Running DNS-server on FreeNAS?

[Dirk Wagner]

Hi,

I try to setup a PXE-Service on my FreeNAS.
I am following a guide from c't magazin, but they say, I need to have a DNS-server running on the box, so the PXE information could be provided to the client trying to perform network-boot.

Is there a way doing this?

I am using FreeNAS-9.1.1-RELEASE-x86 (a752d35) on an eeePC.

thanks

dirk

 

[cyberjock]

First, you should check the date on that magazine. I get the impression it's pre-2011 based on a google search. If the version number from the magazine isn't 8.0 or higher, then that is for the old FreeNAS project. It was renamed to NAS4Free and you should go there.

If it is for the 8.0+ then you should know that there is no DNS/DHCP server service for FreeNAS built-in. You are on your own to try to figure that out. :/

If you have a custom router or a very high end router that acts as your DNS/DHCP server and it supports PXE forwarding then you will need to reconfigure your network to some other network device that can act as a DHCP/DNS that does support PXE forwarding.

In any case, I think that the answer to your questions is "this is not part of FreeNAS, but could be done with a lot of dedication and work". I'm also a little hesitant to expect any kind of performance from an eeePC. There are far more powerful desktop CPUs that fail to perform decently with FreeNAS. So even if you get PXE working you are likely to find that performance will be absolutely horrible. Not to mention the poor hardware support(if any) on FreeBSD/FreeNAS. And if it has a 100Mb LAN port it is going to be an extremely poor performer. :/

 

[Dirk Wagner]

First, you should check the date on that magazine. I get the impression it's pre-2011 based on a google search. If the version number from the magazine isn't 8.0 or higher, then that is for the old FreeNAS project. It was renamed to NAS4Free and you should go there.

The article is not about a FreeNAS project but describes the setup in generally (on an UBUNTU system as example)...

In any case, I think that the answer to your questions is "this is not part of FreeNAS, but could be done with a lot of dedication and work". I'm also a little hesitant to expect any kind of performance from an eeePC. There are far more powerful desktop CPUs that fail to perform decently with FreeNAS. So even if you get PXE working you are likely to find that performance will be absolutely horrible. Not to mention the poor hardware support(if any) on FreeBSD/FreeNAS. And if it has a 100Mb LAN port it is going to be an extremely poor performer. :/

The project should more act as a tryout. To see, what ist posible and what isn't. Performance is not one of the main goals...

thanks

dirk

 

[jgreco]

You can absolutely run most of the DNS server products in a jail. DNS does not provide PXE services, though ... just DNS. PXE typically requires some combination of NFS, TFTP, and DHCP. It's possible to run ISC DHCP in a jail if you enable raw sockets mode, so I'm guessing you could get this to work on FreeNAS.

But if all you have is an eeePC, my suggestion would be to load FreeBSD on it, use it as a server for things like DNS and DHCP. Then use a better server for FreeNAS. If you can't, then you might be stuck, because the eeePC is probably only good for FreeNAS with UFS, and I seem to recall that mixes poorly with jails.