How to select 'primary' NIC for FreeNAS?

seb101

Contributor
Joined
Jun 29, 2019
Messages
142
Hi,

I have just built my first FreeNAS, the board (Asus Q87T) has two NICs, one Intel and one Realtek.

When I built, as I didn't know which port was which, on first boot I put the network cable into the one that turned out to be the Realtek card. Then when I built a VM, the only hardware option to attach to the VM was the Intel NIC (which makes sense).

Everything is working fine, but after seeing some throughput issues on large file copies and reading some (mostly annecdotal) posts that Intel NICs are better, I now want to reverse that situation, and have the Intel NIC serving the NAS and the Realtek NIC available to attach to the VM.

Is this possible? I can't work it out.

Thanks!
 

melloa

Wizard
Joined
May 22, 2016
Messages
1,749
I have just built my first FreeNAS, the board (Asus Q87T) has two NICs, one Intel and one Realtek.

I thought that was funny, so I checked the board specs and it does have that configuration ...

Intel® I217LM, 1 x Gigabit LAN Controller(s)
Realtek® 8111G, 1 x Gigabit LAN Controller(s)


For better performance, go with the intel NIC as your FreeNAS interface.

You can change the interfaces using either the GUI or the console. FreeNAS version would be helpful for people try to help and, also, full server specs are required as per forum rules.
 

seb101

Contributor
Joined
Jun 29, 2019
Messages
142
Hi,

Thanks. The FreeNAS version is 11.2-U5. Currently using the 'new' UI.

I'm confused as on the dashboard, the 'Primary NIC' is listed as the Realtek interface (re0) however if I click into the 'Interfaces' config section from the Dashboard button there is nothing configured there (i.e. an empty table). Is this something that is auto-magically wired during the setup?

Could someone give me a step-by-step on this as I've tried creating an interface for the Intel NIC but I get a warning about "Please configure the Web UI interface (re0) before configuring other interfaces to avoid losing connection to the user interface."

Feel like a chicken and egg situation :)
 

melloa

Wizard
Joined
May 22, 2016
Messages
1,749
Feel like a chicken and egg situation

More like to be or not to be able to access the server GUI and other services kind of deal.

I'm getting the same and I'm pretty sure I got my interface setup from DHCP. With other versions, I was able to set static IPs for other interfaces without that warning/error.

Not sure if this is by design or just a little bug ...

If you have access to the console, do it from there with option 1 (Configure Network Interfaces). I'm not going try to give you a step-by-step on this as it always give me lots of work to try and change my interfaces ... maybe because I don't specifically know the steps or it is a rocket science engineer process.

Play with it ... but be aware that (1) your NAS IP might (will) change and (2) if you don't get it done, you won't be able to access the server/shares/etc.

Maybe someone can provide steps here?
 

seb101

Contributor
Joined
Jun 29, 2019
Messages
142
Any chance someone can help with this?

I can't find any clear documentation on where the config for which NIC FreeNAS uses as it's primary NIC is kept.
 

melloa

Wizard
Joined
May 22, 2016
Messages
1,749
Any chance someone can help with this?

I can't find any clear documentation on where the config for which NIC FreeNAS uses as it's primary NIC is kept.

Inside the config file. You can't edit outside the console or GUI. Any changes done from the shell will be re-written next boot.
 
Top