USB Boot Not Networking

[Silklink]

I have installed FreeNAS 11 onto a USB stick and boot onto a DELL Inspiron 660 with a RealTek PCIe GBE Family Controller NIC

I cannot get FreeNAS to link up to the network. When it boots to Windows 10 there are no issues, so I'm sure there are no issues with broken cables / hardware etc (been reading many potential solutions to this issue)

I have configured re0 to use a set IP address range (as per FreeNAS instructions) and rater than it displaying http://0.0.0.0 as the host URL, it now displays http://192.168.1.108. But this is not accessible over the network.

I have a BT Hub 5 which is set to act as a DHCP server, but I cannot see FreeNAS listed on any of the connected devices. Neither can I ping that IP address (not available is the response)

It looks as though my NIC should be supported in v11, although I can't be sure

What to do? It doesn't seem that I can do much from the menu that is offered having booted from a USB and not being able to connect to it from the host web management package

 

[Jailer]

Please post full system specs, Dell offers a lot of variations of the Inspiron 660.

 

[Silklink]

Not sure how far I should go with 'full'

It has an Intel i5 3330 4-core CPU, x64 based system with 8GB memory. It has the Dell system HDD (1TB) and I have installed a further 2 X 2TB disks

It has a Dell wireless 1506 802.11b NIC, plus the RealTek PCIe GBE Family Controller (I usually have it hard-wired)

I want to set it up to use as a Windows PC sometimes, but when I boot from USB I want it has the family NAS Drive

 

[Silklink]

The motherboard is a Dell 0XR1GT if that helps

 

[gpsguy]

On a good day, Realtek support on FreeNAS is iffy.

You can mitigate the issue by getting an Intel Pro/1000 CT. Cost is about $30 USD.

 

[Redcoat]

Realtek NICs typically don't play well with FreeNAS/FreeBSD - take a look here to gauge the difficulties. Poster wblock in that thread is a moderator here and frequently advises on driver and compatibility issues, so you may have the benefit of his comments at some point here, too. A common suggestion is to get an Intel Pro/1000 NIC (~$30 on Ebay here).

For experiences on this forum, search on "Realtek Intel" and browse the hits.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Using the PC as a windows box sometimes and FreeNAS other times is a pretty bad idea. FreeNAS is meant to be always on. There are maintenance jobs that need to run and if it's off they can't run. You also can't use the drives for anything while FreeNAS is using them in a pool.

I think just setting up a couple share in your windows machine would be better for you.

 

[Silklink]

Well, I managed to hack my way around to get it working. It involved creating and deleting network configurations (option 1) and then setting a static route (option 5) to the IP of my BT Home Hub. This got me in, and I was able to set up OwnCloud as well. It forgot all those settings when I came to boot up this evening

I'm not in the 'run out and throw 30 bucks at a NIC' brigade. It seems to me there are other issues - perhaps some sort of clash with other devices and/or configs on my PC. The fact that I got it working suggests that it is able to support the RealTek. While it was up last night, it didn't drop out. I reckon someone knows the answer

SweetAndLow: I have been using shares with Windows for some time and they are completely unreliable - they fail just about every time Windows 10 updates. For family use, I think FreeNAS will do the job and I don't see that it needs to be on all of the time - a few hours a day, and not every day, is all I need. Also, FreeNAS didn't touch my Windows system HDD, so all is good

 

[SweetAndLow]

Well, I managed to hack my way around to get it working. It involved creating and deleting network configurations (option 1) and then setting a static route (option 5) to the IP of my BT Home Hub. This got me in, and I was able to set up OwnCloud as well. It forgot all those settings when I came to boot up this evening

I'm not in the 'run out and throw 30 bucks at a NIC' brigade. It seems to me there are other issues - perhaps some sort of clash with other devices and/or configs on my PC. The fact that I got it working suggests that it is able to support the RealTek. While it was up last night, it didn't drop out. I reckon someone knows the answer

SweetAndLow: I have been using shares with Windows for some time and they are completely unreliable - they fail just about every time Windows 10 updates. For family use, I think FreeNAS will do the job and I don't see that it needs to be on all of the time - a few hours a day, and not every day, is all I need. Also, FreeNAS didn't touch my Windows system HDD, so all is good

You are clearly smarter than me so do what you think is right. Just don't bother complaining about things that don't work if you won't accept the answers you get.

 

[Silklink]

You are clearly smarter than me so do what you think is right. Just don't bother complaining about things that don't work if you won't accept the answers you get.

Yes, clearly, I'm smarter than you. I don't go into a network section on a forum to talk about whether or not to run a NAS Drive 24 X 7. Perhaps if you'd responded with something worth saying about the issue I have reported then I might respect what you're saying.

 

[Silklink]

Realtek NICs typically don't play well with FreeNAS/FreeBSD - take a look here to gauge the difficulties. Poster wblock in that thread is a moderator here and frequently advises on driver and compatibility issues, so you may have the benefit of his comments at some point here, too. A common suggestion is to get an Intel Pro/1000 NIC (~$30 on Ebay here).

For experiences on this forum, search on "Realtek Intel" and browse the hits.

Thanks Redcoat. I found and read this topic before posting on here, but didn't think the issue being reported was what I'm seeing - I'm not getting timeouts or dropouts after I hack around and get it up and working.

 

[Silklink]

Found a little time to play with this some more...

So, this is how I can get then NIC working without fail, but the settings are not saved, and so I have to do this every time I boot...

Option 1: take the option to delete the config
Option 1: Create a new config and take the option to set it to DHCP
Option 5: Set a static route. Here I set the Gateway IP of my DHCP router (192.168.1.254) in the Destination field. I leave the Gateway and Description fields blank - I'm able to do this from the Console but not in the WebGUI as both Destination and Gateway are mandatory fields

HTTP://192.168.1.113 is fetched and works. As already mentioned, it doesn't fail while the PC is left on

So how is it working and why can't I get it to remember these settings to work every time I boot?

I'm not able to get this working with HTTPS, but that could be a different issue. I mention it because when trying different options, at one point I booted and both HTTP and HTTPS URLs were listed - both with 0.0.0.0