Nas4free Setup and User Guide
Nas4free Setup and User Guide
Nas4free Setup and User Guide
The goal of this manual is to provide a starting point for you to install and use NAS4Free. Sections 1
and 2 of this manual cover basic installation of NAS4Free and include processes and procedures that
may help you configure and use some of the services included in NAS4Free. If you need to know how
to do something, you may find it in these first 2 sections of the manual.
Sections 3 and beyond cover details and more advanced features of NAS4Free. In these sections you
can find brief explanations about the options and settings you see in the WebGUI. If you need to know
what something is or does, you will probably find it in Section 3 or beyond.
NAS4Free is easy to install, configure and manage. It is arguably the simplest and most full featured
NAS OS available in 2012. However, NAS4Free is not a turnkey system, you are the OEM, it is up to
you to already know or learn about the services and features provided by NAS4Free so you can make
effective use of your server.
Warning - While trying to be as helpful as possible, this manual WILL NOT TRY TO:
* Teach you what RAID is, how to set-up a network or manage a firewall.
* Teach you system administration and how to manage Users and Groups.
* Help you select the best MotherBoard or hard drive controller, etc..
* Show you how to do many other things like how to configure iSCSI to work with your ESXi server in
an AD Domain.
You will need to know things like this already or learn about them from other resources.
1 Introduction
NAS4Free can be installed onto a wide range of hardware. Anything from a actual server to an old PC
you may have laying around!
Note - Where NAS4Free is installed on a bootable USB Drive, CF Drive or Hard Drive, the bootable
Live-CD/USB should be removed once NAS4Free is installed.
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Warning !
512MB of RAM is the minimum required for upgrading the Embedded platforms.
1GB of RAM is the minimum required for starting the Full platform.
Using advanced features like software RAID-5, ZFS and enabling lots of functions may need
more RAM (1GB or greater).
For using ZFS, we recommend a absolute minimum of 2GB RAM using a 64-bits install by using
the latest NAS4Free-x64 releases.
1.2 Limitations
Local User/Password feature is covered in this document. Additional notes are available in the
changelog on the NAS4Free website.
UFS-formatted Storage drives are supported and will work with MS Windows accross the LAN.
UFS is the native NAS4Free filesystem: using other filesystem for data storage is not
recommended.
FAT, NTFS and EXT2/3 can be used to transfer bulk data to an UFS formatted drive ONLY.
Only EXT2/3 revision 0 with Inode size of 128 bytes supported. Revision 1 uses a inode size of
256 bytes which is not supported by FreeBSD. When create ext2/3 partitions, using 128 bytes
via '-I 128' could solve this problem but the file system is permanently in 'not clean' state.
SCSI, PATA (IDE), SATA, CF and USB drives are supported.
NAS4Free's boot drive partition cannot be used as part of any RAID array. Only whole disks can
be used to form a RAID array.
USB drives can be hot-plugged, but new external USB drives will need to be ADDED and
MOUNTED, before using as described later in this guide.
Any drive (USB, ZIP, CD-Rom) MUST be first unmounted before removing it. A reboot could
occur otherwise.
Using CIFS/SMB to read/write any file(s) on a FAT32 drive partition is known to corrupt files!
2 Installation
1. Download the NAS4Free ISO, burn it to a CD-ROM, then boot from the CD-ROM. The Initial
Configuration is done via the NAS4Free Console Setup Menu on the NAS4Free PC.
After this stage NAS4Free will be installed on and run from your drive. However, you still need
to complete the second step to make NAS4Free operational. This step is optional: You can run
NAS4Free from a CDROM and a MS DOS floppy disk or USB device to store configuration.
2. Basic Configuration via the WebGUI.
After this stage your NAS4Free server will be operational having a basic configuration.
3. Advanced configuration via WebGUI and Command Shell.
Sections 1 and 2 of this manual cover processes and procedures that may help you configure
and use NAS4Free. It is up to you to read and understand the various options and features
offered by NAS4Free and to decide How-to and What-to-do based on your own requirements.
Further customization, such as RAID configuration and localization to your environment can then be
performed.
You can use NAS4Free with the CDROM and an MSDOS formatted floppy disk or USB key.
The floppy disk or USB key must be already MSDOS formatted (NAS4Free will not format it).
NAS4Free will try to find its configuration file (config.xml) in the directory “conf” at the root of
your removable disk. If there is no existing configuration file, NAS4Free will create the directory
“conf” and save its configuration file in it.
This description assumes the NAS4Free PC hardware is capable of booting from a CD Rom and has a
floppy/flash/usb/hdd for storage.
Ensure your computer’s BIOS is configured to boot from “CDROM” first, to prevent other media from
being booted instead.
Insert the CDROM in the CD/DVD drive, and boot your PC. After NAS4Free has booted with no error
message concerning “no floppy disk found” you can skip the section 2.3 and go to section 2.4 directly
Installing NAS4Free wipes any existing content on the destination disk. Existing files will be deleted as
part of the installation process.
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Don't install NAS4Free on disk bigger than 2TB (NAS4Free support theses disks as “data” disk only,
not as system boot disk).
This description assumes the NAS4Free PC hardware is capable of booting from a CD-Rom and has a
boot Hard Drive (than can also be an USB key or CF card) and may have one or more Hard Drives for
storage. * Download the NAS4Free ISO and burn the image onto a CD-Rom.
Place the NAS4Free CD in the CD-Rom and boot from CD (Don't connect your flash device at this
moment, connect it until you see the console menu below, otherwise LiveCD will write its
default configuration file to the root of your flash device lead to the following installation fail).
Wait until the NAS4Free Console Setup Menu comes up
If you want to install NAS4Free to flash devices, connect it now, NAS4Free will display new
device information on the screen, press Enter to back to console menu
select option 9 to install NAS4Free on your hard disk/flash devices
"Welcome to NAS4Free"
"*********************"
1) Assign Interface
2) Set LAN IP address
3) Reset WebGUI password
4) Reset to factory defaults
5) Ping host
6) Shell
7) Reboot system
8) Shutdown system
9) Install/Upgrade to hard drive/flash device, etc.
You can choose to have a single HDD installation (option 2 or 3 below), that is - have a
NAS4Free boot partition and a second one on the same HDD as Storage(DATA).
"Install"
"*********************"
1) Install 'embedded' OS on HDD/Flash/USB
2) Install 'embedded' OS on HDD/Flash/USB + DATA + SWAP partition
3) Install 'full' OS on HDD + DATA + SWAP partition
4) upgrade 'embedded' OS from CDROM
5) Upgarde 'full' OS from CDROM
6) Upgrade and convert 'full' OS to 'embedded'
If you select 1:
This option would install NAS4Free on a drive entirely dedicated for OS (this drive cannot be used for
storage). It’s the recommended option if you are using CF card or USB Key
Select the Source CD drive (acd0 for example if you have only one ATA CDROM drive).
Select the Destination HDD that you want to install and boot NAS4Free from (da0 for example if
you want to install it on a USB key).
If you select 2 or 3: This would install NAS4Free on a drive and the remainder of the drive will be
UFS-formatted for being used for storage(DATA) by creating two partitions on the drive
Select the Source CD drive (acd0 for example if you have one ATA CDROM drive).
Select the Destination HDD that you want to install and boot NAS4Free from (ad0 for example if
you want to install it on the master hard drive on the ATA channel 1).
In both cases, once NAS4Free is installed, follow the instructions, remove the CD and when the menu
comes up again
Pree ESC or select 'Exit' and enter to exit to the main menu
Select 7 to reboot the computer.
If you have installed it on a USB key: Ensure your computer’s BIOS is configured to boot from “USB
hard drive” – some BIOS do not support this (“USB FDD” or “USB ZIP” should be tested).
Check that the menu option 9) is no longer present: If it is, then you are still booting from the
CDROM.
Go to the LAN Interface and IP configuration section of this document.
NAS4Free uses FreeBSD as underlying OS, and FreeBSD is not Linux!!!! The disk convention naming
under FreeBSD is:
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3 Initial configuration
Once you have installed NAS4Free on a CF, HDD or USB drive and the computer has rebooted
from that device, and when the menu is up again,
"Console setup"
"*********************"
1) Assign Interface
2) Set LAN IP address
3) Reset WebGUI password
4) Reset to factory defaults
5) Ping host
6) Shell
7) Shutdown system
8) PowerOff system
The default configuration of NAS4Free is to use the first detected NIC (Network Interface Card) with
the IP address set to 192.168.1.250.
Select 1 and enter the name of your Ethernet Interface (fxp0 in my case, yours may be
different)
Press <Return> at the Optional 1 Interface prompt, select ‘y’ and reboot the PC.
Once the computer has rebooted and the menu is up again, select 2 and choose to use or not to
use the DHCP client. If not, enter your IP Address settings (192.168.8.128 and /24 in my
example).
Once the menu is up, select 5 and ping another device on the subnet and ensure network
connectivity is OK (remember that it is not possible to ping a computer protected by a personal
firewall). Disable the firewall first.
FreeBSD doesn’t use generic network interface name as Linux (eth0 for example). The network
interface name is dependant of the drivers used:
Warning: fwip0 & fwe0 are firewire ports. If you see fwip0 or fwe0 on you port list, DO NOT
use it. Better yet, turn off firewire in the BIOS if you are not using those ports for
anything.
NAS4Free transfer rates are very dependent on network transfer speeds more so than cpu and
memory performance.
If you experience slow transfer rates to and from the NAS4Free, connect the desktop directly to
the NAS with a crossover cable
Speed and Duplex settings can then be adjusted to test with the computers directly connected
The switch I connected to my NAS with required all interfaces to be set at auto negotation. The
crossover cable will allow you to test/troubleshoot and bypass possible switch bottlenecks. The switch
I am using is due for replacement and the crossover cable isolated the bottleneck
If you can ping another device from the NAS4Free PC, then from another computer on the same
subnet, point your Web Browser at the NAS4Free PCs IP Address (http://192.168.8.128 in this
example) You should be presented with a login/password dialogue box like that shown here.
The NAS4Free team strongly recommend that the default User name and Password be changed
before putting NAS4Free into production.
You should be presented with the NAS4Free Web GUI System Status page as shown on the next page.
The currently loaded version of NAS4Free is displayed on this page as well as other useful
information.
WebGUI Layout
NAS4Free web pages are configured with the Navigation Tree in the Left Hand side of the page and
the Display and Data entry area to the right of the Navigation Tree.
The NAS4Free Host name is displayed on this and all other NAS4Free WebGUI pages. This is useful
when more than one NAS4Free will be administered.
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The NAS4Free host name can be administered on the General setup page.
Within the Display and Data Entry areas of WebGUI pages, some displays have additional controls
such as those shown here.
A lot of this should be determined by your network administrator (which may be you).
Network|Interface Management: Your network adapters should have already been configured from the
console after initial installation. Most often, the network is set for “auto”, and it detects the correct
network card/driver. If not, you should be able to configure them on this screen.
Hostname
Domain
IPv4 and/or IPv6 DNS Servers (If using static IP, otherwise, these should be locked)
NAS4Free supports Software JBOD, RAID 0, 1 and 5 configurations as well as Hardware RAID. This
section describes configuring Software RAID 5. The process is virtually identical for all the others with
the exception of using geom. Vinum (unstable).
All disks must be the same size for all RAID types with the exception of JBOD and Geom RAID5 (it will
be based on the smallest disk).
Important - RAID does not equal backup. Even if you create a RAID array you must still keep another
copy of your data in a different location.
The NAS4Free team recommends configuring each of the RAID Disks as standalone Storage Disks first
to ensure they are fully functional and supported under NAS4Free. Once confirmed, remove any of the
mount points and Disks for the RAID drives to ensure a clean start. The following description assumes
that the drives have been confirmed as functional.
The High-Level process flow for configuring a simple RAID array is:
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1. Add Disks
2. Format Disks for “Software RAID”
3. Create the RAID array using the previously formatted for “Software RAID”
4. Format the newly created RAID array in UFS filesystem
5. Add Mount Point
6. Enable Services (CIFS, FTP, etc.)
7. For CIFS you have to create share.
To remove a RAID array, remove the mount point first and delete the RAID.
Follow the Add Disk process as described above to add each of the Disks to be used in a RAID array.
In the example below, I have added 4 identically sized hard drives.
You cannot use the 2nd partition of a NAS4Free boot drive as a part of a RAID array. Only whole disks
can be used to form a RAID array.
Open the Disk:Format TAB, select each of the Disks in turn and ensure the File system is changed to
Software RAID, click the Format Disk button and confirm your action.
Initializing partition:
Destroying old GMIRROR information:
Done!
Open the Disks/Software RAID page and choose your Software RAID type.
Click the icon on the right hand side to Add a new RAID 5.
Click and select each of the drives to be used in this RAID array.
Drives will not appear here unless they have previously been formatted as Software RAID
Click the Add button and when prompted, click the Apply Changes button.
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But you can use your raid during the building process! (even if it’s in ‘REBUILDING state).
When the Status is up or rebuilding, then the RAID array must be formatted.
Open the Disk:Format menu and choose the newly created RAID array:
Leave the Type as UFS (GPT and Soft Update), click the Format Disk button and confirm.
A display similar to this should be output (example when the RAID 5 was in state ‘rebuilding’):
(You should have lot’s of more line as this example! On this example the drive was a small 200MB)
Once the RAID array is formatted, all that is left is to mount the array. Open the Disk/Mount Point
page and click the icon on the right hand side.
From the Disk drop down, select the RAID disk. The RAID name you previously configured is visible.
The Status should display as configuring, and then click the Apply Changes button and the Status
should update to UP.
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Your Geom RAID5 array is now ready for use. If you have already enabled CIFS, FTP or NFS, then the
array, with the defined Share name, will be visible across you network.
A healthy RAID array will show all the State: values as UP or COMPLETE.
RAID 1 and RAID 5 arrays may take some time to synchronise completely, be patient and monitor the
status of the RAID synchronisation by continuing to refresh the Information page.
Note - Supplemental step by step instructions for removing / replacing failed drives in SoftRAID1 and
SoftRAID 5 arrays are available in FAQs:
In the case of a failure on one hard drive, your RAID array is in the ‘DEGRADED’ state:
Here is an example with the RAID 1 array named “mirroire” in “DEGRADED” state with a missing hard
drive:
And we can check that the disk is missing in the Disk/Management page:
First Step
For replacing this disk: Stop NAS4Free and replace this disk with a new one (in the same place on the
ATA or SCSI channel). And restart NAS4Free.
After restarting NAS4Free, the Disk/Management should display it back (ONLINE if it’s the same, or
CHANGED if it’s a different disk).
The Software RAID 1 status is still ‘DEGRADED’, we must add this new disk:
Second Step
Open the Disk/Software RAID/Geom mirror/Tools page and select your DEGRADED RAID array and
action “forget” (The Disk field is not used on this first action).
Third Step
Still on this Disk/Software RAID/Geom mirror/Tools page, re-select your DEGRADED RAID array, the
select the newly replaced Disk, and choose action “insert”:
You can now check your RAID status (Disk/Software RAID/Geom mirror): It should be ‘REBUILDING” or
“COMPLETE” (the time needed for rebuilding depend of your disk size).
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You should check the Disk/Mount Status too, as sometimes needs a remount.
In the case of a failure on one hard drive, your RAID array is in the ‘DEGRADED’ state.
Here is an example with the RAID 5 array “bigdisk” with a missing hard drive:
First Step
For replacing this disk: Stop NAS4Free and replace this disk with a new one (in the same place on the
ATA or SCSI channel). And restart NAS4Free.
After restarting NAS4Free, the Disk/Management should display it back (ONLINE if it’s the same, or
CHANGED if it’s a different disk).
The Software RAID 5 status is still ‘DEGRADED’, we must add this new disk:
Second Step
Open the Disk/Software RAID/Geom Raid5/Tools page and select your DEGRADED RAID array, the
replaced Disk name and action “insert”.
You can now check your RAID status (Disk/Software RAID/Geom raid5): It should be ‘REBUILDING” or
“COMPLETE” (the time needed for rebuilding depends on your disk size).
You should check the Disk/Mount Status too, as sometimes needs a remount.
Geom Vinum is all in one module permits you to create a software RAID 0,1 and 5 array. But, for the
moment the NAS4Free team doesn’t recommend you to use it because too many users have met with
problems using the RAID 5 option of this tool.
NAS4Free permits you to create advanced Software RAID combinations, for example:
RAID 1+0: Permits you to create a RAID 0 array using RAID 1 arrays
RAID 5+0: Permits you to create a RAID 0 array using RAID 5 arrays
RAID X + Y: Permits you to create a RAID Y array using RAID X arrays
The High-Level process flow for configuring a complex RAID X + Y array is:
1. Add the Disks (4 disks minimum for a RAID 1+0, 6 disks for a RAID 5+0)
2. Format Disks for “Software RAID”
3. Create the RAID X arrays using the previously formatted for “Software RAID”
4. Format the newly created RAID X arrays for “Software RAID”
5. Create the RAID Y array using the previously RAID X arrays formatted for “Software RAID”
6. Add Mount Point
7. Enable Services (CIFS, FTP, etc.)
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Users and groups in NAS4Free follow the unix/posix model of permissions, instead of the windows
model of “rights”. Sometimes this is confusing for users that come from a windows background.
This guide is a good start for getting familiar with unix/posix users/groups and the related permission
schemes.
Access|Groups|Add This screen allows you to create groups for purposes of your own choosing. Each
group consists of a group name, numeric group ID (GID), and an optional description.
Access|Users|Add This screen allows you to create users. Each user account consists of:
Username
Full name (optional)
Password
Numeric user ID (or UID)
Login shell (many users choose bash, accounts that shouldn't have shell access use “nologin”)
Primary group
Secondary group(s) (optional)
Home directory
Additionally, the user can be permitted/denied access to the “user portal” (somewhat restricted form
of the WebGUI)
Hostname
Version and build information
Detected system and CPU
System uptime
Last configuration commit
CPU temperature(s), speed, and usage
Memory Usage
Load averages
Disk usage
Status|Processes This screen essentially contains the output of “top”, a system and process viewer
with per-process memory and CPU usage information.
Status|Services This screen displays running and configured services. A green check in “enabled”
means the service should be running. Otherwise should not be running. A green check in “status”
means the service is configured. Otherwise isn't configured. (“Status” results aren't particularly
useful.)
Status|Interfaces This screen displays information about your network adapters, including: (for each
adapter)
Name (driver)
MAC Address
Gateway
Media (10baseT, 100baseTX, etc)
MTU
I/O Packets (count and size)
I/O Errors and collisions (should be rare on modern networks)
Status
Status|Disks This screen displays information about your (configured) disks, including: (for each
configured drive)
Status|Graph|Traffic graph This screen shows a running graph of traffic on the chosen network
adapter for as far back as the last 120 seconds. The graph starts empty, but progressively fills with
data. Once the graph is full (at 120 seconds), the graph will start to scroll and discard older data.
Status|Graph|CPU load This screen shows a CPU usage graph, very much similar to the traffic graph.
Status|Email Report If Emailing has been configured, this page will let you configure the option of
sending an email report to an email address of your choosing, either instantly or on a timed interval.
Diagnostics|Log This screen lets you display or download relevant logs about the system. These logs
include:
System
SSH
Daemon
FTP (and FTP transfers)
S.M.A.R.T.
Rsync (client, server, and local)
UPnP
DAAP
Diagnostics|Log|Settings This page allows you to control where logs are stored, and how they are
displayed.
Disks
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Diagnostics|Ping and Diagnostics|Traceroute These options are used for testing network/internet
connectivity.
Advanced|File Manager This page allows you to log into QuiXplorer to browse and manage files.
Execute a command (as if you were logged into the command line)
Download or Upload files
Execute PHP commands
Help|Report Generator Use this for generating reports to be posted in the Forum when asking for help
or helping to supply information for bug reports. It won't generate any text without “Subject”,
“Description”, and “Error” having something filled in. You'll still have to figure out where to post or
send that information.
Help|Forum This menu item links you directly to the NAS4Free Forums.
Help|Information & Manual This menu item links you directly to this wiki.
Help|IRC Live Support This menu item links you directly to the FreeNode WEB client for IRC and the
#NAS4Free channel
Help|Release Notes This page displays the release notes file included with the running version.
Help|License & Credits This page shows the License, Contributors, and Software used.
Help|Donate This menu item links to the NAS4Free donation system with Paypal.
DO NOT use a embedded firmware upgrade if your NAS4free server has less than 384MB RAM.
If a firmware upgrade fails (Broken Pipe or Mount/Umount related errors, etc), the only solution is to
re-install from scratch. This will delete all data on the OS disk. This has no effect on data-only drives,
just data stored on the OS drive.
512MB of RAM is the minimum system requirement for upgrading any Embedded version of
NAS4Free.
2GB RAM or higher is recommanded for a better system performance!
Backup Configuration
The WebGUI Interface and Setup needs to be inserted here, then we have single page SUG.
4 System|General
4.2 System|General|Password
5 System|Advanced
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5.1 Advanced
5.2 Email
5.3 Proxy
5.4 Swap
5.6 Cron
5.7 rc.conf
5.8 sysctl.conf
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