Transcript FreeNAS - Dayton Microcomputer Association

FreeNAS
The FreeBSD based
network attached storage (NAS) solution.
Presented, tested and researched
by: Elliott Lake
What is a NAS?

Consider a NAS server to be:

A network attached device with:


A self contained O/S.
One or more mass storage devices shared over the
network.
 Examples:
 Hard disk drive(s).
 Optical drive(s).

Specialized device geared for sharing files.
What is a NAS?

“A specialized file server that connects to the
network. A NAS device contains a slimmeddown operating system and a file system and
processes only I/O requests by supporting
the popular file sharing protocols, primarily
CIFS for Windows and NFS for Unix.”

thefreedictionary.com
Project Background:
➲
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My employer had a need for Terabytes of
storage space.
The need for the storage space was
unexpected.
No budget existed for the project.
Throughput required server level
capabilities.
2/3 of the IT staff does not seem to handle
command line approaches.
Must work in a Windows© Environment.
Project Background:
➲
Specific projects:

A three system, isolated production network
setup has been planned.

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The project has been placed on an indefinite hold.
The project is currently using Microsoft.
Possible use for a read-only access for storing
aerial photographs.

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The project has been placed on an indefinite hold.
Various managerial staff do believe someone else
should store the data.
Why was FreeNAS Selected?
Installation seemed to be a FreeNAS version
of Windows default installation.
 GUI Web interface.

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Only one IT staff member seems to be
comfortable with command line approaches.
Management wants a K.I.S.S. Approach.

Lowest common denominator / skill set approach
neede.
Why was FreeNAS Selected?

Disk backup of the organizations storage
area network (SAN).
The implemented Windows 2003 backup
solution seemed to be inadequate.
 Tape backups were inconsistent requiring a
backup solution for the backup.
 Total server storage in the Terabyte range.
 Additional storage space was required for over
0.1TB of data with no disk space available at the
time.

FreeNAS System Requirements:

PC class hardware with:
96 MB RAM.
 Bootable optical drive.
 Floppy disk for configuration backup.
 Mass storage device for O/S.




USB.
Hard disk drive (HDD).
Compact flash (CF) drive.
FreeNAS System Requirements:

PC class hardware with:

Mass storage device for network data.
Virtual system set to emulate the previous
configuration.
 Was supposed to integrate with Windows
2003 Active Directory.

 Depending
on source.
FreeNAS Supported Drive Types:
SCSI
 IDE
 SATA
 CF
 USB
 Firewire

 Not
listed in documentation or tested by myself
as of this presentation.
FreeNAS Supported File Systems:

UFS
 Native
FAT
 FAT32
 Ext2
 Ext3

for UNIX, FreeBSD, FreeNAS and more.
FreeNAS Installation Demo:
Or, is the curse of a live demo cross platform?
FreeNAS Installation to HDD:
➲ FreeNAS
version being used:
 LiveCD
0.865RC1
 Running FreeNAS from a live CD can be done.


This ability will be mentioned in the demo slides.
The setup and configuration of this ability will be
considered beyond the scopy of the presentation.
➲ Installation
instructions will vary based on
FreeNAS version.
 Consult
documentation available on the
FreeNAS web site.
FreeNAS Installation to HDD:
➲ Start
system.
➲ Insert FreeNAS CD while system boots.
 If
the system is not set to boot off of the optical
drive first:
Make sure the HDD does not have a valid O/S present
(not applicable for VM systems).
Set to boot from optical drive in BIOS.


➲ Wait
for tones from system.
 The
tones indicate FreeNAS is ready.
Use as a live CD.
Install.
FreeNAS splash screen will be visible.

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
Press any keey to change to console.
FreeNAS Installation to HDD:
➲ Select
option 9.
 “Install/Upgrade
to an hard drive/flash device,
etc.”
 This option applies to FreeNAS 685 series
through RC1.
 Previous versions use another option number.
FreeNAS Installation to HDD:
➲ Select
option 3.
 “Install
'full' release on hard drive:”
 Creates two partitions.
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
First partition is for FreeNAS O/S.
Second partition is for data.
Do not format the second partition of the first physical
drive as problems are expected.
FreeNAS Installation to HDD:
➲ Enter
 The


the name of the optical drive.
naming convention will be BSD format.
Example: acd0 for the first ATAPI CD ROM drive.
I hope my research was right.
 Using
➲ Select
acd0 for the demonstration.
the HDD drive for the FreeNAS O/S.
 Using
ad0 for the demonstration.
FreeNAS Installation to HDD:
➲ The
system will create the mount point for
the optical drive.
➲ The O/S will be installed on the HDD.
➲ The system will automatically reboot.
➲ The system is ready after:
 The
FreeNAS splash screen appears.
 The tones have been heard from the system.
FreeNAS Test Systems:
Or, what was I thinking while testing?
FreeNAS Test Systems, Stable:
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Intel SR440BX motherboard.
Intel 450 MHz PII.
256 MB RAM.
16x Sony optical DVD drive.
3 ~ HDDs.
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Western Digital 6 GB IDE HDD.
Western Digital 20 GB IDE HDD.
Western Digital 40 GB IDE HDD.
FreeNAS Test Systems, Unstable:
➲Intel D850EMV2 motherboard.
➲Intel 2.0 GHz P4.
➲512 MB DRAM.
➲ASUS CD-ROM drive.
➲2 ~ Promise Technology TX4200
RAID
controllers.
➲1 ~ Maxtor SATA/150 PCI controller.
FreeNAS Test Systems, Unstable:
➲HDDs
1
6
4
~ 20 GB Western Digital HDD for O/S.
~ 250 GB Western Digital SATA HDDs.
~ 250 GB Maxtor SATA HDDs.
➲HDDs
Configurations:
RAID
RAID
2 ~
1
8 ~
3
2
5 using 10 drives.
5 and RAID 1:
HDDs RAID 1.
Drive on each TX4200 RAID controller.
HDDs RAID 5.
Drives on each TX4200 RAID controller.
Drives on SATA/150 PCI controller.
FreeNAS Test Systems, Unstable:
➲As
of the beginning of this presentation
(Thursday, October 25, 2007) the stability
issues were not resolved.
Further
testing will not be possible as the test
HDDs had to be reallocated for production use.
FreeNAS Configuration Demo:
What? The thing hasn’t blown up yet?
I’m slipping!!!
Configuring FreeNAS:
➲ FreeNAS
setup for configuration and
management through web browser.
 Some
management does not work through the
browser.

Example: Integration with Microsoft AD
environments.
➲ System
accessed by URL.
 HTTP://IPv4
address or HTTP://IPv6 address.
Configuring FreeNAS:
➲ Start browser of
➲ Enter address.
➲ Enter logon.
 Default



choice.
logon credentials.
User: admin
Password: freenas
The credentials get you this:
Configuring FreeNAS:
➲ Interesting
Note???
 For
the purposes of the deomonstration,
attempts were made to install and configure
FreeNAS on a Dell Latitude C800.

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FreeNAS would install.
FreeNAS would identify the embeded NIC with 16
hexidecimal pairs as the MAC address.
Problem corrected with further experimentation using
a USRobotics PCMCIA NIC.
Go figure???
Configuring FreeNAS:
Configuring FreeNAS:

What you can
configure on web
GUI:
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System settings.
Network interfaces.
Disk setup.
 JBOD and RAID.
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System access.
System status.
System diagnostics.
➲
Each category
contains several
subcategories.

Several of the pages
include tabbed
collections / abilities.
Configuring FreeNAS:

Configure HDDs:
Pick the Management link in the left frame,
under Disks.
 Select the + at the right side of the right frame
near the column labeled Status.
 Select the disk to be added to the system as
usable storage.
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Located to the right of the Disk label.
Note: If you add the remaining space on the system
drive, DO NOT FORMAT THE DRIVE.
According to FreeNAS.
Select the UDMA mode.
 Select the HDD standby time.
 Select the power management method.

Configuring FreeNAS:
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Configure HDDs:
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Select the acoustic level.

No kidding. FreeNAS has the option to run the HDDs
at reduced noise level.
 Was not tested prior to this presentation.
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Select the preformatted file system.
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Testing with FreeNAS 685b did not indicate this
worked.
 Manual formatting was still required.
Save the settings.
 Repeat the previous steps if using multiple
drives.

Configuring FreeNAS:
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Configure HDDs:
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Note about RAID drives:
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Drives being used in a RAID configuration need to
have the preformatted file system set to software
RAID.
This was the only time in testing that the preformatted
setting seemed to impact the setup / configuration.
Apply the changes.
 Note: FreeNAS states it can be used for iSCSI.

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This was not tested.
Configuring FreeNAS:
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Configure HDDs:
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Configure Software RAID if applicable.

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Software RAID is beyond the scope of this
presentation.
Software RAID 1 and 5 were tested.
 The tests involving RAID 1 and 5 were on the unstable
setup.
 Problems encountered with the RAID configurations are
inconclusive at this time,
Configuring FreeNAS:
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Configure HDDs:
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Format the disks.
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Select the disk to be formatted in the Disk drop-down
menu.
Select the file system type in the File System dropdown menu.
Select the minimum free disk space in the drop-down
menu.
 This is space made unavailable to the user.
 Space is a percentage of the disk size.
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If desired, retain the disk's MBR.
Format disk.
Repeat as needed for remaining disks.
Configuring FreeNAS:
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Configure HDDs:
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Create Mount Points:
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Select Mount Point link under Disks in the left frame.
Select the + at the right of the window near the Status
column.
Select the type of media (HDD or ISO) in the dropdown Type menu.
Select the disk from the Disk drop-down menu.
Select the partition.
Select the file system.
 This was done in previous steps.
 Testing has not been done as to the ability to change the FS
type in this window.

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Enter share name.
Enter share description.
Save the mount point settings.
Configuring FreeNAS:
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Controlling Access:

Testing did not provide positive results for the
following:

Using Active Directory Integration.
 The last documentation viewed indicated this option did not
work and a request for those versed in PAM was included in
the document.

LDAP Integration.
 Testing did not provide favorable responses for this function.
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What option is left?
 Users and Groups.
Configuring FreeNAS:
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Controlling Access:
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Users and Groups:
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Pick the Users and Groups link in the Access list.
Select the Group tab.
Start the add group function by selecting the +.
Fill in the fields provided.
Save the settings using the Add button.
Select the Users tab.
Fill in the fields provided.
Save the settings by selecting the Add button.
 Note: Using the available shell option is suspected to
provide an increased level of control.
 Research on the FreeNAS web site seems to verify the idea.

This is option 6 in the console setup menu.
Configuring FreeNAS:
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Configuring Network Shares:
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For Microsoft:
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Select the CIFS link in the Access list.
Enable CIFS (SAMBA) service.
Fill in the fields in the Settings tab.
 Note that testing indicates that these settings are applied to
all shares on the system.
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Save the settings with the Save and Restart button.
Select the Shares tab.
Select the + to start defining a share.
Fill in the fields for the share name and description.
Select the mount point for the share.
Select desired options for:
 Set browsable.
 Permission inheritance.
 “Recycle Bin”.
Configuring FreeNAS:

Configuring Network Shares:
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For Microsoft:

Note: Testing of permission inheritance was
incomplete and therefore inconclusive.
 Attempted different masks with success related to the
specific share.
 Suspected overriding inheritance through the shell
commands will be possible.
 This theory has not been tested as of this presentation.
 Unknown level of control.
 Unknown level of impact of the setting.

For Linux:

First testing / research were done using SAMBA.
 The NAS can be accessed using SAMBA and Linux.
Configuring FreeNAS:

Configuring Network Shares:
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For Linux:

NFS




Select the NFS link in the Services list.
Enable the NFS service.
Select to allow access to the root of the drive.
Enter the network data.
 Testing done with 192.168.1.1/24.
 Testing is in process.
Configuring FreeNAS:

Successful Network Share Access:
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Linux:
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In address bar type smb://IPAddress/shareName
Microsoft:
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In Windows Explorer:
 Browse to the system and share.
 Only if the share is set so browsers can see the share.
 In address bar type \\IPAddress\shareName

Note:
 RC1 seems to encounter a timeout issue with Microsoft
requiring a logon after the timeout.
 These issues were not present in FreeNAS 685b.
Support / Sources of Information:

http://www.freenas.org
Private Implementation / Research:
➲
The presenter will be looking to implement
FreeNAS:
On home / experimental network.
 On research network at place of employment

Research / Testing Conclusions:
➲
Seems to need:

Work on AD integration.

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➲
Acknowledged by FreeNAS.
Additional documentation.
FreeNAS has definite possibilities:
Inexpensive mass storage.
 Relatively intuitive GUI through web interface.


➲
Relative to user.
Watch future versions!
References:
http://computingdictionary.thefreedictionary.com/NAS
 http://www.freenas.org/downloads/docs/userdocs/FreeNAS-SUG.pdf
 FreeNAS version 685b.
 FreeNAS version RC1.
 FreeNAS documentation (for version 684).
 FreeNAS downloads are available through
the FreeNAS web site.

Questions?
Or, please be kind, I never claimed to be
an expert…