Please help: FreeNAS direct connect w/ Mac

[zejohn]

Hello all,

I've been researching this for the past five hours and have not been able to figure this out.

I have a supermicro atx x11-f which has two Ethernet ports on it. I would like to use one of the ports for router connection and the other for direct connection to my mac. When booting my FreeNAS with both Ethernet cables plugged in, the FreeNAS says I can connect via 0.0.0.0 and 10.0.0.99. The latter always works, the former does not.

I've tried a couple of things: changing the former IP address to 10.0.1.4 (read on many threads that changing subnets is important), but every time I do that, both connections stop working. After resetting the network configs, I then tried using the Web UI to add a network Ethernet interface. My FreeNAS would then disconnect. I'd reboot via the CLI but it still wouldn't work.

The weird thing is that when I go to System Preferences on Mac and try to change my own IP address to the same thing (say, 10.0.1.4), it says that that IP address is already in use, which means the server is alive and well on my network. I just can't access the files.

Is there something on the Mac side that I should be doing? I'm using DHCP with Manual Address on the Ethernet pref pane. Please help! I know I'm a noob.

 

[Artion]

the FreeNAS says I can connect via 0.0.0.0 and 10.0.0.99.

The 0.0.0.0 just means you can connect to every IP assigned to the ethernet cards of the FN, it's not an address you can use.

use one of the ports for router connection

So the Mac is not connected to the router?

and the other for direct connection to my mac.

For direct connection, without a switch/router, you need a crossover cable to get it work.

If you can post a simple draw of how you connect things maybe will be more clear your situation.

 

[danb35]

For direct connection, without a switch/router, you need a crossover cable to get it work.

No, you don't; that hasn't been necessary for a good many years.

 

[danb35]

the other for direct connection to my mac.

Why? What do you hope to accomplish by doing this?

Your problem is that one of the network interfaces on the FreeNAS box (the one that you're trying to direct-connect to the Mac) doesn't have an IP address assigned--it isn't picking one up automatically, since it isn't connected to your router, and you haven't configured one manually.

 

[zejohn]

Why? What do you hope to accomplish by doing this?

Your problem is that one of the network interfaces on the FreeNAS box (the one that you're trying to direct-connect to the Mac) doesn't have an IP address assigned--it isn't picking one up automatically, since it isn't connected to your router, and you haven't configured one manually.

The 0.0.0.0 just means you can connect to every IP assigned to the ethernet cards of the FN, it's not an address you can use.
For direct connection, without a switch/router, you need a crossover cable to get it work.
If you can post a simple draw of how you connect things maybe will be more clear your situation.

Okay, just bought a crossover cable just in case I need it.

I don't have a way to show you a drawing on me, but it's essentially this:

Supermicro x11 has two gigabit ethernet ports
<igb0 (ethernet port 0)> --------- Mac
<igb1 (ethernet port 1)> ---------- router

This is without a pci card (directly from the motherboard out). Importantly, I can see the addresses I assigned when I try to set my own mac's ip to that same address, it prevents me from doing so. I just can't actually access the files.

Pls help!

 

[zejohn]

Btw the mac is not connected to the router; I was hoping to connect to the FreeNAS box directly via the crossover cable. I know this should be possible (I've seen guides on how to do it on PC). The FreeNAS is also connected to the router so other computers can access its contents wirelessly.

 

[danb35]

Btw the mac is not connected to the router

Seems that a much easier and simpler answer would be to connect the Mac to the router.

What's the IP address of igb1 on the FreeNAS box?

 

[zejohn]

Seems that a much easier and simpler answer would be to connect the Mac to the router.

What's the IP address of igb1 on the FreeNAS box?

It's 10.0.0.99 (I can change this if I want).

When I connect to the router directly it can't find the box. Not sure why, but my end use is to connect directly to the FreeNAS box. The reason why is that I am taking this server to school with me and won't have access to the routers, just one Ethernet port my FreeNAS will be connected to.

 

[wblock]

For direct connection, without a switch/router, you need a crossover cable to get it work.

Modern gigabit hardware has functional automatic crossover built-in. Older networking hardware did also, but was not always reliable.

 

[wblock]

Btw the mac is not connected to the router; I was hoping to connect to the FreeNAS box directly via the crossover cable. I know this should be possible (I've seen guides on how to do it on PC). The FreeNAS is also connected to the router so other computers can access its contents wirelessly.

As long as you only plan to access the contents of the FreeNAS system from the Mac, and only use IP addresses, this can work. However, that is probably not what is expected. The Mac would not be able to get to the internet, because the FreeNAS system is not going to act as a gateway. And there is no DHCP server. A standard router provides a bunch of services that are not normally provided by a NAS.

If you want to do this, take a small router. Connect it to the single Ethernet port provided by the school, and connect both the FreeNAS system and the Mac to it.

 

[wblock]

It's 10.0.0.99 (I can change this if I want).

When I connect to the router directly it can't find the box.

Hard to tell what you mean by "directly". Wired? Can't find which "box"?

The setup you are trying to achieve is pretty much the same as a standard small office or home setup. A single Ethernet coming in from the ISP goes into the router's WAN port. The FreeNAS system is connected to one of the router LAN Ethernet ports. Client computers are connected to the LAN ports or wirelessly. The FreeNAS system or router or both are set to make sure the FreeNAS system always gets the same IP address. The router can provide DNS so that address has a user-friendly name.

 

[zejohn]

Hard to tell what you mean by "directly". Wired? Can't find which "box"?
.

Sorry. Wired connection = ethernet cable. Box = FreeNAS.

Is there no way to do this by connecting directly to the FreeNAS w/o a router? In a few weeks I'll want to upgrade to 10gbE via two chelsio connectors for all my footage dumping & work.

I connected directly to the router and was getting worse than wifi speeds (10MBps). I was confused, so I looked into my xfinity router settings and found that it was limiting my computer connection to 100mbps. Couldn't figure out how to change it, so I'm back to trying to link directly to the FreeNAS.

Here's what ifconfig looks like.

Code:

igb0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500														
		options=6403bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6> 
		ether ___________																				  
		inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0xff000000 broadcast 255.255.255.255																 
		nd6 options=9<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED>																					 
		media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)																	 
		status: active 

I notice two things. Firstly, igb0 inet is 0.0.0.0. How do I change this to an accessible IP address without interfering with igb1? Every time I've tried to do this through the web gui interfaces or through the native CLI, igb1 shuts down. Don't know why. Secondly, it says media: ethernet autoselect (100baseTX) which is 100mbps. I've looked up how to change this via the shell, but that takes igb0 from UP to DOWN. Please help!

 

[SweetAndLow]

I think you need to take a step back for a moment. It seems like you are struggling with some networking stuff that should be sorted before messing with freenas.

First is to understand the difference between a switch and a router.

Next is to fix your 100mbps issues. Everything should be gigabit and require zero CLI modification. If you are not getting 1gbps speeds check your Ethernet cables because the are probably not cat5e or cat6.

After that you can start to talk about your direct attach if you want. I think you should not direct attach and just get your own router for school so you can run your own network.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Artion]

When you connect directly two machines you have to manually set their IPs and they must be on the same subnet, ex. 10.1.1.1/24 for the Mac and 10.1.1.2/24 for the igb0.

No, you don't; that hasn't been necessary for a good many years.

Yes, it's true. I was left back on the argument . On 1Gbp networks you don't need a crossover cable. It's never to late to learn. ;)

 

[danb35]

When you connect directly two machines you have to manually set their IPs and they must be on the same subnet, ex. 10.1.1.1/24 for the Mac and 10.1.1.2/24 for the igb0.

...and they must be in a different subnet than the other interface.

@zejohn, what you're trying to do is entirely possible, but it completely defeats the purpose of a NAS. But, as noted above, the addresses for the two interfaces need to be on different subnets. So, if igb1 is 10.0.0.99/24, igb0 could be 10.0.1.1/24. Your Mac would then be 10.0.1.2/24. Both of these--igb0 on the FreeNAS box and the wired connection on your Mac--would be manually configured.

 

[Artion]

it's essentially this:

Supermicro x11 has two gigabit ethernet ports
<igb0 (ethernet port 0)> --------- Mac
<igb1 (ethernet port 1)> ---------- router

The reason why is that I am taking this server to school with me and won't have access to the routers, just one Ethernet port my FreeNAS will be connected to.

I connected directly to the router and was getting worse than wifi speeds (10MBps)

So to make it clearer: you need to connect the Mac to igb0 directly to get more speed and igb1 to the router to make FN accessible to the others through WI-FI via router when you're at home and just connect the Mac to igb0 directly when you're at school because you don't have / want to use a switch/router?

 

[Artion]

_____|igb0 (10.0.0.1/24) <-----------------------> Mac (10.0.0.2/24)
FN box |
_____|igb1 ( DHCP or 192.168.1.2/24 ) <----------> router ( 192.168.1.1/24 - the default for most home routers )

 

[danb35]

192.168.1.2/16

This should be /24, not /16.

 

[Artion]

This should be /24, not /16.

:) it could be, not should be. On most routers I've seen it's /16. The important thing is that both of them must be on the same subnet. For more info.;)

It should be /24, because 192. is in Class C space. You can subdivide a network, but shouldn't go larger than its class--so 10.2.3.0/24 is valid, but 192.168.1.0/16 isn't

You're definitly right!

 

[danb35]

It should be /24, because 192. is in Class C space. You can subdivide a network, but shouldn't go larger than its class--so 10.2.3.0/24 is valid, but 192.168.1.0/16 isn't. I haven't seen consumer routers using /16 subnets in Class C space, but I'm sure it could happen.