NAS dropping off network after a day or so

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facethewolf

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Freenas 8.0.3 wired to Netgear Router (provided by Comcast) along with 2 XP computers and xbox360. Router does have wifi for tablets, phones, and netbook.
Every day or so If I go many hours without using the NAS, it will disappear off the network. Even the router's webpage won't show it connected, but all of the physical port LED's show it working fine.
I tried installing a pci nic instead of the onboard port(maybe a driver problem). Same thing keeps happening.
Any ideas.
Thanks
 

BobCochran

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Can you please provide details of your FreeNAS build? What messages are you seeing in the kernel log -- have you checked them? What hardware are you using? How did you set up networking? Did you assign a fixed IP address, or are you just using DHCP? What model of Netgear router?

Thanks

Bob
 

facethewolf

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Sorry...here's more info

build: FreeNAS-8.0.3-RELEASE-x86 (9395)
Platform:Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz
2GBs RAM
OS: FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE-p5

I did not check the log until you asked...but I have rebooted the NAS in the meantime and the log starts at boottime. Since it was off the network, the only way I could access it again is to hard reboot.
Which log file should I look at.

I just checked the network settings and discovered that no interface had been added even though it's been working, I guess the system just guessed upon installation. I was using DHCP with an address "reserved" for it on the router.
I have now "added" an interface, and set it to the static IP address reserved for it on the router.
The router is a Netgear:

Hardware Version WNR1000v2-VC
Firmware Version V1.0.0.12NA
GUI Language Version V1.0.0.29

Thanks for your help
 

BobCochran

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Hi,

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by your server is "off the network". Let me ask a few more questions. Can you ping the Netgear router from your FreeNAS machine? For example, if your FreeNAS box has a monitor connected to it, drop into a shell with option 9 and use this command:

ping -c3 [ip address of Netgear router]

for example if your router has an IP address of 192.168.2.1, try this

ping -c3 192.168.2.1

Are any packets being reported as lost?

Can you ping the network card that the FreeNAS server is using?

ping -c3 [ip address of server's network card]

To find out the status and ip addresses of your server's network devices, run this command:

ifconfig

This will tell you the status of all the network devices on the box. Look for the one that you believe is your network card. You should see the IP address for it. It will be listed by the interface name, such as 're0' or 're1'. My own Intel network card is 'em0'. You can ping the IP address for what you believe is your network device, to see if it is working.

You should also look at your log messages. There is a file on your FreeNAS system that you can inspect. It is /var/log/messages. You can read it by going into the FreeNAS shell (option 9 again) and

cat /var/log/messages | more

(then press the space bar to page through the file)

and you can monitor the log with

tail -f /var/log/messages

which will cause messages to print to the screen as well as be added to the log file. It is worth checking these messages.

Finally, one last suggestion I would like to make. Have you configured your FreeNAS system with the ip address of the gateway and the ip address of your DNS server? I bet that your Netgear router is effectively both the gateway and DNS server. You should go in the FreeNAS web GUI and configure these IP addresses in the Network settings pages. This is a very important step to take for any network-based computer. It has to know where to find the network gateway and how to lookup other hosts.

My own gateway address is 192.168.1.1 and the DNS server address is also 192.168.1.1.

If the FreeNAS server is getting it's IP address through DHCP, it should also have the gateway and DNS information from the DHCP server, but sometimes this does not happen. And in any case you should really assign a static IP address to your FreeNAS server rather than use DHCP. My own FreeNAS server has a static address of 192.168.1.25.

Thanks

Bob

 

facethewolf

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My FreeNAS is headless at the moment. The only way for me to control it is remotely. I access it via CIFS, control it via the web interface, and occassionally ssh via putty. At the moment, the NAS hasn't responded to any of the above methods. I even tried to ping it from my XP computer. It's like it "disappeared" off the network, and the only way to get it back on the network is to hit the hardware reset button.
This afternoon, I will connect a monitor and keyboard and get back to you on the questions you asked.
 

facethewolf

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Okay, I hooked up a monitor and the last few lines of the command prompt said:

http://192.168.1.3/
Enter and option from 1-11: Feb 5 23:20:14 freenas dhclient[742]: connection closed
Feb 5 23:20:14 freenas dhclient[742]: exiting.
panic: kmem_malloc(36864):kmem_map too small:335343616 total allocated
cpuid = 0
uptime: 10h51m10s

Does this mean I don't have enough memory? I have 2 gigs installed
 

facethewolf

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If this is a matter of changing a setting, to what number do I change it to if I have 2 gigs of memory?
 

BobCochran

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Hi!

It looks to me like your kernel memory is too low, and the kernel panicked because it ran out of memory. This happens because ZFS can grab a lot of memory and leave the FreeBSD kernel with very little to run on. The user "protosd" on this forum has a really great blog that answers this question. It is at

http://protosd.blogspot.com/2011/12/protosds-unofficial-freenas-8-faq.html#q22

and look at question 22.

Protosd knows FreeNAS a lot better than I do and I'd follow his suggestions -- I did for my own system. With that said, let me add my own thoughts. If your motherboard can take at least 4 Gb of DDR3 memory, my advice is to up the memory to at least 4 Gb; 8 Gb is better if the motherboard can take it. DDR3 is cheaper than dirt these days. I myself use 16 Gb on my personal system. This will give ZFS a lot of memory that it really needs to run well. If you can't go beyond 2 Gb of memory for whatever reason, read the FreeBSD ZFS Tuning Guide

http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSTuningGuide

for how to change the settings that Protosd points to so they will work well for a memory constrained system. The Guide says there are reports of someone getting ZFS to work well with as little as 768 Mb RAM.

I just looked at your system specs again. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor is 64 bit capable. I am not sure if that processor can run with DDR3 memory; it might need DDR2. But even if you are stuck with DDR2, if you can, why not use a 64 bit build of FreeNAS? You will need to anyhow if your motherboard can take more than 4 Gb of memory and you are able to find a source of reasonably priced DDR2. A lot of older motherboards had limits of 2 or 4 Gb, I think. Or if you can afford it, dump the motherboard and processor for better ones that offer more maximum memory and more SATA ports.

You can get something in the way of good performance with the hardware you do you have.

I think once you succeed in getting more memory allocated to the kernel, through these parameters, things will start to be rock solid for you. I am working on a second FreeNAS system for a friend of mine. It has been up 24x7 for a week now doing backups on a CIFS share, and it is rock solid for him. There was surprisingly little work to get it started. His box has 4 Gb RAM, but I am not using ZFS yet. I will probably want to try tuning ZFS as much as possible for the 4 Gb, but it won't be long before I'll be asking him to buy both more memory and more hard drives, too.
 

facethewolf

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Wow...thank you VERY much. I'll try the 64bit version, but I'll also try to get some more RAM.
Do I still need to add those lines to the boot.conf if I just go 64 bit?
It's funny, not too many other people report FreeNAS dropping off the network--because that's not the actual problem. It's just Freenas' version of BSOD--though I like FreeNAS' error reporting much better.
 

peterh

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If you don't have more memory you might build the disk on ufs instead, then 2G will be perfectly ok.
If you go for zfs you need 64-bit AND 8GB. With 8GB of memory you can safely set swap=0 on the filesystem
disks ( for several reasons )
 

BobCochran

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I am using the latest 64 bit build of FreeNAS on both of the boxes that I am working with. Yes I am following Protosd's suggestions for setting memory allocations. I agree with Peterh that if you use UFS for the disk array, you can get by on 2 Gb of memory. Speaking for myself, I am very attracted to the data protection that ZFS offers and I want to work with it. I have not tried his suggestion of setting swap=0 on a ZFS file system.

Facethewolf -- do let us know what you decided to do and how well it works for you.

Bob
 

BobCochran

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Optimize The Network Card

I bought an Intel brand Gigabit CT Desktop Adapter which is PCI Express X1 last summer when I was first interested in FreeNAS. I was also thinking I have a gigabit network switch, too, and might as well get some benefit from it. Unfortunately I have only Category 5E network cabling. I recently installed the Intel card on my FreeNAS box and I think it certainly has better performance than the Trendnet PCI adapter card I had been using. The PCI bus has a maximum throughput of 133 MB/s, so switching to a PCI Express X1 adapter seems to help. I will know more once my friend starts transferring tens of thousands of flower photos to the box -- starting a few days from now.

Bob
 

facethewolf

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Well I installed the X64 version and did not modify the conf.boot file. FreeNAS has been running for 20 hours straight (a new record). Still working on getting more ram. Thank you very much for your help
 

facethewolf

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BobCochran-From what I've been told Cat5e runs Gigabit just fine over medium distances (around the house)
 

memel.parduin

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Hi,

I ran into the same problems trying to run ZFS with 2GB memory. I tried editing /boot/loader.conf following ProtoSD's blog, but that still left me without WebGUI. However, I found another guide on the net (How to improve ZFS performance), which worked better for me. Well, at least I have my WebGUI back, but still now and then my system hangs. I'll have to do with it for now (it's a home system anyway, nothing special); I've decided to upgrade my motherboard and processor.

Memel
 

facethewolf

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Yay freenas x64 on my intel dual core has been running straight for a couple of weeks. No hangs. And I haven't modified boot.conf

1. what frustrates me is that when searching for the "symptom" -The system drops off the network-I wasn't able to find reference to the actual problem. That the system was suffering its own version of BSOD. Of course it would make sense that when the system crashed, the first thing to go would be the network functions.

2.memel.parduin - even if you have an intel processor, maybe you should try loading x64 on it. It worked for me.
 

memel.parduin

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facethewolf,

my current system:
Asus K8V-MX, AMD Sempron 2800+, 2GB DDR, Transcend IDE Flash Disk 2GB, 5 x Samsung HD502HJ SpinPoint F3 500GB (SATA-II)
FreeNAS-8.0.3-RELEASE-p1-x64 (9591), ZFS RAID-Z2

Apparently this isn't enough, so I'm considering upgrading to:
Asus M4A88T-M, AMD Athlon II X2 270 (or X3 460, but I don't know if this will be neccesary), 16GB DDR3

Memel
 

facethewolf

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Memel,
I'm jealous of your 5x500GB HDs. My system has 4 drives, sata and ide, with a grand total of 790GB. Maybe that's why 2GB Ram is working for now.

It used to be the NAS machine would have pathetic specs compared to a desktop. ZFS ccomes along, and suddenly you need 16 Gigs of RAM!!!!!! What happened?
The system you are upgrading to is more than twice as powerful as my desktop
facethewolf
 

memel.parduin

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Feb 13, 2012
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**Off-topic**
Well, experiencing hangups, unavailable webGUI and memory problems...

They recommend at least 4GB memory with ZFS (the more the better), and soon prices will rise (something to do with some production facilities somewhere). I thought I'd make a 'long-term' investment and be done with it for some time.
 

psionprime

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Mar 5, 2012
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Same thing happening to me with FN 8.0.3 x86_64 Opteron Quad, 8G ECC RAM, headless. I'm going to set up remote sys log as trapping what is going on has not been fun. What I wonder is what is the real diff between 8.01 and 8.0.3 ? I had 8.0.1 up time of a month without issue.... I can't keep 8.0.3 up more than a day now and that up time seems to be depreciating. Very weird and frustrating. Startups are taking longer too now. I hope it is just ZFS synching up but, again, this didn't happen with 8.0.1 and I was purposefully rough with sudden power offs to test it. I did an Ubuntu burn-in on the hardware before posting this for about 12 hours without issue. I didn't see any ECC or other memory errors, the system temp was fine. I think I isolated the hardware well enough that I doubt it is the hardware.

Ideas ?
 
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