Unable to access active volume on initial setup

[sedek]

I downloaded latest version of freenas 2 days ago.

I created a volume for the totality of my SATA drive (160 G) then tried to create first Windows share. Got message regarding share that must be mounted in active volume or something like that.

Spent about 3 hours on Google trying to decipher the error message.
Decided to go with Devil-Linux instead. That was even worse.

I'm now back with freenas. It shows active volume = 1 with error getting available space. Probably due to Linux formating the drive.

How do I regain control of my hard drive ?

Follow up on my own thread:

I finally erased Linux file system from my drive

Created a volume (the total of the drive 160G)

Also created ZFS volume (32G) and ZFS dataset (32G also)

It now shows 2 active volume

(This is all trial and error as documentation is unclear and I'm french speaking) I only found french explanations for older versions of FreeNas.

CIFS for Windows is activated.

I'm now back with my initial problem.

Creating a first share: If I try to browse for a path it show the root and a ''folder'' that I created but It will not let me choose anything and closes the navigation window.

I can type the path manually but then will get ''path must reside within a volume mount point''


Lucky for me, this is considered a user friendly interface for the uninitiated......!!


When trying with Linux I ran into weird messages indicating it could not push the configuration I choose to the hard drive.

Could my computer be incompatible? It's a generic single core 3.4 Ghz Intel with 2G of RAM that used to operate WIndows XP without any problem.

 

[louisk]

To start, is your CPU 64bit? It is not recommended to use ZFS on 32bit, or with less than 4G RAM.

Once you have formatted the disk UFS or ZFS (you would need to create a dataset on ZFS, for example, Data. I would avoid ZFS volume until you know more about how ZFS works.)
you should be able to setup CIFS to share the "root" (if you're using UFS), or "Data" (if you're using ZFS and created a dataset called Data).

Once you have done this, you can go to services and enable CIFS, and choose whether you want anonymous login, or user-based login. To start with, I'd suggest anonymous as its easier to get working the first time. Once this is done, you should be able to go back to a windows machine on your network and connect to the CIFS share on your NAS.

 

[sedek]

Follow up

Thank you for helping.

I replaced ZFS with UFS.
Login Anonymous in CIFS

I now have this: 1 volume active (the whole 160 G disk)

Tried to create a share with the same messages from the system.
There must be a missing step to make the disk usable.

I just lost my tab on IE that showed the GUI. Reopening it now shows me there is no more active volume. Can a volume be erased so easily just like that without user intervention?

the target computer shows this: configuration file /usr/....... onf parsed but has no entries (like /dev/hda)

I recreate it now. back to main screen after confirmation, it still shows no active volume.

Did it go away simply because there was absolutly no data on it yet? I hope this software does a little validation when there are 50 gigs of crucial information on the drive !!!!

Another try to create a volume. Unsuccessful. Now rebooting.

After reboot: now recreated volume

Active volume RACINE

racine mnt/racine available 133.2 Gigs STATUS Healthy

That is still as far as I can go.

what is missing? I put nothing at the section ''Enter custom path''.

 

[louisk]

ok, so you have /mnt/racine as UFS formatted storage. You should be able to go down and create a CIFS share. I've attached a screenshot of creating a share called test. My "disk" is called tank, but that isn't important.

 

[sedek]

Thank you again.

Tried again this afternoon.

I still have the very same problem.

I click BROWSE, I see my disk, then after 1 or 2 seconds, the browse closes by itself and I get the message ''field cannot be empty''.

I can also click BROWSE, click immediatly on the path that appears. It will copy in the path just like your screen capture.

Unfortunatly, after 1 second the path content is removed !!!!

Then what I have been doing for days is skip the browse and type directly in the field the requested path.

The value in the field seems accepted. It is not erased by the system.

I click OK and will always receive this message:

''The path must reside within a volume mount point''


Rest assured I did not confuse the ''/'' with ''\''

I suspect I have a problem with my hard drive. But for now, it's the only one available for testing.

 

[louisk]

OK. It does sound like the problem is hardware. Do you have a monitor plugged in to your FreeNAS box? It may be splatting information on the screen. Might be worth while to look if you can. The other option is to attach a keyboard (and monitor), login to the shell (option 9 I think), from there, type:
less /var/log/messages
you can then type
/error
and it will search for errors, it will skip down to the first one. you can advance to the next one by hitting 'n'
I would expect if there are hardware errors, you would find them in the log.

Of course, if you can find another disk for testing (doesn't need to be as big), that might be easier. When you're done testing, you can just reset the config back to defaults and remove the disk.

 

[sedek]

I found another drive and ended up with the very same results.

So I tried with Freenas 7.2

Now I can mount the drive. Menus are more accessible. I finally made my first share !!

Only one thing bugs me: copying data from my Windows 7 computer to the server is slow: 725 kb/sec on average

32 bit data transfer on my SATA drives is activated. The network is all wired on Fast Ethernet (100) and the server runs at 3.4 Ghz with 2G of Ram.

Considering the low hardware requirement for FreeNas 7, the server should not be a bottleneck.

Is this the speed to be expected? I have enabled asynchronous I/O (AIO) in CIFS.