FreeNAS CIFS Share on Windows 7: Keeps Prompting for Credentials

[Samword]

My company has about 75 people in it, Macs and PCs. Whenever I try to access a CIFS share on any Windows 7 machine, certain user name and passwords constantly prompt for credentials after entering them. However, whenever I log into my account on their machine it successfully logs in. I find that constantly hitting OK on the prompt with the credentials eventually works. But that is after entering them more than 10 times. Does anyone else experience this issue?

Here are the CIFS settings

CIFS Settings:

Authentication Model Local User
NetBIOS name shared
Workgroup WORKGROUP
Description FreeNAS Server
DOS charset CP850
UNIX charset UTF-8
Log level Minimum
Local Master YES
Time Server for Domain YES
Guest account nobody
File mask ___
Directory mask ___
EA Support YES
Support DOS File Attributes NO
Allow Empty Password NO
Auxiliary parameters ___
Enable home directories NO
Enable home directories browsing NO
Home directories __
Homes auxiliary parameters __
Unix Extensions YES
Zeroconf share discovery YES
Hostnames lookups YES

Here are the settings of the users that have issues:

Primary Group: Guest
Home Directory: /nonexistent
Shell: csh
Disable password login NO
Lock user NO
Permit Sudo NO
SSH Public Key ___

 

[cyberjock]

Problems like yours are very hard to diagnose over forums. So I'm just warning you that you may not get a good resolution here.

 

[Samword]

I'm not expecting a resolution. Though it would be great to have one :)

 

[cyberjock]

I'm confused. Why post if you aren't expecting the solution? You just venting? It's okay if you are just venting(plenty do it here).

 

[Samword]

I am partly venting but asked for assistance from others. I know this isn't paid support, that is why I am not expecting a solution.

 

[cyberjock]

Oh. Normally we DO provide solutions, especially for FreeNAS problems. Yours is much more complex though. :(

 

[Samword]

I forgot to post the specs of my machine. I think the RAM may be related to the issue. Also the system is not that powerful. Do you think this may be contributing to the issue? Folder load times are pretty long too, but I know for sure this is RAM-related.

Build FreeNAS-9.2.0-RELEASE-x64 (ab098f4)
Platform Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7300 @ 2.66GHz
Memory 4040MB

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah.. without the minimum 8GB of RAM and ECC RAM at that you are taking some risks. Especially if you are even thinking about business environments.

Not to sound like a total jerk, but if you were working for me I'd fire you for those 2 mistakes. Both of those have proven to be fatal to so many people we've had to create stickies trying to get people to quit doing stupid things and being surprised when the server up and dies suddenly.

 

[Samword]

Thank you for the tip for paragraph 1.

As for paragraph 2, you're making the assumption that (1) I setup and installed Open Source Freeware for a business NAS and (2) my boss is not cheapskate. I'm merely trying to work with what we've got. Who the hell installs FreeNAS in a business environment on an old Dell system... really?!?

 

[cyberjock]

Actually, I know 2 people right now that have done it. One of them is wanting data recovery because they had 4GB of RAM and it died... LOL. As one person joked in the forums a few days ago.. "I'll turn a profit on this mistake". Not that I'm a jerk or outrageously expensive with my service(I'm 1/10th what the "pros" charge). But there's a point at which you are just crazy for doing it. Would you go 20k miles on your vehicle without an oil change? That's a fairly good car analogy for you. You might get away with it, you might trash your vehicle. Is it worth the risk?

Far more people reuse old hardware BECAUSE their boss is a cheapskate. Being a cheapskate is a recipe for disaster, and is totally on him. Your job in IT is to tell him that this is dangerous and it could go at any time and convince him that spending more money on getting more RAM is a big win. The problem is people think that FreeNAS means "I can throw together old crap in my IT closet and it'll be great, reliable, and protect my data". The reality is you are setting yourself up to be very unhappy when one day the box kernel panics and you can't remount the pool because it was permanently damaged. And if you don't like my price try calling Ontrack for ZFS data recovery. They will literally charge you the cost of a brand new SUV to get back just a couple 100 GB of data. No joke! I have seen it 1st hand and I did help someone go this route! Suddenly spending $100 or so on meeting the minimum requirements is really freakin' cheap. So yeah, you can see why I said what I said and hopefully you understand I'm not being a jerk but trying to lay down the cold hard facts. If you were my IT guy and are not warning me about these potential hidden "costs" because I didn't want to spend $100 then you deserve to be unemployed. It's simple risk versus cost. And the risk versus cost is heavily skewed towards the risk being absurdly high. And if I were in your shoes and your boss said he won't spend the money on more RAM I'd literally want it in writing because I wouldn't want to be the guy that loses his job when the business goes to a standstill and the recovery will be 1/2(or more) of your annual salary. You will get blamed if you built it that way, even if the boss wouldn't let you spend the money!

ZFS is rolling with the big boys. Either you roll with it or you take the very real risk of watching it roll over you.

And yes, I am assuming you did it in a business environment since you said you have 75 people in it. :)

 

[Samword]

Yes I totally understand the part you are coming from. But the funny part is, I am just help desk. My boss is a system administrator LOL. My boss should be slapped in the face if he needs a help desk support IT guy to tell him that there are risks in his network storage practice.

Here's what I would do: install Windows Server onto one of our retired servers, share a few folders and called it a day lol. By the way, assumption #1 focused on the part that "I (myself)" installed it. It was already installed when I got here. Though, I run a FreeNAS backup server that runs an rsync pull overnight to copy data. That way we have a failover. Also I run a manual backup every week and backup the configuration every night. Should the primary FreeNAS server die, I have a failover! I'm not totally adverse to FreeNAS itself (it does what it needs to do), but I am not favorable on freeware. I am considering TrueNAS as an option to propose.

And no need to explain the risk factor with "saving money." You are preaching to the choir, guy. :)