Crash, config lost, NIC not available, restore from local media

[gregb]

After doing an upgrade everything was working well. I have added a new i350-T4 NIC - it was in the machine but not being used. I changed the description on an existing VLAN interface. FreeBSD/FreeNAS went down in a screaming heap. It vomited error messages to the console for quite a while before finally getting back to the BIOS and rebooting. Now the configuration has gone (zpool status shows the boot zpool is ok , which is a mirror)

So I need to restore my configuration. The problem is that I would need to setup the network to do a network restore. This involves setting up a LAGG and a VLAN. Problem is the IX0 and IX1 interfaces are not available to configure. The i350-T interfaces (igb0-3) are available. Where did my 540-T2 interfaces go? From the shell prompt an 'ifconfig' shows them as present.

Is there away to restore a configuration from a USB stick?

What is a good way to configure the network interfaces without FreeNAS crashing? [If I don't touch the network configuration is a very stable. If I even breath on the network configuration is seems to crash]

 

[gregb]

I have no answer as to why, but with another reboot cycle and the old configuration came back (did it reboot into a different mode after the crash?).

I would still be keen to understand how to restore a configuration from a local USB stick (or media inserted via IPMI).

 

[SweetAndLow]

If you read in the manual it will tell you to download the config via the webui and then you can upload the same config to the new install of FreeNAS.

It is quite strange that multiple reboots would fix something. You have a hardware problem of some kind that should be fixed. I would start with replacing your usb stick with a new one and possibly mirroring it.

 

[gregb]

Thanks for the reply. Doing it via the webui is only possible once the networking has been setup (LAGG, VLANS etc). Historically I have found setting this up takes a few reboot cycles. I'm keen to understand if there is a command line script I can use from the console to restore from config.

The FreeNAS zpool is running on two SSDs with a ZFS mirror (I'm not using a USB stick).

I would also look at the hardware being an issue if it was so rock-solid normally (I'm hopeful I almost have finished configuring the network, and about 4 hard crashes). Setting the MTU to 9000 on the NIC seems to be ugly.

 

[DifferentStrokes]

Nevermind.

 

[Bidule0hm]

You can replace the config which is here /data/freenas-v1.db from the CLI (rename the old one to something like old.freenas-v1.db, copy the right one and name it freenas-v1.db, then reboot) but it's at your own risks.

You can also temporarily connect your server directly to another PC and setup a simple static IP; no LAGG, no VLAN, ... which is a better solution IMHO ;)

 

[gregb]

Thanks for the info. I can see the files in '/data' on my machine.

Doing a temporary hookup of one of the NICs to a user LAN with DHCP was going to be the next plan.

Thank you to everyone for their help.