FreeNAS is an online storage operating system that has many features that make configuration and management easier. NAS (Network-Attached Storage) - a computer connected to the network and designed for data storage and file sharing. In most cases, it uses a stripped down OS optimized for security and reliability. Unlike a simple file server, FreeNAS installation is more like a device than a server, because it works without a display, keyboard, and mouse.
Network Storage Features
To create a home NAS, they first select a platform for use from various environments: OpenMediaVault, XigmaNAS, Openfiler, and FreeNAS. Most users think the last on the list is the best for home storage. He has an excellent community that helps in solving problems, supports a large number of software and, most importantly, the OpenZFS file system.
Useful FreeNAS Installation Features:
- Web interface After installation, you can manage the entire configuration through it. There is no need to connect a keyboard or monitor to the device.
- Support for several protocols, including CIFS (Samba), FTP, TFTP, NFS, SSH and many others.
- Support for open source ZFS file system. It includes several features, such as data integrity protection, automatic recovery, and RAID-Z.
- Remote monitoring, which allows you to control and control the device. Syslog support helps remotely forward NAS logs.
- SNMP monitoring remotely polls performance counters and other information. Email alerts can also be configured to provide additional monitoring of device status.
Hardware Requirements for FreeNAS
FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD, therefore it supports the same hardware as indicated on the compatibility list. To create a high-performance NAS using the ZFS file system, you will need a computer with a 64-bit processor and at least 6 GB of RAM.
Basic hardware requirements for installing FreeNAS:
- Computer with preferred x64 architecture.
- A motherboard with at least 4 sata ports.
- Lan port at least 1 and 1 Gbit.
- Excellent brand: Intel.
- 1 GB of RAM.
- Removable unit (USB) at least 8 GB.
- At least 8 GB USB drive for OS installation.
- Download the latest stable OS version.
- Etcher is a tool for installing on FreeNAS flash drives from ISO.
Popular and stable software modification
FreeNAS11 is a Free / Open Source solution based on the FreeBSD OS used to store network data with the powerful ZFS file system for storing and managing user data. The software was released by the FreeNAS development team, an open source solution that includes a number of enterprise-class features: a unified data warehouse, plug-in support, Jails, and virtual machine management (VM). FreeNAS is used for sites, small businesses, large companies with hundreds of users.
The basic software update has been upgraded to the new FreeNAS 11 installation with security patches and new drivers to improve the overall performance of Intel XEON and AMD Ryzen hardware components. Another new feature included in this version is the cloud sync feature, which allows you to move or copy data to public clouds such as Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Services), Backblaze B2 Cloud, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
Users of this operating system for NAS servers will be able to start using Docker containers on servers to virtualize applications and systems. Installing FreeNAS 11, like previous versions, needs 8 GB of RAM to work, in addition to a 64-bit processor.
Installing the program on the hard drive
FreeNAS can be installed on a hard drive, memory card or USB flash drive. When placing software on a hard drive, it must be assigned specifically for the OS and cannot be used to store other files. To get started, download the ISO file and burn it to a CD. If FreeNAS is installed on a 32-bit system, the i386 file is downloaded; if the 64-bit processor is installed, the amd64 iso file is used.
Starting a network installation of FreeNAS:
- After the ISO image is written to disk, it is inserted into the computer and downloaded from it. After the live cd download is complete, the installation wizard starts.
- On the first screen, select option 1 (install / update).
- Select the drive to install FreeNAS.
- Confirm disk selection. The destination disk will be deleted, so you need to choose the right one.
- Reboot the system and remove the installation disk.
- After assigning an IP address, you can connect to FreeNAS using the web interface. To connect, open a web browser and enter the address that is assigned to the NAS.
- The default username and password for the web interface is admin / freenas.
- In the web interface, you can configure shared resources, enable or disable services, and access reports and monitoring functions.
Starting a bootable USB drive
To start, a USB flash drive with a stable ISO image of FreeNAS and Etcher is pre-prepared.
Preparing equipment for installing and configuring FreeNAS NAS:
- Connect devices to available SATA ports. The more ports, the more drives are installed.
- It is important to correctly configure the BIOS settings on the motherboard so that the system can boot first from the module in which the image is unpacked.
- Hard drives for storage can be of any type, there is no special setting for them. It is recommended that they all be the same size during storage. RAM rules for each terabyte are at least 1 GB of RAM, and if you plan to run plugins, then the memory should be more. For example, when using 24 GB (2x4 GB and 2x8 GB).
Installation process
FreeNAS supports UEFI for download, so you can choose between this format or the classic legacy of BIOS.
Installation process:
- At startup, select the “FreeNAS Installer” option by default.
- Select option 1 Install / Upgrade, which will show a list of available modules. If you intend to use USB as the boot device of the operating system, it will always use the ada0 device.
- As soon as the device is selected, a warning appears that the contents of the device will be deleted, you must use flash media and click "OK."
- Choose a password for the root user - remember or write it down. The only way to recover the forgotten root password is to restart the installation process, which is very long and difficult.
- The screen will show the choice of the type of Boot to go to UEFI or Boot Bios (legacy), which depends entirely on the installed hardware.
- Click "OK", remove the installation USB.
- From this moment, you can turn off the monitor and keyboard, that is, the NAS needs only a network point and a power source.
- In the last step, the console will show many options.
- Enter as the user the root password that is selected during installation.
- Then in the menu go to the parameter "System" -> "Advanced" and uncheck the box "Show text console without asking for a password."
- The next step is a recommendation: change the default port (which is 80).
- Set up mail with a Gmail account. Having placed all the data, click "Send Mail" to see if everything is working fine.
Storage configuration
You can change the storage configuration at the request of the user. To do this, go to the menu Storage -> Pools and click on the yellow round button with a "+" in the center to add a new pool. The ZFS file system is only managed when problems arise - it solves them independently and warns the user in advance if it is necessary to replace a failed module. On the screen, select the drives to use.
After the pool is created, a dataset is created. To do this, return to Storage -> Pools. In the far right corner, click on three points to access the option.
Adding a dataset:
- Select “Add Dataset”, assign a name and click “Save”.
- Click on the menu item "Access to shared resources" (Windows, SMB), provide shared access to the folder so that any OS can get it.
- Then, by clicking on the yellow icon, they gain access to the parameters for creating the first share or folder and give it a name.
- The system automatically activates the SMB service, otherwise you can do it manually. Go to the Services menu and enable the SSH service.
Plug-in system 11th modification
Any plugins created or installed using a previous version of FreeNAS must be managed using the 11th version interface. The plugin is used for offline installation of applications with integration in the web interface, which allows you to install and configure FreeNAS. The Available Plugins page lists the name of the plugin, description, current version and its official support.
If the list does not appear, open Shell and make sure that FreeNAS is able to ping addresses on the network. In cases where this is not possible, add the default gateway address or DNS. Global configuration of installing and configuring FreeNAS 11 NAS:
- Click (Options) and install the desired plugin.
- Configure DHCP to automatically configure IP address settings or manually enter an IPv4 / IPv6 address.
- Click ADVANCED PLUGIN INSTALLATION to show all options for the plugin. Parameters are described in the extended section.
- Click SAVE when the plugin installation is complete.
- Installation takes a couple of minutes, because the system downloads and configures the jail. Then a confirmation message will appear at the bottom of the monitor.
- Plugins are also added to Jails as a pluginv2 plugin. It must be running before the application becomes available.
- To install the FreeNAS 11 plugins, click “Options” and “Start”. The status of the plugin changes to up when it starts successfully.
- Not all plugins have a functional control option. They can be updated by running .iocage update PLUGIN on the command line.
- If the application is not available as a plugin, you can create a new one for FreeNAS. This requires a GitHub account.
Create a new volume
The first step in setting up a file share is to create a volume. A volume consists of one or more physical disks.
Creation Algorithm:
- In order to create a new volume, click on the "Storage" tab, then on the "Create volume" button.
- Assign a name to that and select participants' disks. If you select more than one drive, the options will become available.
- Choose the type of file system ZFS or UFS ZFS - the best configuration, but it requires a more powerful computer.
- Click "Add Volume" to complete the creation. This process will delete all files on the disk, so you need to be careful.
- Click on the image to view it in full size.
- The first step in adding a file share is creating a volume, this can be done by clicking on the storage tab.
- Click "Create Volume", then select the physical disk. After successful creation, it will be listed as the active volume.
- Volumes are divided into data sets, each of which is assigned different quotas. They allow you to apply compression to a data set without the need to compress the entire volume, for example, you can create separate data sets for video, images and music with individual settings. This allows the user to control access to shared resources at a more detailed level.
Setting up services and promotions
FreeNAS supports several different protocols that allow clients to access files on the NAS in a variety of ways. By default, all services are disabled, so it is recommended that you enable only those services that you plan to use in order to save system resources and increase security.
In order to enable services, click the “Services” tab in the web interface and select any service that you want to enable. Individuals can be turned on or off in the services tab. After you can start adding shared resources. To set up sharing, click the Shares tab, choose Apple, Unix, or Windows. A share path can point to a volume or data set.
As an open source platform, FreeNAS has many features that users will not find in most commercial NAS products. The software documentation contains a lot of useful information on how to configure various services in sharing systems.
Installing the application on a virtual machine
Software installation is performed on the VirtualBox virtual machine if there is no dedicated PC. The first thing to do is download the operating system by going to the FreeNas website and downloading it. Download is absolutely affordable and free.
Virtual server deployment process:
- As soon as the user enters the boot menu, he chooses the transition to Sourceforge.
- Select a file depending on the architecture that is in the system. If the computer is old, you need to select x86. The most modern equipment is compatible with the 64-bit version. Depending on the processor architecture, choose the first or second option.
- After the choice of loading the FreeNAS architecture is made, go to the page where all the downloads are located. ISO takes approximately 100 MB. Then download and install VirtualBox in its latest version and create a virtual machine.
- Choose the amount of RAM. The automatic size is -128 MB, but it is recommended to use 1 GB so that a warning message about insufficient memory does not appear.
- As soon as the size of RAM is selected, choose the main hard drive. By default, VDI is correct for VirtualBox.
- Choose a fixed X GB or dynamic way to set the disk size. 2 GB will be enough.
- In the “Configuration” section and in the “Storage”, place the ISO (image), which was downloaded from FreeNAS and add a SATA controller and several hard drives.
- The next screen shows the installation and configuration of FreeNAS 11 1, the completion of the process, after which you need to remove the CD and confirm “OK” to reboot.
Maximize Transmission Capabilities
Now that FreeNAS is running, you need to maximize the machine, that is, perform performance tuning. You can install the torrent client on it to download your favorite torrents:
- FreeNAS is installed on a USB flash drive.
- Configures file sharing.
- SSH access to FreeNAS.
- The FreeNAS Mailbox has Internet access.
Installing transmission daemon FreeNAS:
- Open your favorite SSH client, for example, PuTTY and connect to FreeNAS.
- Log in as root.
- Create a download folder internally from one of the shared resources using the command: mkdir / mnt / <path to your shared resource> / Downloads. The path that appears in Windows Explorer is not really a path in FreeNAS. All volumes created in the web interface are located in the / mnt folder. If you need to see the volumes inside the software prescribe: cd / mnt. Next, change the owner of the Downloads folder using: chown -R www: www / mnt / <path to your folder> / Downloads.
- Transmission installation. In order for the system to survive after a reboot, you need to make it writable: mount -uw /.
- Then set the transmission: pkg_add -r transmission-daemon.
- Edit /conf/base/etc/rc.conf and /conf/base/etc/rc.d/transmission
- Using the command, execute: /conf/base/etc/rc.conf.
- Delete everything, constantly press CTRL + K to delete line by line.
- Restart FreeNAS, it is necessary to start the transfer daemon and to create directories in the "Downloads.
- In order to access the web interface of the Transmission Web GUI, open a browser, then follow the link freenas: 9091.
Thus, we can draw a line - the free server application FreeNAS for NAS installation performs all the functions of storing and exchanging files on the network super-functionally. In addition, the system can be expanded with plugins or add-ons.