Startup/Installation issues

[berni]

Hi,

I tried to install FreeNAS (8.3.0) today and came accross some issues:
First I tried to "install" it from USB but then I recognized that there is no "installation" option after booting.
I found the following link which explains this kinda: http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?1447-Impossible-to-install-onto-hd

Is the only way of getting it installed to a HDD using CD Boot?
As I don't have a CD Drive in that PC and don't want to use the USB Stick to be used for FreeNAS I'd like to ask if there is any other way of getting FreeNAS on my HDD and booting from there.

Kind regards & thx in adance,
Berni

 

[Yell]

Just dont do it, run it from a USB drive because:
- its energy efficient
- easy to replace
- buy a "usb pinhead" to stick the usb stick directly on the mainboard
- it dont waste sata ports
- its supported!

anyway this should do the _trick_

1. Download the ISO
2. slap iso on usb drive (use DD or some other utility to "burn" iso's to usb sticks)
3. boot from usb drive
4. choose install , choose hdd
5. live with a 2 GB hdd

 

[berni]

Just dont do it, run it from a USB drive because:
- its energy efficient
- easy to replace
- buy a "usb pinhead" to stick the usb stick directly on the mainboard
- it dont waste sata ports
- its supported!

anyway this should do the _trick_

1. Download the ISO
2. slap iso on usb drive (use DD or some other utility to "burn" iso's to usb sticks)
3. boot from usb drive
4. choose install , choose hdd
5. live with a 2 GB hdd

Hi,

thanks for the answers.

I am just having some thoughts/fears about running it directly from USB:
- I am afraid that the USB stick will be to slow and a lot of write accesses will damage it over time.
- I don't know if I set it up correctly (I simply put the ISO using physdiskwrite to the USB stick and now its booting from it.
- I am wondering where the config stuff is written etc. I wanted to check the contents of the USB stick but now Windows cant read from it anymore (unrecognized file system) - FreeNAS is still booting from it.

Kind regards,
Berni

 

[Yell]

- Freenas will only write some configurations on the USB drive (most of the filesystem is mounted readonly, you will expect nearly no wear, beside of updates)
- when its booting and you can access the webGUI everything is fine
- mostly /data, and yes its only accessible from FreeBSD type systems. There should almost no need to modify Freenas config (beside from the WebGUI).
- Do command line stuff from the WebGUI's buildin shell or enable SSH and use you favorite ssh-client (maybe Putty from Windows?)

 

[berni]

Thanks again :)

One last thing/thought:
When setting up a RAID 5 (no HW controller) for example with FreeNas and the USB stick breaks down (for whatever reason), is there a disaster recovery procedure to easily gain access to the data again (in other words, will the Raid 5 storage be accessible from a newly created FreeNas USB boot stick)?

Regards & thx in advance

 

[Stephens]

Save your configuration and you can create a completely new USB stick, reload your config, possibly import your drives, and you're off to the races. There's no RAID5. It's called RAIDZ or RAIDZ1.

 

[Yell]

^

this

see the wiki (and use ZFS rather than UFS):

Simple Install a new USB Stick then:
- to restore you data (your zpool) just use the "AutoImport" Button in the GUI (under Storage) http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Volumes#Auto_Importing_Volumes
- to restore you FreeNas configuration use the upload config button (you need to backup this prior with the save button unter settings - general ) see http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Settings