3. Accessing TrueNAS®¶
When you boot into TrueNAS®, the Console Setup, shown in Figure 3a, will appear at the end of the boot process. If you have access to the the TrueNAS® system’s keyboard and monitor, this Console Setup menu can be used to administer the system should the administrative GUI become inaccessible.
Note
you can access the Console Setup menu from within the TrueNAS® GUI by typing /etc/netcli from Shell. You can disable the Console Setup menu by unchecking the “Enable Console Menu” in System –> Settings –> Advanced.
Figure 3a: TrueNAS® Console Setup Menu
This menu provides the following options:
1) Configure Network Interfaces: provides a configuration wizard to configure the system’s network interfaces.
2) Configure Link Aggregation: allows you to either create a new link aggregation_ or to delete an existing link aggregation.
3) Configure VLAN Interface: used to create or delete a VLAN interface.
4) Configure Default Route: used to set the IPv4 or IPv6 default gateway. When prompted, input the IP address of the default gateway.
5) Configure Static Routes: will prompt for the destination network and the gateway IP address. Re-enter this option for each route you need to add.
6) Configure DNS: will prompt for the name of the DNS domain then the IP address of the first DNS server. To input multiple DNS servers, press enter to input the next one. When finished, press enter twice to leave this option.
7) Reset WebGUI login credentials: if you are unable to login to the graphical administrative interface, select this option. The next time the graphical interface is accessed, it will prompt to set the root password.
8) Reset to factory defaults: if you wish to delete all of the configuration changes made in the administrative GUI, select this option. Once the configuration is reset, the system will reboot. You will need to go to Storage –> Volumes –> Auto Import Volume to re-import your volume.
9) Shell: enters a shell in order to run FreeBSD commands. To leave the shell, type exit.
10) Reboot: reboots the system.
11) Shutdown: halts the system.
During boot, TrueNAS® will automatically try to connect to a DHCP server from all live interfaces. If it successfully receives an IP address, it will display the IP address which can be used to access the graphical console. In the example seen in Figure 3a, the TrueNAS® system is accessible from http://192.168.1.78.
If your TrueNAS® server is not connected to a network with a DHCP server, you can use the network configuration wizard to manually configure the interface as seen in Example 3a. In this example, the TrueNAS® system has one network interface (em0).
Example 3a: Manually Setting an IP Address from the Console Menu
Enter an option from 1-11: 1
1) em0
Select an interface (q to quit): 1
Delete existing config? (y/n) n
Configure interface for DHCP? (y/n) n
Configure IPv4? (y/n) y
Interface name: (press enter as can be blank)
Several input formats are supported
Example 1 CIDR Notation: 192.168.1.1/24
Example 2 IP and Netmask separate: IP: 192.168.1.1
Netmask: 255.255.255.0, or /24 or 24
IPv4 Address: 192.168.1.108/24
Saving interface configuration: Ok
Configure IPv6? (y/n) n
Restarting network: ok
You may try the following URLs to access the web user interface:
`http://192.168.1.108 <http://192.168.1.108/>`_
3.1. Activating the License and Logging In¶
Once the system has an IP address, input that address into a graphical web browser from a computer capable of accessing the network containing the TrueNAS® system.
The first time you connect, you will be presented with the EULA shown in `Appendix A`_. Click the “I agree” button to proceed to the license activation screen shown in Figure 3.1a.
Figure 3.1a: License Activation Screen
Click the hyperlink “TrueNAS® Request File” and email the automatically generated file to activate@ixsystems.com. Once you receive the license file, use the Browse button to locate the file and press Activate to apply the license. A message will indicate that the system is rebooting. After a moment or so, refresh your browser.
Next, you should be prompted to create a password for the root user, as seen in Figure 3.1b.
Figure 3.1b: Set the Root Password
Setting a password is mandatory and the password can not be blank. Since this password provides access to the administrative GUI, it should be a hard-to-guess password. Once the password has been input and confirmed, you should see the administrative GUI as shown in the example in Figure 3.1c.
Figure 3.1c: TrueNAS® Graphical Configuration Menu
The rest of this Guide describes all of the configuration screens available within the TrueNAS® graphical administrative interface. The screens are listed in the order that they appear within the tree, or the left frame of the graphical interface. iXsystems recommends that you contact your support technician for initial setup and configuration assistance. Once your system has been configured and you are familiar with the configuration workflow, the rest of this document can be used as a reference guide to the features built into the TrueNAS® appliance.
Note
it is important to use the graphical interface (or the console setup menu) for all non-ZFS configuration changes. TrueNAS® uses a configuration database to store its settings. If you make changes at the command line, they will not be written to the configuration database. This means that these changes will not persist after a reboot and will be overwritten by the values in the configuration database during an upgrade.
