Trouble in River City

[Mike Zahorik]

A few years ago (don't remember) I outfitted a spare computer with FreeNAS/x86 Rev 1.1 This morning it failed to connect. This was a shock, because I do not remember anything about FreeNAS, other than it works great, until now. A little trouble shooting and it turns out that FreeNAS was not the problem, but rather a failed network switch. That was a relief. BUT... now that it works I see that there are newer versions. My question is should I update my old copy, it works just fine and I generally do not like to mess with what works, but on the other hand my knowledge of FreeNAS has long ago vanished. What should I know about it to be able to maintain it if needed. Thanks for the help, Mike

 

[danb35]

FreeNAS/x86 Rev 1.1

I don't recall ever seeing a version 1.1. There were 0.x releases through 0.7.something, and when iXSystems took it over, it went to 8.something. Are you certain of that version number? And can you maybe upload a photo/screenshot of your login screen?

 

[Mike Zahorik]

To be honest, I saw the FreeNAS/x86 Rev 1.1 on the splash as it runs by. When the boot is complete there is just an eleven number select menu, which allows reconfiguring items. Mike

 

[danb35]

That's sounding more appropriate. There should be a URL listed there for you to log in to the web GUI. What does it say there?

 

[Mike Zahorik]

Geezzz... I had forgotten about that. Apparently I have version 8.3. Here is a screen shot.

Did the image come thru? Mike

 

[danb35]

The image didn't come through, but if you can tell you're on 8.3, that's good. That is a very old version of FreeNAS--over 5 years old--but if it's still working for you, that's good. The current release is 9.10.2. A lot has changed over the years--there have been a number of bugs fixed, a number of security enhancements, and a number of new features. Also along the way, the hardware requirements have increased significantly. I'm inclined to say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," but if you do have problems, you probably won't find a lot of help here, as there aren't many of us who remember it very well.

What's the hardware like on that old system?

 

[Mike Zahorik]

During the last hour or so, I was reading about the hardware needed for 9.10. Although my hardware is not ancient as described in the document, it maybe old. I have a ASUS motherboard with a AMD Athlon X2 4200, it has 4Gb DDR2 memory and two Seagate SATA 1TB drives. For my small system here at home, it is plenty of system for this old man. So.... I believe that I'll leave well enough alone, at least for an upgrade. Can you point me in a direction as to what would need to be done should I ever suffer a hard drive failure? I appreciate all your help Thanks, Mike

 

[Mike Zahorik]

Also, I suppose I should move all the FreeNAS documents I do have from the FreeNAS to some other spot, should something happen. Mike

 

[danb35]

Can you point me in a direction as to what would need to be done should I ever suffer a hard drive failure?

It's going to depend on whether your storage is set up as ZFS or UFS, but all the FreeNAS manuals are at http://doc.freenas.org/ . Disk replacement should be documented there.

Also, I suppose I should move all the FreeNAS documents I do have from the FreeNAS to some other spot, should something happen.

You should always have a backup of anything important in any event.

I don't think you'll really have a problem continuing with your present version. Unfortunately, none of your hardware is really suitable for the current version of FreeNAS. Fortunately, though, at least if you're in the US, you can buy a suitable server really inexpensively. The HPE Proliant ML10 is under US$200. Add (at least) an 8 GB stick of RAM and your storage drives, and you're set with a machine that will work well through at least the next major release. Just something to consider.

 

[Stux]

Did 8.3 have scrubs and smart scans? If so, you should make sure that those are active, so that if your hard drives begin to fail (and they're due) the system can tell you.

 

[danb35]

Scrubs would only be relevant for a ZFS pool, of course, but they are supported--see section 6.4 of the 8.3.1 manual. SMART tests are also supported; section 8.12.

 

[Mike Zahorik]

I think I may have also found a bad file on my FreeNAS. Seems when I try and copy or do anything else with this file I get an ERROR=5 retry problem. So tdoes that mean that both copies of this file are bad? How should I handle this? Mike

 

[danb35]

No idea, really, as "ERROR=5 retry problem" doesn't really give any idea of what's happening. The complete error message, and the exact version of FreeNAS (there were several 8.3.x releases), would be helpful.

Can you log into the shell on the server? If so, post the output of zpool status.

 

[Mike Zahorik]

This is what I got
[root@freenas ~]# zpool status
no pools available
[root@freenas ~]#

Was I in the correct place? Mike

 

[danb35]

You were in the right place, and that shows you aren't using ZFS for your storage. In 8.x, storage could be either ZFS or UFS; starting with 9.x, FreeNAS went ZFS-only. There are pros and cons to each filesystem, but such expertise as we've had with UFS has likely dwindled in the last few years (and it wasn't widely used even when it was supported).

If you can post the exact error message you were seeing, it might help.

 

[Mike Zahorik]

I found another file with the ERROR=5 Mike

 

[Mike Zahorik]

g_vfs_done():ufs/ford1[READ(offset=336361829632, length=32768)]error=5
This message will repeat with a different offset, until I stop it. Mike

 

[danb35]

A little bit of searching (i.e., googling for that exact error message) suggests that it's a disk error. What's the output of camcontrol devlist?

 

[Mike Zahorik]

[root@freenas ~]# camcontrol devlist
<ST1000DM003-1CH162 CC46> at scbus0 target 0 lun 0 (pass0,ada0)
<ATAPI iHAS124 D 8L07> at scbus1 target 0 lun 0 (pass1,cd0)
<ST1000DM003-1CH162 CC46> at scbus2 target 0 lun 0 (pass2,ada1)
< 0> at scbus6 target 0 lun 0 (pass3,da0)
[root@freenas ~]#
Does fit to good. Mike

 

[danb35]

OK. Next, in code tags (use the "code" button above the reply window), the output of smartctl -x /dev/ada0 and smartctl -x /dev/ada1.