YAN (Yet Another Noob) Build

[okgunguy]

That's good news on the permissions because I still haven't figured them out and have a feeling it will take me quite some time to do so.
I have been playing around with HDD testing with 3 drives I had laying around. I pretty much have that figured out.
I broke down and ordered my HDDs. NewEgg had/has the WD Green drives on sale. So I ordered 3 WD Green 4Tb and 3 WD Red 4Tb. Then I started really reading Cyberjock's thread on Hacking WD Green drives. I knew it was possible to change the idle timer on them, but had I really read the whole thread I probably would have just ordered all 6 Greens. Since there doesn't seem to be much REAL difference between the two. However, I will get an extra year warranty on the Reds. I figured when I ordered them that we'll just see if/when/which drives start giving out the quickest. There's nothing like a side-by-side comparison. They show "out for delivery" on UPS so I'll be getting them today. I will report on the commands I run and how many I find with the 3sec idle timer. There are even Reds being reported to have it set to 3sec.
I also played around with setting up SSH through Putty on a local laptop using this thread. I got it set up with the Public/Private keys and it's working. However, when I did the same procedure on my work/store computer and updated the Root user on FreeNAS with the work PC's Public Key, it's not connecting. I'm pretty sure it is my port forwarding on my home router. I went and bought a new Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500. Because I bricked my old D-Link by trying to install DD-WRT on it. I'll mess with it later and see if I can get it to recover and come up with another use for it.
The Nighhawk shows to be simple in setting up port forwards. But this step seems to be my nemesis. I set it up under Custom setting because there was no option for SSH. With the IP of FreeNAS, which I set to 192.168.1.88 with external port 22 beginning, 22 ending, and same ports internal. My IPMI ip is 192.168.1.8. I set these as reserved in the Nighthawk so they'll always be the same. I tried connecting at the store thru Putty to my external IP:22 and nothing. I checked on ping.eu/port-chk/ and it comes back "closed". There is only 1 line under the port forwarding rules of the router. All ports 22 to IP 192.168.1.88. Like I said, I despise port forwarding with a passion because it makes absolutely ZERO sense to me. Any tips or educational reading would be appreciated. I'm currently reading bitvise's site because it seems to be pretty informative.
I'm pretty excited to finally get my drives so I can button this thing up on the hardware side and start concentrating on config. More to come...
Ohh, and I did find the part about adding a mirror drive in the manual. I ordered an extra flashdrive with my HDD's so that will happen tonight as well.
PS - Something just occurred to me as I was proof reading. One thing I did not try was turning SSH off/on in FreeNAS after I added the store's Public key. Is this something that needs to happen? Makes any difference?

 

[Bidule0hm]

I'm very interested by the green vs red comparison, I also run a side by side comparison with Seagate NAS vs WD red :)

Don't forget to burn-in the drives as per the hardware section sticky before putting any real data on them ;)

updated the Root user on FreeNAS with the work PC's Public Key

Hmm... you should use the private key on the FreeNAS and copy the public key on each PC you want to use to connect to the NAS, not the other way around.

You shouldn't have to restart the SSH service if you just change the key.

 

[Nick2253]

I would strongly recommend not port forwarding any ports to your FreeNAS, much less the SSH port. FreeNAS is not hardened against malicious attackers; it's designed to be on a trusted LAN. If you have to access the FreeNAS remotely, don't use port 22. Port 22, as the default SSH port, is widely checked by malicious actors.

The recommended way to get external access to your FreeNAS server is to use a VPN. If you don't want to set up a VPN, try something like TeamViewer to get to your home desktop, and then SSH from there.

Port forwarding is actually really simple; unfortunately, the user interfaces to enable it are not as user friendly as they should be.

Some reading on TCP/IP that might help you understand port forwarding better:

• http://lovethynetwork.blogspot.com/2009/10/day-4-basic-tcpip-understanding-port.html
• http://whatismyipaddress.com/port-forwarding
• http://ccm.net/contents/280-nat-network-address-translation-port-forwarding-and-port-trigg

Let us know if you have any other questions!

 

[okgunguy]

Not according to this thread. It says to generate the Public key and copy/paste it into the Public key field under >edit>root.
Nick, I like the sound of the TeamViewer better. Is that like LogMeIn? To remote into the local laptop and then SSH. That's easy enough. But how would I get files from my work PC ->FreeNAS going thru the laptop? I would need to transfer the files first to the laptop, then SSH them onto the FreeNAS?
And the VPN'ish is what I was hinting at by possibly using my bricked router. As a second router behind my Nighthawk to only handle the FreeNAS. Not sure on this, still have lots of reading to do.
And at this point I was only trying to get SSH to work. Once I figured out how to get them to talk, I was thinking of changing the external port to something crazy like 59756 or something.
I thought the whole point of SSH with public/private keys was that nobody could get in without the keys. Making it pretty secure.?

 

[Nick2253]

Yeah, TeamViewer is like LogMeIn. It's free for non-commercial use, and it also supports two-factor authentication for login, which is awesome! :D

To transfer the files, again, VPN would be my first choice. If you've got spare hardware, setting up a couple pfSense boxes would be a great option. It's a hardened firewall/router appliance, and it's also based on FreeBSD to boot. pfSense comes with great VPN capability, and it's not too hard to set up.

You could do something along the lines of FTPS (not to be confused with SFTP), but again, I wouldn't recommend that directly.

 

[okgunguy]

Update on my drives. I got them all installed and ran WDIDLE3 (from UBCD) on each one. All of the Reds were set to 300sec and all the Greens were at 8sec. I do have an issue I need some advise on though.
First off, I know it is NOT the Sata cables. I used the same ones (data and power) on all 6 drives. Not sure who has ran WDIDLE3 before, but when you do, it loads the program, you see it scroll thru, and then it reads the info from the drive and it's done. Ready for you to type in commands "wdidle3.exe /r" to read the setting and "wdidle3.exe /s300" to set it to 300sec. All of the scrolling is relatively quick. However, on 1 of my Greens it stalled while reading the disk. It did finally come back with the prompt for command, but it took twice, maybe three times as long as all the other 5 drives. I tried it multiple times, even trying another Green in between. Same stutter every time on this one drive. I did not change the setting on this one drive. In case it is a crap drive and I had to RMA it, I didn't want anyone saying "well, you messed with it, so no warranty".
I then cabled them all up and started FreeNAS up and started in on my harddrive testing from the Hard Drive Testing and Burn-In thread. I am all the way up to "badblocks -ws /dev/adaX" and all 6 are currently around 45% done. I am particularly interested in the Green that stuttered on the wdidle3. No errors so far on any drives. But I have to wait to read the results until after all the tests are complete.
Ok, here's where I need advise: Say all drives pass all tests and show to be good. I do not have a warm and fuzzy about this particular drive. What can I tell NewEgg, or how do I phrase it to them, that I want a replacement? If it fails and shows errors, it's no problem. I can copy and paste the proof right there for them. But if it shows no errors. I still want a replacement. Anyone have experience with a similar situation? Thanks.

 

[Nick2253]

Have you checked the SMART data on that drive?

 

[okgunguy]

Not yet. I didn't know if it would mess up the badblocks tests that are going. I have them running in SSH/Putty. Could I run "smartctl -a /dev/adaX" in the Java window?

 

[Bidule0hm]

What java window? You can always open another SSH session and do your commands here, you're not limited to one session (for example I usually open 3 when I do scripting...) ;)

No problem with badblocks running, you're just asking the drive for his SMART infos.

 

[okgunguy]

Ok. I just checked them all and they look good except for the drive I was worried about:
Raw_Read_Error_Rate = 48
Reallocated_Sector_Ct = 0
Current_Pending_Sector = 2
Offline_Uncorrectable = 0
Not horrible. But enough to justify an RMA. And this is just after the first smart tests. After BadBlocks it's bound to pick up more. Plus I'm getting errors in BadBlocks on that drive as well. All others are 0/0/0. This drive is showing 5/0/0, 6/0/0, 7/0/0 and 8/0/0 and it still has a long way to go. So glad it wasn't me imagining something. And now I have data to back up my suspicion. I'll start an RMA and get it sent in as soon as bad blocks ends. Thanks for the help you two.

 

[Nick2253]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we do burn in tests :D

I think you are the poster boy of what exactly you should do as a new FreeNAS user. Seriously, we need to get a poster made up :)

I'm really glad you got this all figured out before you had all of your important, irreplaceable, unbacked-up data on the array. You'd be amazed at how often people don't do it and just expect that everything works "because it's new."

(After I've read through this, I think it sounds sarcastic. I'm honestly not trying to be sarcastic here. It's too often people don't do it right, and it's really amazing when someone comes in and does it literally by the book. You are amazing )

 

[okgunguy]

Thank you for the compliments. I just want my NAS to 1) be the bad-assist NAS in the world (got a long way to go on that) :( and 2) keep my stuff safe.
I've lost data before. And it is NOT pretty, the words that come out of my mouth. I am not pleasant to be around for quite a few days afterwards.
Why anyone would deviate from the wealth of knowledge that is on this forum and risk losing their data because they think they know better, is beyond me.
When I started this I thought it was just going to be: install some software, make a few tweaks, and be rocking and rolling. HA!! Here I am just now getting to the point to even start caring about the software side.
Garbage in = Garbage out. That's what I was always taught about computers.
Nick2253, you keep on keepin' on with your sarcasm. You and everyone else who has commented on here have been irreplaceable to me. And I am FAR from finished...

On a serious'er note. I sat my initial FreeNAS install up with 3 random drives I had laying around. Is it an easy ordeal to delete that dataset and make my 6 drive one? Or should I just reinstall FreeNAS and start fresh? I'm thinking I will just reinstall unless someone has a quick and easy fix. I haven't set anything else up yet like jails or put any data on it. I think I built a folder named Media but that was about it.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Is it an easy ordeal to delete that dataset and make my 6 drive one?

As long as you have a place to park the data, it's as simple as detaching the pool and checking the box to mark the drives as new. Are the original 3 disks similar in performance and capacity to those you plan to add?

EDIT: and there's an option in the GUI and the console menu to reset FreeNAS to factory defaults.

 

[okgunguy]

Thanks for the ideas Robert Trevellyan. I'll look into both and test out detaching the pool when the babblocks tests finally finish. If it doesn't grow the pool from 3 to 6, then I'll just reset it to factory defaults. Great ideas, thanks!!

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

If it doesn't grow the pool from 3 to 6

If you detach and mark as new, that will destroy the existing pool and you'll be able to create a new, 6-disk pool. Is that what you want?

 

[okgunguy]

I have a quick question regarding results from my HDD testing.
With the exception of the DOA Green disk, all of my other disks completed fine. 0 errors in the fields - Reallocated_Sector_Ct, Current_Pending_Sector, and Offline_Uncorrectable. However I had 1 other Green disk that came back with a count of 2 in Raw_Read_Error_Rate. I don't know how important this is, or if it even is important. It was on my last disk (ada5) and I'm not even sure that I didn't cause it when I rebooted. When I ran the command "smartctl -a /dev/ada5" The final SMART Long test kept coming back with "10% of test remaining" long after all the other disks showed finished, so I rebooted.
My plan at the moment is to not RMA it. Unless someone advises for it. I will reply with another post about what I accomplished over the weekend. I need to get this other disk RMA'd and on it's way back to NewEgg.

 

[Nick2253]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you've got three random drives that you're testing with, and you have an additional 6 good drives that you want to make the real data pool with. Is this correct?

If that's the case, all you have to do is exactly like Robert said: detach the old pool, remove those drives, add the new drives, and make a new pool. The GUI makes this really easy.

You can't really "grow" a pool is the sense you probably mean it: each pool is made of vdevs, and each vdev is pretty fixed. You can add additional vdevs to a pool to make the pool larger, but you can't add additional drives to an existing vdev.

I would not RMA it: Raw_Read_Error_Rate is not a hugely important metric. Its rate of growth is far more important than its actual number: read errors happen, and that's just the way it is. The other SMART metrics, like pending sectors, gives you a much better indication of drive health.

 

[okgunguy]

Nick and Robert, thank you guys for your advise. However, I just went with a fresh install. There were a couple other things I was iffy on. So I figured I better just start over before I have any data on there.
With the initial install, I configured all 6 new drives. And I then Offlined the bad one. This way I figured I could keep going with config while I get a replacement and just run in a Degraded state.
I also installed my second flash drive and mirrored it with the Boot.
My biggest hurdle right now is trying to get BitVise working. I have searched all over this forum and googled the hell out of it. I got Putty to connect (locally) and working great using this thread. So I figured BitVise would be similar enough that I could figure out the Public keys and such. But it is not working and I can't find a nice step-by-step procedure like there was for Putty.
What I absolutely NEED is a way to connect, locally or remotely, and be able to transfer my movies/tv shows/music. That's why I figured BitVise would be perfect because it's made to sound like I could use Filezilla once the connection was made with BitVise.
I tried generating the keys in BitVise and "export" them to a text file and copy paste them into user Root, just like I did with Putty. But I keep getting an error that the confirmation is not happening. I was watching the messages on both BitVise and the FreeNAS GUI and neither gave me anything concrete as to what the problem is. When I get home tonight, I will edit this post with the exact messages I am receiving.
At this point I am just trying to put a couple of each media type on there so I can get everything else working (Plex, etc.). Until I get my replacement drive back, tested, onlined and out of degraded state. Then the MASS transfer of data can commence. IF I can get this damn thing to connect!!

 

[okgunguy]

I also got my UPS installed finally between one of my reboots. I am using an APC Back-UPS Pro BR1000G. I just followed the manual and it seems to have installed fine. I connected it via the USB cable that came with it.
All I could tell a first timer is:
1) Don't plug it in until you are watching the messages on the bottom of the FreeNAS GUI. It doesn't mess anything up if you have to unplug/replug, but it's just a hassle to have to do it. When you plug it in the messages will tell you exactly what port you are in.
2) To take your time and be sure to choose the correct driver. I went so far as to check that the model I was getting ready to order was listed and supported before I even ordered it.
3) I left mine at default of "UPS goes on battery" but I changed the Shutdown Timer to 300. I live in the country and our power bounces quite a bit. But it rarely is out for longer than 5 minutes. So I didn't want my machine to go down just because the power dropped for a minute or two. That's what the UPS is for.
4) I didn't put any extra settings in Auxiliary Parameters, I haven't read up enough to know whether I should or not. When I research it more, I can change it if I need to.
5) I changed the password to something I could remember easily and won't have to look it up if/when I need it.
I haven't tested it extensively yet. But when I woke up with morning, all of my Putty windows I had open had a message that the UPS had kicked on. So I assume overnight we had a small bounce, like usual. So it appears to be working and talking, at least basically. When I get the time, I will unplug it long enough to make sure the system shuts down safely.

 

[Nick2253]

You can tunnel over SSH with PuTTY really easily.

Under the Connection->Proxy settings in PuTTY, you can set a proxy server to tunnel over the SSH connection.

If you're trying to do SFTP, then WinSCP is probably the easiest client to get everything working. You can set up the tunnel in WinSCP directly with minimum hassle.

This doc give you a bunch of different ways how to do it: https://winscp.net/eng/docs/guide_tunnel