TrueNAS UI Timeout and Shell

[paulinventome]

So I'm using rsync to move data from an older NAS to my new TrueNAS one.

But the issue I am running into is that if I open a shell on a Web UI session that session will timeout very quickly and then no shell. I cannot leave it over night.

At the same time I cannot find anything to change the session timeout - and plenty of threads asking for this but it seems that perhaps it cannot be done (v13)

So how are people handling long running shell sessions?

Kindest
Paul

 

[Ericloewe]

Use tmux to get a persistent shell, even if the connection drops or times out or whatever.

 

[paulinventome]

Use tmux to get a persistent shell, even if the connection drops or times out or whatever.

Stupid question but any pointers where I could find out how to do that within TrueNAS?

Kindest
Paul

 

[Redcoat]

where I could find out how to do that within TrueNAS

There's a section on tmux (which is already installed in TrueNAS) in @danb35 's Uncle Fester's Guide - see https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/uncle-festers-freenas-beginners-guide.120/ and look in the Hard Disk validation section at https://www.familybrown.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fester112:hvalid_hdd where it desccribes the use for long sessions covering badblocks testing.

 

[Ericloewe]

Well, as always the manual is your friend: man tmux

You'll probably want to keep a copy open in a browser or something, though, tmux is not the most intuitive thing around.

To just keep something alive, all you need to know is:

1. How to start tmux. Unsurprisingly, the executable is named tmux.
2. How to detach from a session without killing it: CTRL+b, d (first CTRL+b, release and press d)
3. How to kill the window: CTRL+b, x

 

[danb35]

As Redcoat and Eric said, tmux is the answer. But beyond that, do your best to forget the "Shell" button in the GUI exists and use SSH instead. The web GUI shell will likely eat the control characters you need for tmux anyway.

 

[paulinventome]

As Redcoat and Eric said, tmux is the answer. But beyond that, do your best to forget the "Shell" button in the GUI exists and use SSH instead. The web GUI shell will likely eat the control characters you need for tmux anyway.

Thanks, good point that about SSH, should have crossed my mind.

On another note for anyone that does want to increase their session timeout this appears to work:

sed -ie 's/auth.generate_token",\[300/auth.generate_token",\[129600/g' /usr/local/www/webui/*.js

which was from this blog post https://tomschlick.com/extend-truenas-web-ui-session-timeout/ and you can set it up as an init script each time the server boots...

Kindest
Paul

 

[danb35]

A five-minute timeout (the 300 seconds you seem to be replacing) seems awfully short, but 36 hours seems excessive. Has anyone opened a ticket on this? I don't spend much time in the web GUI for TrueNAS at all, but timing out every five minutes would be very annoying.