Mounting a SMB share for plugins persistently

[Janus Ng]

I have just cloned my FreeNAS 11.1-U5 to a Synology NAS to free up space for other usage.

I share those files as a SMB share from the Synology NAS.

I would like to mount the SMB share in FreeNAS and put them into the storages for the jails.

Here is what I have done:

• Put the SMB credential and related settings into /conf/base/etc/nsmb.conf.
• Create a directory /net/synology
• Create a script like:

Code:

mount_smbfs -N -E UTF-8:UTF-8 -I 192.168.0.100 //freenas@synology/data /net/synology

• Add a post-init task to running the above script
• Add the mount point to the jails

Unfortunately, I have found that a post-init task is too late. The jails have already started with the storage assigned before the task completes; hence, the jail storages fail to mount.
I have tried a pre-init task instead but it is too early. The mount point was not there yet.

Please enlighten me on how to accomplish it.

Thank you!

 

[dlavigne]

Were you able to resolve this?

 

[Janus Ng]

No, I still cannot mange to fix it. I have to change the settings of each shared drive in Jails/Storage of the WebUI every time the NAS starts, :(

 

[Janus Ng]

I have tried to mount the SMB share by autofs as illustrated by @s25a on another thread in the forums.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/freenas-as-automount-client.44356/

The auto mount was succeeded if I ssh to the server and ls to the directory. I saw the shared folders and files.

However, it seems the jails start earlier than the autofs does. The storages shared to jails were not mounted. I have to mount them again in the WebUI. :(

 

[Janus Ng]

Update: shared storages on autofs mounted paths are unmounted from the jails after awhile of idle.
Autofs is not the solution even it can be done before the jails start.

 

[Janus Ng]

Update:

I have revisited this issue and worked around the issue that smb_mount is not ready while a Post Init Task calls it.

1. Changed all the Auto-start value from true to false on all the iocage jails that depends on the smb_mount
2. Created a shell script A that mounts all the required smb_mount points. This script has to be run as root with authentication values and other required values populated in file /root/.nsmbrc.
3. Created a shell script B that starts all the depended jails one by one. Similar to script A, it has to be run as root as well
4. Created yet another shell script C that it touches a file D in /etc as a flag and call the script A and B above if the flag file D does not exist. As the directory /etc is recreated on each reboot, script C calls script A and B only once on each reboot.
5. Created a Cron Job in Tasks Tab of the Web UI. It runs every minutes with all 5 schedule locations are filled with stars.

I have finally had a peace of mind now. In the event of unscheduled restart, all the jails are likely functional after the FreeNAS rebooted.