up video. I like the service and could run that on another platform as an alternative.
So will two of the three servers be possible with the addition of another NIC or should this machine be used only for file storage?

 

[Jailer]

I'm not surprised that FreeNAS barfed all over itself with everything you have running on it. FreeNAS requires 8GB RAM minimum for just a file server. If you want to run additional services and/or VM's you're going to have to add more RAM.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate the help. The hardware is comprised of an Asus P8B75-MLE MB, Intel Celeron G530 CPU @ 2.4GHz, 8 GB RAM, a 5 bay BTU-350sata disc rack, two Seagate 4TB HDs mirrored. The mother board has one network adapter port - I think I see what you're getting at; between the file server, DNS server and potentially Media server, there is a lot of demand on a single NIC.
My prime reason for setting up FreeNAS is getting reliable central data storage and management for my home network, it would be nice to use Plex on it but I can put that on another machine if I have to. As for PiHole, I only added it because the youtube tutorial I watched for setting up FreeNas had it as a follow up video. I like the service and could run that on another platform as an alternative.
So will two of the three servers be possible with the addition of another NIC or should this machine be used only for file storage?

you should only ever have 1 nic for a pc. More than that causes problems unless you know what you are doing. Also I'll point out that your motherboard is literally a terrible choice for freenas. One reason is the usage of the realtek nic which is known to just not work with freebsd. 8GB of ram is not enough to run a vm and jails with. You will probably need 32GB to run that setup.

 

[Ixian]

You'd have better luck running something like Unraid on that hardware. Though you'll still need more RAM. I feel like ZFS is complete overkill for your build and desired use case.

Pi-hole can be run as a VM but it was built for the Raspberry PI and you can buy a kitted out v2 of one of those off Ebay for $20. And it would probably work better vs. your setup.

 

[FrontierFred]

you should only ever have 1 nic for a pc. More than that causes problems unless you know what you are doing. Also I'll point out that your motherboard is literally a terrible choice for freenas. One reason is the usage of the realtek nic which is known to just not work with freebsd. 8GB of ram is not enough to run a vm and jails with. You will probably need 32GB to run that setup.

Thanks again for your advice, I'll rethink this and maybe, as suggested by others, look at a different solution for Nas and Media server.
Cheers.

 

[FrontierFred]

You'd have better luck running something like Unraid on that hardware. Though you'll still need more RAM. I feel like ZFS is complete overkill for your build and desired use case.

Pi-hole can be run as a VM but it was built for the Raspberry PI and you can buy a kitted out v2 of one of those off Ebay for $20. And it would probably work better vs. your setup.

I'll study up on ZFS a bit and maybe look at other options and up the RAM. Yeah, I know RPi and will likely go that route for PiHole. Thanks