USB boot toast; FreeNAS version?

[ppmax]

Hello! Long time member, but haven't posted in ages

After several years running without issue my FreeNAS box just gave up the ghost. Apparently the USB boot drives are toast. Thankfully the data drives/pool are all good. It was running Plex and has all the family pictures were backed up there...so I need to get it back online.

I've got some new USB flash drives on order; in the meantime how does one tell what version of FreeNAS was being used previously? I believe it was 11.2 or 11.3...Does it really matter what version I use to create new boot drives?

It's been so long since I worked on this unit I can't recall what steps I need to take to rebuild the system. Any tips or hints would be kindly appreciated!

Thanks again :)

 

[danb35]

Does it really matter what version I use to create new boot drives?

It should be at least as recent as what was used before, but not by too much. If you think it was in the 11.x series, I'd install the latest 11.3. Then import your pool, and using WinSCP (assuming you're using Windows), log in to your server and browse to /var/db/system/configs-(longhexnumber)/. In there, open the directory for the latest version present, and from that directory, download the latest file saved there.

Then log into the FreeNAS web UI, go to System -> Settings -> General, and upload that saved config file. The system will reboot a couple of times, and once it finishes, you should be back to the configuration you had before--all the users, shares, and everything else.

From there, since 11.x is EOL, recommend you upgrade to a supported version, assuming you have the hardware for it.

 

[Davvo]

Just a heads up since you might not be up to date: booting from flash USB is now discouraged, especially cheap ones.

 

[danb35]

booting from flash USB is now discouraged, especially cheap ones.

True, and that's been the case since 9.3.

 

[ppmax]

Thank you so much for the quick replies and helpful information...I appreciate it!

Re booting from cheap flash drives: I'm sure that's how I got into this mess. I think I've been a user since 2012 or so? Apparently I didn't get the memo...but I should know better anyways. Oh well I can configure another internal boot volume after I get this thing back online.

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[ppmax]

Lol, it looks like my sig says Im using 11.3. Where is the dunce cap emoji

 

[Davvo]

Congrats!
You might also want to note that the minimum required RAM has been increased to 16 GB in the last few major releases (I'm sure about 13, not really about 12).

 

[ppmax]

Whelp, that sucks. It looks like something hardware related was the ultimate problem and now it looks like the onboard video is fried since I'm getting no output to screen at all.

Wondering what the easiest/cheapest solution is to find or build s system that I can plug my SATA3 array into? The ASRock E350M1 is so old...any suggestions for a replacement mobo? I'd like to recover some stuff from that pool...

 

[ppmax]

Then import your pool, and using WinSCP (assuming you're using Windows), log in to your server and browse to /var/db/system/configs-(longhexnumber)/. In there, open the directory for the latest version present, and from that directory, download the latest file saved there.

Hello @danb35 thanks for the suggestion above. I bought a used Dell T110II per a suggestion from another member and plugged in my 4 drives (a single pool) from my previous system

I've read through the docs, and have attempted to import my pool but when I get to the "Select Pool" step in the GUI there is nothing in the drop down. I read that pools should be exported from a previous device a priori...but I never had a chance to do so.

Any tips you may be able to suggest?

Thanks again

 

[danb35]

Any tips you may be able to suggest?

Run zpool import and zpool status at the command line, and post the output--let's see what the system sees there.

 

[ppmax]

gah, forgot about trying those commands...thanks for the suggestions. However, my experience dealing with pools (apart from running scrubs and such) is pretty limited.

Here's the output:

Code:

root@freenas[~]# zpool import
   pool: volume1
     id: 9954950771419226450
  state: UNAVAIL
 status: The pool was last accessed by another system.
 action: The pool cannot be imported due to damaged devices or data.
   see: http://illumos.org/msg/ZFS-8000-EY
 config:

    volume1                                         UNAVAIL  insufficient replicas
      raidz2-0                                      UNAVAIL  insufficient replicas
        gptid/5dd66899-aabe-11e1-90d1-6805ca067062  ONLINE
        2904156027509682323                         UNAVAIL  cannot open
        15516672902972882828                        UNAVAIL  cannot open
        14684645065347388563                        UNAVAIL  cannot open

root@freenas[~]# zpool status
  pool: freenas-boot
 state: ONLINE
  scan: none requested
config:

    NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
    freenas-boot  ONLINE       0     0     0
      mirror-0  ONLINE       0     0     0
        da0p2   ONLINE       0     0     0
        da1p2   ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

Strange that 3 of the disks in the array are apparently offline...

 

[danb35]

Strange that 3 of the disks in the array are apparently offline...

Dumb question, maybe, but are you sure you have the right four disks in the new machine?

 

[ppmax]

Yep, I've got the right disks; I pulled them out of the previous device and swapped them into the T110ii yesterday. I know the pool was operating nominally before the previous device went down for the count...but perhaps a hardware failure led to some corruption?

Anywho, I just cracked the case on the Dell and re-seated all SATA and power cables. Meanwhile I'm reading Oracle docs about pools, repair, etc

Importing ZFS Storage Pools - Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle® Solaris 11.2

After a pool has been identified for import, you can import it by specifying the name of the pool or its numeric identifier as an argument to the zpool import command.

docs.oracle.com

Do you know if it is it possible to repair individual disks of an as yet imported pool? I might try the zpool import -f option and see what happens...

 

[ppmax]

UPDATE IN CASE ANYONE CARES ;)

It turns out all my disks in the pool are fine, and the pool is fine. The *problem* was that 3 of the 4 SATA ports were disabled in BIOS. Hurrr durrr!

All good now!

 

[Davvo]

Congrats! Often the dumbest reasons are the hardest to think about.