alternative to freenas.. it's too hard

[ruzifan]

hi guys,

so i build my own NAS 2 weeks ago and installed freenas.
I only want to do 3 things with this server.

Setup SAMBA to store all my movies.
Setup Sonarr/sabnzbd so it downloads my movies and shows and stores it in the SAMBA share.
Access my files outside of my local network.

I was able to setup samba. i moved lot of my movies in it. I was able to access it in windows pc (mapped the drive). I was able to get kodi to connect to it and pull the movies.

What i haven't been able to do is install sonarr and get nextcloud going.

I'm constantly running into to permission issues (i'm assuming) Says Sonarr can't write to this path.. bla bla bla./

I'm not good with linux or using shell commands.

i installed nextcloud and when i go to setup the external storage to mount my sabma drive. It doesn't have permission.. like always permission issues.

is there another alternative to Freenas where it's easy to do with GUI. I had synology before using DSM. and it was very easy to do things.

 

[Chris Moore]

Here is a link to a guide that will walk you through some of the most common configuration items:

fester112:intro [danb35's Wiki]

www.familybrown.org

One of the biggest problems in the world. Things that are easy usually cost and thing that are free are usually more difficult.

 

[ruzifan]

Here is a link to a guide that will walk you through some of the most common configuration items:

fester112:intro [danb35's Wiki]

www.familybrown.org

One of the biggest problems in the world. Things that are easy usually cost and thing that are free are usually more difficult.

thanks bro. i'll give it a read.

i wish they had some phone support. I wouldn't even mind paying just to have my setup one once and that's it.

I really wont be doing anything further than the SMB and sonarr/radrr/nzb setup.

 

[garm]

The thing is you are mixing a lot of services across multiple servers and you want the to “just work” like on a smart phone. This is not really the case when you deploy your own. Everyone hates on Apple but it’s really nice to be able to walk in to a store and pick up an insanely advanced machine, go home, plug in the power cord and it just works, not to mention the magic of iPhones (I’m not counting android in this class )

what you need to get this to work is to write down all the dependencies and how they should be set up. Then work out the details and write down precisely what you did to set it up.

external storage in Nextcloud will require that the www user from the jail running Nextcloud has access to the dataset used for the smb share. The smb share needs windows ACLs and those need to be let through to the jail as well. There is enough material on the forum, the FreeNAS manual, the Nextcloud manual, and the FreeBSD manual to figure out how to do this.

 

[garm]

Start by setting up the share properly by example of @m0nkey_
https://youtu.be/RxggaE935PM

 

[ruzifan]

Start by setting up the share properly by example of @m0nkey_
https://youtu.be/RxggaE935PM

Ok I have one user: nsarai
Then I created a group: media. I entered the owner user nsarai in the group media. That’s my axxounts setup basically.

Okay seems like when I set up my share, I assigned it nsarai as the user and I assigned media as the group. In doing so, I was able to map the share on windows and I can read and write using the nsarai login.
Problem happens when I try to browse the share in sonarr or Nextcloud. They can’t access it.

Based on the YouTube video, the guy assigns “nobody” as the owner of the share and only assigns the group.

so if I do that, do u think I will then be able to browse the share via sonarr and nextcloud?
Also the person above said nextcloud is accessed by user www. If I put www in the media group, which has access to the share, thay should work, right?

 

[garm]

Also the person above said nextcloud is accessed by user www.

Ya, that guy is a genius

The group access is most important for what you are doing on the NAS, for Windows Unix permissions will work but might not be preferable. Depends on your usecase.
If you stick to the media group in FreeNAS, all you need to do is to create a group in each jail with the same name and gid and make the user running the service member of that group, www in the case of Nextcloud.

Chapter 3. FreeBSD Basics

Basic commands and functionality of the FreeBSD operating system

www.freebsd.org

 

[ruzifan]

Ya, that guy is a genius

The group access is most important for what you are doing on the NAS, for Windows Unix permissions will work but might not be preferable. Depends on your usecase.
If you stick to the media group in FreeNAS, all you need to do is to create a group in each jail with the same name and gid and make the user running the service member of that group, www in the case of Nextcloud.

Chapter 3. FreeBSD Basics

Basic commands and functionality of the FreeBSD operating system

www.freebsd.org

lololol i didn't even realize it was you who commented that.

lol ok i think i'm slowly understanding.

Also, do you know which user is running Sonarr?? how do you know this stuff. like how can i find out which user is running each plugin. is there a place i can go and see this?

 

[garm]

There are several ways, you can look at the running processes or at the rc script.

Practical rc.d scripting in BSD

A guide to writing new rc.d scripts and understanding those already written

www.freebsd.org

 

[ruzifan]

okay, i give up./ i tried everything. i'm no tsure why i can't even get to see the mount drive on sonarr. keeps saying Folder is not writable by user sonarr

my user is: sonar
group: sonar

windows ACL. Mapped on PC and i can access the drive.

i can't see this in sonarr management.

 

[NASbox]

okay, i give up./ i tried everything. i'm no tsure why i can't even get to see the mount drive on sonarr. keeps saying Folder is not writable by user sonarr

my user is: sonar
group: sonar

windows ACL. Mapped on PC and i can access the drive.

i can't see this in sonarr management.

I have almost no experince with plugins/jails, but from the little that I do know, I would suggest the following:

If your system is not open to internet access or accessable to anyone who might hack you, TEMPORARILY change the permissions to 777. Allow wide open access to your media dataset.

Get the jails to work, then go back and clean up the permissions.

If it isn't working with 777 permissions, then you haven't properly mounted the appropriate paths in the plugin jails or there is something wrong with jail/plugin setup.

 

[ruzifan]

What’s the shell command to do that?

 

[NASbox]

What’s the shell command to do that?

You can use chmod 777 PATH_OF_DATASET or just Edit Permissions from WebUI, it doesn't matter - your choice.
To be clear PATH_OF_DATASET is the file name, and any necessary path info. For example if you pool is called TANK, it will be mounted at /mnt/TANK.
If the dataset is in TANK and called Sonarr, then chmod 777 .mnt/TANK/Sonarr will do the trick. Remember these command are all CASE sensitive. Hope that helps.

 

[ruzifan]

Okkk I figured out my issue. Issue is when I mount the shares drive in the jail to sonarr. Sonarr can’t open the mount that’s why it says that.
Turns out I need to create a user in the jail with the same name as the owner of the share.

I can’t seem to find a way to crest users and group inside the jail from thr webUI.

Any idea how to do that?

 

[NASbox]

Okkk I figured out my issue. Issue is when I mount the shares drive in the jail to sonarr. Sonarr can’t open the mount that’s why it says that.
Turns out I need to create a user in the jail with the same name as the owner of the share.

I can’t seem to find a way to crest users and group inside the jail from thr webUI.

Any idea how to do that?

It is actually the same uid#, not the name that matters AFAIK. You can see what uids are running in the jail by shelling into the jail and listing out /etc/passwd - I would use htop on FreeNAS, and then search for the jail process based on the uid# and then use the WebUI to create a user with that uid.

Maybe someone has a better answer, but from the little I know right now.

 

[sabi-tech]

as an alternative have you looked at Open Media Vault?

 

[ruzifan]

It is actually the same uid#, not the name that matters AFAIK. You can see what uids are running in the jail by shelling into the jail and listing out /etc/passwd - I would use htop on FreeNAS, and then search for the jail process based on the uid# and then use the WebUI to create a user with that uid.

Maybe someone has a better answer, but from the little I know right now.

after hours of research n trial and error. i figured it out.

i now havw sabnzb, sonarr, radrr running.

 

[adrianwi]

The FreeNAS learning curve can be a little steep, especially if you're new to FreeBSD, but well worth the effort. I found it frustrating 4-5 years ago, but now I'd be lost without my FreeNAS machine(s)

 

[NASbox]

after hours of research n trial and error. i figured it out.

i now havw sabnzb, sonarr, radrr running.

Congratulations, glad to hear it. Might I suggest that you make a few notes for the benefit of others, and if you need to remember things yourself you will have a place to look for a quick answer.

The FreeNAS learning curve can be a little steep, especially if you're new to FreeBSD, but well worth the effort. I found it frustrating 4-5 years ago, but now I'd be lost without my FreeNAS machine(s)

I agreee with this 100% - comparing to most consumer grade commercial NAS boxes there are just so many advantages - with Performance, Troubleshooting/repair, incremental hardware upgrades and a long terem software upgrade path being the biggest ones IMHO; Vendos like to push a product, and after 1 or 2 years abandon it and put out another one. My first FreeNAS ran from 2012-2017 before I decided to rebuild from a 4 drive to an 8 drive main pool. I still have a 2 drive mirror which was used for backups that I moved over and other than upgrading the pool it is from the original build. ZFS has been amazing so far. So much so that I've actually stated using it for my data drive(s) on my person workstatin which I switched from Windows to Linux.