In this tutorial we will go beyond disks & sharing and configure the FTP, TFTP and SSH services. I will assume you have a FreeNAS system installed with at least one volume configured. For more information on installing FreeNAS and setting up volumes see my NAS Setup Guide.

Before activating the FTP or SSH services it is necessary to create a user. The first step is to add a Group to which all users who access the FreeNAS server will be members. To do this, click “Account” in the left menu tree. Click “Group” and then “Add Group.” Enter a “Group Name” (eg. freenasusers) and click “OK.” To add a user, click “Users” and then “Add User.” In the “Add User” dialog enter the “Username” (eg. “gary”), “Full Name” and “Password” (twice). Set the “Primary Group” to “freenasusers”, select “bash” for the “Shell” and enter a “Home Directory.” The home directory needs to be a directory somewhere on your volume. If there is a volume called “store” its path is “/mnt/store” and a good directory for a user would be “/mnt/store/gary” where “gary” is the user created above. Click “OK.”

Add a user

Note: If the home directory doesn’t exist, FreeNAS will automatically create it with the correct file permissions.

FTP

To configure and enable the FTP service, click “Services” on the toolbar below the FreeNAS logo and then click the small wrench icon next to “FTP”. On the “FTP Settings” dialog tick the box next to “Allow Local User Login”. Click “OK.” Now click the “FTP” “Off” switch to make it go from “Off” to “On.”

The FTP service is now running. Connecting to the FreeNAS server from any FTP client (on any OS with an FTP client) will allow the user to login and upload/download files. The working directory will be the home directory specified when the user was created.

Tick "Allow Local User Login"

SSH

Enabling the FTP service is simple. Click “Services” and click the “SSH” “Off” switch to make it go from “Off” to “On.”

The SSH service is now running. Linux and Mac OS X users can connect using the ssh command line tool. Windows users can download a free (and popular) ssh client known as PuTTY.

Enable home directories

It is worth noting that FreeNAS can be configured to provide home directories to all Windows users. To do this click “Services”, click the small wrench icon next to “CIFS”. On the “CIFS Settings” dialog, tick “Enable home directories” and enter the path in the “Home directories” field. The path should be one level up from where you have created the user directories. Above I used “/mnt/store/gary” and so the path should be set to “/mnt/store”. If I had used “/mnt/store/home/gary” as the home directory for the “gary” user, then the “Home directories” path would be “/mnt/store/home”. Click “OK” to set the options.

Enable home directories for Windows users

TFTP

FreeNAS provides a Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) service which is a simple, unauthenticated file sharing service often used to boot “dumb” devices or thin clients via the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) found on more advanced network cards.

To configure and enable the TFTP service, click “Services” and then click the small wrench icon next to “TFTP”. On the “TFTP Settings” dialog set the “Directory” to the place where the files to be shared are stored (eg. /mnt/store/tftproot”). Click “OK”. Click “Services” and click the “TFTP” “Off” switch to make it go from “Off” to “On.”

The directory needs to be created if it doesn’t exist and then the files you want to share via TFTP need to be copied into that directory.

Set the TFTP directory

Conclusion

As we have seen, FreeNAS 8 is versatile and can do much more than just share files on a Windows network.

Features like snapshots and inbuilt data integrity (where ZFS protects all data with 64-bit checksums that detect and correct silent data corruption) mean that ZFS is an excellent choice for high end NAS solutions. High end means systems with lots of disks and lots of RAM. A FreeNAS based ZFS system needs a minimum of 6 GB of RAM to achieve decent read/write performance and 8GB is preferred. For systems with more than 6TB of storage it is best to add 1GB of RAM for every extra 1TB of storage.

In this tutorial we will go through the steps to create a ZFS volume, create datasets within it and then look at the advantages of using snapshots. My test system has four hard drives, a 2GB drive for the FreeNAS installation and three 2TB drives for storage.

Starting with a fresh FreeNAS install, open a web browser and enter the address of the FreeNAS server (you can find the address from the console).

Create a ZFS Volume

To make disks available for storage they need to be added as a volume. The three 2TB disks on the test system can be added together as a RAID-Z set. RAID-Z is similar to RAID5 but it doesn’t suffer from a design flaw in RAID5 known as the “write hole.” This is where the RAID set can get into an inconsistent state if the server crashes, fails or loses power at just the wrong moment.

Create ZFS Volume

To create the ZFS RAID-Z volume, click the Storage icon in the toolbar below the FreeNAS logo. Click Create Volume, enter a Volume Name (eg. “store”) and click the disks to add to the RAID-Z set. RAID-Z needs a minimum of three disks. On my test system the three disks are called ada1, ada2 and ada3 (note that ada0 is the FreeNAS system disk). Choose “ZFS” and “RAID-Z” and click Add Volume.

The ZFS volume has now been created. The storage tab lists the configured volumes along with their size, free space and health. To see the drives used in any ZFS volume click the zpool status icon (the last icon in the actions list).

ZFS Pool Status

ZFS Datasets

At this point the whole 4TB volume can be shared on the network, or it can be optionally divided into ZFS datasets. A dataset is like a folder on the volume, but it acts like a filesystem in that it supports snapshots, quotas and compression. Once a dataset is created its permissions can be set independently to that of the ZFS volume. This means that several datasets can be created, one for each group of users (eg. sales, developers, and marketing).

Create ZFS Dataset

Click Create ZFS Dataset and enter a dataset name (eg. “sales”). If you don’t want to implement quotas or enable compression, leave the other fields as they are and click Add Dataset.

The storage tab lists the configured volume and the datasets. For the “marketing” dataset, I set a quota of 500GB by entering “500g” into the “Quota for this dataset” field on the “Create ZFS Dataset” dialog.

Active Volumes

ZFS Snapshots

A snapshot is an exact read-only copy of the filesystem at the time of the snapshot. They are quick to create and a snapshot with no differences to the current filesystem occupies no space (eg. 0MB). As the filesystem changes, the size of the snapshot grows to hold the differences between the current files and the those when the snapshot was taken.

Snapshots provide an easy and efficient way to keep a history of files and allow earlier versions of a file (or even deleted files) to be recovered. FreeNAS supports periodic snapshots which can be configured to be automatically taken at regular intervals (even every 15 minutes) and then automatically purged after a set period (eg. one week).

Create Snapshot

To manually create a snapshot click the Create Snapshot icon from the list of Available actions (it looks like a black square with a plus sign in the top right corner). Edit the Snapshot Name to something more meaningful (eg. the reason for creating the snapshot) and click Manually Create Snapshot. If you create a snapshot of a volume with datasets, it is best to tick “Recursive snapshot” as this ensures that the snapshot for the volume and its datasets all occur at the same time.

Rolling Back with a ZFS Snapshot

If the need arises to recover modified or deleted files from a snapshot there are two methods that can be used.

One method is to just roll back the entire volume or dataset to the snapshot. This is drastic in the sense that every file will be rolled back and nothing will be spared. This is useful in classroom settings where the volume can be rolled back at the end of every class to a known state. Or, for businesses, in the case of a security breach and/or infection with malware, the volume can be restored to a previous state before the intrusion. However, again, note that every change (and new file) that was made after the snapshot will be lost.

The second method is to clone the snapshot and make this writable copy temporarily available on the network. Cloned snapshots act exactly like ZFS volumes or ZFS datasets. They can be shared on the network, the permissions can be altered and a further snapshot can even be created. The idea is that the clone can be shared on the network and then once the needed files have been copied off, the clone can be deleted.

Clone snapshot

To create a clone click ZFS Snapshots (which is just above the “Create ZFS Dataset” icon). Find the desired snapshot and click the Clone Snapshot icon. Click Clone Snapshot on the dialog. Click Active Volumes to see the list of volumes and datasets. At the bottom the cloned snapshot can be seen. This cloned snapshot can now be shared on the network over CIFS, NFS or AFP.

Active volumes list includes cloned snapshots

We have now created a ZFS volume, ZFS datasets and ZFS snapshots and went over two methods for recovering files with your snapshots.

FreeNAS 8, which was released earlier this year, is a very different beast to its predecessor. FreeNAS 0.7 had minimal system requirements (in terms of memory and CPU power), and was intended for the home and small office environment. However FreeNAS 8 is aimed squarely at the professional NAS market. The minimum memory requirement is 4GB (compared to 0.7′s 256MB), and for production systems at least 6GB is recommended. This is because FreeNAS 8 prefers ZFS over the simpler UFS used in FreeNAS 0.7. If you don’t have a monster server with 6GB of RAM, it is still possible to use FreeNAS 8 with more modest hardware, but without ZFS. Here are more details on the FreeNAS hardware requirements.

In this tutorial we will go through the steps needed to boot and install FreeNAS 8 on a modest system with two hard drives. The first hard drive is a small 2GB drive to hold the FreeNAS operating system and the second a 2TB drive for serving data to the network.

FreeNAS 8 Setup Guide

Get hold of a copy of FreeNAS 8 from freenas.org. FreeNAS comes in 32 bit and 64 bit flavours so make sure you download the right .ISO image for your hardware. Burn the .ISO files onto a CD. If you don’t have software to burn .ISO files, then imgburn.com is a good place to start.

Put the CD into the PC that you want to use for FreeNAS, and boot it. The chances are that the machine will boot from the CD, however if it doesn’t then you will need to enter the BIOS (normally by pressing the DEL key during the initial boot phase) of the PC and configure the machine to boot from CD.

Wait for the setup menu to appear and press 1 to “Install/Upgrade to hard drive/flash device, etc.” Select the hard drive where FreeNAS will be installed. This is likely to be ad0 (the first hard drive in FreeBSD-speak). Confirm that you would like to continue with the installation.

Note: FreeNAS 8 can also be installed on a USB flash disk. This saves a disk slot which can be used for data storage.

The install should only take about 30 seconds. When prompted remove the CD, hit the Enter key and select option 3 to “Reboot System.” The system will now reboot from the first hard drive (or the USB key).

Once booted, you will see the Console Setup menu. From here you can configure the networking, configure DNS, reboot the system, and so on. Towards the bottom you will see the current IP address of the server, under where it says “You may try the following URLs to access the web user interface.”

Note down the address (eg. http://192.168.1.167) and move to a PC which is connected to the same network as your FreeNAS server. Open a web browser and enter the address of the FreeNAS server.

Setting a Static IP Address

It is often useful to have servers on fixed addresses rather than relying on DHCP. Click the “Network” icon in the toolbar below the FreeNAS logo. Click “Interfaces” in the “Network Settings” tab which has now appeared in the right pane.

There will be one (or possibly two) interfaces listed. Click “Edit” on the primary network interface. Enter a name for the network card in the “Interface” field (you can just copy what is in the NIC field). Un-tick “DHCP” and enter the static IP address you wish to use in the “IPv4 Address” field. Select the appropriate netmask from the “IPv4 Netmask” drop-down, probably “/24 (255.255.255.0).” Click “OK.”

Reboot the server using the “Reboot” option at the bottom of the left hand menu. In the web browser enter the new static IP address into the URL bar.

Storage

Before a disk can be used it needs to be added to a Volume. Besides the small disk for the FreeNAS system, my test server has a single 2TB hard drive for data. To configure the storage, click the “Storage” icon in the toolbar below the FreeNAS logo. Click “Create Volume.” Enter a “Volume name” (eg. “Data”) and click the disk (ada1 on my test server) from the list. Choose “UFS” and click “Add Volume.”

Add a User

Unless you want to grant universal unrestricted read and write access to your data over the network, you will need to define one or more users who are allowed to access the FreeNAS server. The first step is to add a Group to which all users who access the FreeNAS server will be members. To do this, click “Account” in the left menu tree. Click “Group” and then “Add Group.” Enter a “Group Name” (eg. freeusers) and click “OK.” To add a user, click “Users” and then “Add User.” In the “Add User” dialog enter the “Username,” “Full Name” and “Password” (twice), and click “OK.”

Click “View All Users” and then click “Auxiliary Groups” for the new user. Find the “freeusers” group and click the double chevron (“>>”) to add this user to the group. Click “OK.”

Before configuring the network shares, the storage needs to be configured so that the “freeusers” group has write access. Click the “Storage” icon in the toolbar and then click the “Change Permissions” icon (the one with the key). Set the “Owner (user)” to “nobody” and the “Owner (group)” to “freeusers”. Tick the “Write” permission for “Group”, tick “Set permission recursively” and click “Change.”

Sharing over the Network

Click “Sharing” on the toolbar below the FreeNAS logo. Click “Windows” in the “Shares” tab and then click “Add Windows Share.” Enter a “Name” for the share and a “Comment.” Enter the path to the disk in the “Path” field. This path is made up of “/mnt/” + the volume name entered when the storage was added; for example, “/mnt/Data”. You can also use the “Browse” button to find the volume. Click “OK” to create the network share.

Click “Services” on the toolbar below the FreeNAS logo and then click “CIFS” (Common Internet File System) to switch the service from “Off” to “On.”

Connect from Windows

On a Windows 7 machine double click “Computer” (or click on “Computer” from the Windows start menu). In the address bar enter “\\freenas\data”. Enter the username and password from the “Add a User” section above and click “OK.” The PC is now connected to the FreeNAS server with access to read and write files.

The steps are very similar for a Windows XP machine. Double-click “My Computer” (or click on “My Computer” from the Start menu). In the address bar enter “\\freenas\data”. Enter the username and password from the “Add a User” section above and click “OK.” The XP PC now has read and write access to the FreeNAS server.

iSCSI stands for Internet SCSI and allows client machines to send SCSI commands to remote storage servers such as FreeNAS. This allows you to consolidate your storage drives into a single machine for lower cost per GB and easier maintenance, with the illusion of local disk drives on your client machines. The functionality to use iSCSI drives is built into both Windows Vista and Server 2008 natively. At the higher end you can also use iSCSI for low cost clustering solutions and disaster recovery.

In the past this was usually done using special hardware and Fibre cabling, though with iSCSI you can leverage your existing network infrastructure. It should be noted that depending on the network load and performance requirements of your servers this can be drastically slower than the dedicated options. For a high performance production application you can still use iSCSI but I would look at setting it up on its own network at 1GB speeds.

How Does iSCSI Work?

There are two parts to the iSCSI protocol, the first being clients and the second being storage devices.

Clients are called iSCSI initiators and can be configured either using hardware or software solutions. As I mentioned earlier this functionality is already built into Vista and Server 2008, so we will not have to add any software/hardware to these machines.

The storage devices are called iSCSI targets and must be running some type of software/hardware to receive the incoming requests from the iSCSI initiators. Luckily FreeNAS has the ability to create iSCSI drives as part of its core package so I am going to use the FreeNAS server I used in a past demo.

Setup iSCSI Target Drive on FreeNAS Server

I’m going to use FreeNAS as the iSCSI target, and if you are going to follow along with this demo, it is imperative that you have one setup as well.

If you don’t you can read how to setup FreeNAS server and then come back to this article for the next steps.

This demo is going to assume that while the hard drives are installed in the server they are NOT added to the FreeNAS interface.

1. Connect to your FreeNAS server through the WebGUI using your favorite browser. In the top menu select Disks, then click Management.

2. Click on the plus sign in the lower right corner to add drives.

3. Next to Disk, choose the drive you want to add from the drop down, and if you want enter a description for it next to Description.

I usually leave the rest of the settings at default then click Add.

4. When you go back to the Disk Management screen you will be asked to confirm the addition by clicking on Apply changes, go ahead and do that now.

5. From the top menu choose Services, then iSCSI Target.

6. Click on the plus sign in the Extent area.

7. The Bolded fields are required, so place a name in the Extent name field, leave the Type as Device, and then choose the Device you want in the dropdown.

You can also enter a note in the comment field for reference. When you have set your options click on Add.

8. When you get back to the iSCSI Target page click on Apply changes.

9. Click on the plus sign in the Target area.

10. As before the Bolded fields are required. Here is a breakdown of the fields:

• Target name: Add your own or leave the default
• Flags: RW for Read/Write or RO for Read Only
• Storage: Will have the extents listed that were setup, choose the one you want to use
• Authorized Network: Enter the IP network that can access this drive. For example if your IP was 192.168.1.100, you would enter 192.168.1.0 Most people will leave the 24 in the dropdown if your subnet mask is 255.255.255.0

Once you fill in all the info click on Add.

11. Back at the iSCSI target page you need to click on Apply changes once again.

12. Now place a check in the box next to Enable in the top right corner and then click Save and Restart in the bottom left.

The iSCSI Target drive is now setup and ready for use.

Setup iSCSI Initiator on Vista

Now that the iSCSI target drive is ready, let’s go in and configure our Vista client machine to use it.

1. Click on the Start menu and type iSCSI into the menu bar and hit Enter.

2. Depending on your settings you may get a UAC warning, go ahead and approve if you do.

3. If this is the first time you are using iSCSI you will get a warning that the iSCSI service is not running and it is asking if you want to start the service and also have it automatically start with your computer. Go ahead and click Yes.

4. The next window that appears will ask if you want to unblock the Microsoft iSCSI service in Windows Firewall. Click on Yes.

5. When the iSCSI Initiator Properties appears click on the Discovery tab.

6. Click on Add Portal…

7. Place the IP address of the iSCSI target in the text field labeled IP address or DNS name: and then click OK.

8. Click on the Targets tab.

9. Highlight the target drive listed and click Log on…

10. In the next window you can choose to have this connection restored when the computer starts by placing a checkmark next to that option. If you don’t then leave it blank. Either way click Ok.

11. You should now see a status of Connected, confirm that and then click Ok.

12. Click on Start, right click on Computer, then click on Manage.

13. If you get a UAC warning, click through. You will now see the Computer Management MMC, click on Disk Management and in a few seconds the disks will populate.

Disk 1 is the iSCSI drive and you can see that it shows up unallocated. Right click on the drive and select New Simple Volume.

NOTE: If the disk drive was formatted previously you might have to Delete partition first.

14. When the New Simple Volume Wizard starts go ahead and click Next.

15. Set the size of the volume you want to create; in this demo I am using all the space. After you set the space click Next.

16. Assign a drive letter, for this demo I am using F; then click Next.

17. I am going to format this drive as NTFS and place a check next to Perform a quick format. You can also assign a volume label, then click Next.

18. Review the settings selected and then click Finish.

19. Depending on the speed of the network and the size of the drive it may take some time to format. When it is finished you will see it ready to go in Disk Management.

Summary

We have setup a iSCSI target drive in FreeNAS and then setup an iSCSI initiator in Windows Vista to attach to the FreeNAS drive. After that we configured the drive for use on our Vista machine by formatting it and assigning a drive letter.

While not for everyone, iSCSI definitely has its uses and if it is suitable for your environment and needs, FreeNAS provides a low cost alternative.

We took a closer look at FreeNAS — a free open source NAS software that supports CIFS/SB, FTP, NFS, RSYNC SSH, AFP, Unison, UPnP, ISCSI, local and Microsoft Active Directory authentication, SoftRAID, disk encryption, and has a WebGUI interface.

If you haven’t already, check out what FreeNAS is all about and learn how to install it in Part 1 of Build Your Own Open Source NAS Device Using FreeNAS.

Now let’s get to the good stuff!

Setup Disks in FreeNAS

Now that the installation is complete and we have the general server settings done, we need to get disks setup so our NAS can fulfill its primary purpose in life.

1. Select Disks and then Management from the top menu.

2. From the Management tab you can see all the disks that are currently configured and add a new one by click on the plus sign in the lower right corner

3. In the dropdown next to Disk you can choose the hard drive you want to work with. I am going to setup both of the disks I have.

I am going to leave the rest of the options at default, but I want to mention the last one which is the Preformatted File System. If you have disks that are already formatted you can choose that format here. If they are unformatted just leave the default as you can format them later.

When done with your setting click Add. I am going to repeat this for the other hard drive I have on this virtual machine also.

4. Now select Disks and then Format from the top menu.

5. I am going to create a Mirror 1 Raid pairing with these drives, so I am going to choose the first disk in the Disk dropdown, and then in the File System dropdown I am going to choose SoftwareRaid.

Click on Format Disk to start the setup. After clicking Format you will get a warning that all data will be lost. If you are good with that click Ok. I am going to repeat this same process for the second drive.

6. From the top menu choose Disks, and then choose SoftwareRaid.

7. The RAID 1 tab should be selected, click on the plus sign in the lower right corner.

8. Put a name for your new RAID 1 drive next to Raid name, choose the Balance algorithm you want to use, and select the disks you want to add to the array. Then place a check in the box that says Create and initialize RAID and click on Add.

9. You will be taken back to the main RAID 1 tab now and have to click on Apply changes.

10. On the top menu choose Disks, and then Format.

11. In the Disk dropdown select the RAID drive we just created and depending on what you are going to use this for you might want to change the File System, but in our case where we are just using this for extra storage leave the default UFS in place.

If you want, give your volume a name and then click on Format disk. After clicking you will get a warning about erasing all data, click Ok to start the format.

12. From the top menu now select Disks, then Mount Point.

13. Click on the Plus sign to mount the RAID disk.

14. For the Disk dropdown choose the RAID drive you created, in the Partition dropdown we will leave the default; enter a name next to Share name. I will leave the rest of the settings as is and click Add.

15. You will be taken back to the Mount Point page where you are asked to Apply changes to confirm mounting of the disk. Click on Apply changes.

16. Now that we have the drive setup and mounted, let’s turn on the CIFS/SMB service so our Windows clients can access the drive. In the top menu click on Services, and then CIFS/SMB.

17. On the Settings tab click the box that says Enable then click Save and Restart at the bottom. I am going to leave all the other settings at their default. You can always come back at a later time and tweak for performance.

18. Click on the Shares tab and then click on the Plus sign.

19. To setup the share you need to enter a Name, Comment, and Path. The path is easily set by hitting the … button and choosing the top level path.

I am going to leave the other settings default, but there are some options there that might be of use so make sure you look through them. When you are done click Add.

20. You are then taken back to the Shares tab to confirm your selection. Click on Apply changes.

You have now successfully setup the drives as a RAID 1 drive and also setup a service/share to allow Windows clients to access the drive. Let’s test it out.

Testing Your FreeNAS Installation

We can quickly and easily test this from a Windows Vista machine. I am going to go to Start and then Network. As you can see, the FreeNAS server is in my network browsing.

If I click on the FreeNAS server I can see the Data share that was setup.

From here I could map a drive or just setup a shortcut to access this drive.

Summary

This demo walked you through creating a RAID 1 shared NAS using the open source FreeNAS software.

FreeNAS is a very powerful software package and I only scratched the surface of what it can do with it. I will be using this server in some upcoming tutorials focusing on ISCSI and open source backup solutions.

I strongly encourage you to download and take a look at the feature set to see where you could use this low cost NAS solution.

One of the things I really wanted to do was consolidate my storage space so that a variety of devices can access them. Also I wanted to start using ISCSI in a few demos so it made sense to look at getting a NAS into the family.

Now the cost of these devices really depends on configuration and manufacturer, but there are other options that not only give you more control but can give you a lot more bang for your buck.

In this demo I am going to walk you through setting up one of those alternatives, called FreeNAS. FreeNAS, as you might have been able to garner from its name, is free open source NAS software that is pretty robust.

It supports CIFS/SB, FTP, NFS, RSYNC SSH, AFP, Unison, UPnP, ISCSI, local and Microsoft Active Directory authentication, SoftRAID, disk encryption, and has a WebGUI interface. FreeNAS can also be configured to run off a USB Key to keep all that hard drive space for storage. It is built on the FreeBSD platform but you won’t need to know any Linux to get it up and running.

For this demo I am going to setup a RAID 1 drive and make it so I can access it from Windows Vista. I am actually going to use a virtual machine so I can capture screenshots easily and I am using the following configuration:

• 512MB RAM (96MB RAM is the min necessary to run base FreeNAS functions)
• 3 Virtual Drives, 1 for FreeNAS installation, and 2 for data (not formatted at this time)

Download FreeNAS

You can get the current version FreeNAS from: http://www.freenas.org/index.php?option=com_versions&Itemid=51

For this demo I am going to use the LiveCD ISO option with the current build which is 0.69RC1.

Install FreeNAS

Ok to get started you will need to burn the ISO file to a CD/DVD, or in the case of a virtual machine, mount the ISO. Once that is done go ahead and boot the machine from the CD/DVD that you are going to use for FreeNAS.

1. When it boots up you will see the FreeBSD kernel loading up and after seeing a lot of text flying by you will get to the Console setup menu.

2. From the console menu I am going to select 9) Install/Upgrade to hard drive/flash device, etc. so we won’t have to boot from CD/DVD anymore.

The first screen that comes up asks what type of install you want to do. From this menu I am going to choose 1 Install ‘embedded OS on HDD/Flash/USB, then select Ok.

3. You will get a quick overview of the limitations of what this type of install does. Go ahead and read through this then select Ok.

4. In this screen you will choose your installation drive, if you only have one CD/DVD drive it will be highlighted for you. If you have more than one choose the one that has the installation media and then select Ok to move on.

5. Next we are going to choose the target HDD. As you can see I have 3 drives attached to this machine, I am going to choose the one I dedicated specifically for this task which is ad0. Choose the disk you want to install to and then select Ok.

6. You will now see the system image copy over to the HDD from the CD/DVD drive. Once it is finished it will tell you to remove the installation media and press Enter. Go ahead and do both of these steps.

7. This takes you back to the Install menu, choose Exit.

8. Now from the Console setup menu select 7 Reboot System.

9. Confirm that you want to reboot the system by selecting Yes.

10. After the reboot you will go back to Console Setup and see the current networking configuration. I only have one NIC setup for this computer, but note that you can configure different adapters by going into the Assign Interfaces menu.

11. As you can see it grabbed an IP address by DHCP, so the first thing I am going to do is assign it a static IP address by selecting 2 and hitting Enter. The first screen you will see will ask you if you want to use DHCP for this interface. Select NO and hit Enter.

12. Type in the static IP address you want to use and then select OK.

13. Next you will enter your subnet mask in CIDR notation or bit counts. For 90% of you this will be 24 which is equivalent to 255.255.255.0, if you have a different subnet make there are some hints on the screen or you can convert it using a subnet calculator. After entering your notation select OK.

14. Enter your default gateway and then select OK.

15. You now will enter the DNS server you want the FreeNAS installation to use. After entering the IP choose OK.

16. Now it will ask if you want to configure IPv6 for this interface, but in this instance I do not, so I will choose No.

17. After a few seconds it will configure itself and you will see a screen showing the IP address you configured and how to access the WebGUI interface. After noting down the URL go ahead and hit ENTER.

18. This now sets us up for getting into the WebGUI, go ahead and open your browser and enter the URL you got in step 8. You will be prompted for a user name and password. The defaults are:

username: admin
password: freenas

19. Once you authenticate you will be brought to the main status screen of FreeNAS where you can get some quick status info, which as you can tell is that no disks are configured. Seeing that this is a NAS, this is something we should remedy!

20. First let’s go in and do some general setup tasks to get us started on the right foot. Select System, then General from the top menus.

21. On the General Setup page you can set some standard things for the server such as:

Hostname – Hostname and Domain
DNS – For both IPv4 and IPv6
WebGUI – Username, Protocol (http/https), Port, Language
Time – Timezone, Current Time, NTP Options

After setting your choice of options click on Save.

Note: You can also change the default password by choosing the Password tab.

Stay Tuned!

In Part 2 of Build Your Own Open Source NAS Device Using FreeNAS we’ll get the disks setup so our NAS can fulfill its big role. We’ll also test the FreeNAS installation to make sure that everything is working correctly.