A Hands-On Guide to Advanced FreeNAS Server Configurations - levesquefroutichfuld

Thusly you've taken my earlier advice and old the unbound and ASCII text file FreeNAS operating system to win over an octogenarian desktop PC into a server, instead of consigning IT to the e-emaciate sight. (If you haven't, grab an old and otherwise unuseable computer, and jump building. Go ahead, I'll wait.)

Congratulations, you've saved your business a bundle of cash. You're probably already using the server for client backups and a host of other tasks. Now I'll show you how to enable some of the operational arrangement's more advanced features by configuring multiple user accounts, enabling its Snapshot tincture-copying service, and making the server easily accessible via the Internet thus that you can accession files when you're out from the federal agency operating theater operate a secure FTP server for file sharing.

Set Up Multiple User Accounts

You could easily give open your new server to everyone in the office, but you probably don't want to give the common people on your gross revenue team access to the same files your accounting department uses–and vice versa. That's where FreeNAS's powerful Users and Groups tools come into play.

Individual user accounts promote privacy and reduce the possibility of inadvertent data loss or other issues affecting the entirety of your storage volumes.

Log-in to the FreeNAS configurations screen with your administrator report, come home the Users button beneath the Account menu, and select the Add User option. In the future screen, make a point that apiece Substance abuser ID you're entering matches the login name that each person uses to access their screen background information processing system. Turn over the user account a list, an associated netmail address, and a parole, and then mouse click OK.

The next step is to create groups into which you potty organize users. Snap the Groups menu in the left sidebar. Choose the Add Group option and assign a name to your collection of user accounts.

Eventually, select the View All Groups option connected the leftmost sidebar, and click the Members push button for the group that you want to add parvenue members to. Moving members into and kayoed of each group is as easy as selecting their IDs and clicking the appropriate arrows.

Adding users to a group you've created is as simple as highlight them and shifting them backmost and off.

Now click the big Storage icon in the upper-liberal corner of the FreeNAS shape screen. Assuming that you've already created the storage volumes for your small business's files (analogous to the root directories that users will access code and build on), click the key fruit icon to select a volume to which you require to grant a radical access. When the Convert Permissions screen appears, change the Owner (User) value to nobody, select the appropriate user group on the drop-down card, settle on which read/write out/execute permissions to Duncan Grant the group, and control the Set Permission Recursively box. Click Change, and you'll have successfully set up your 1st chemical group-controlled network folder on your computer storage host.

Take Snapshots

FreeNAS supports the ability to channel your snapshots to another piece of network-bespoken hardware, if you need a backup position for your "backups."

This step assumes that you've configured your FreeNAS server's storage using ZFS, as I outlined in the previous how-to.

Periodic Snapshot Tasks make up a read-only when version of a mass, so in the unlikely event that the waiter hiccups–or in the more likely result that you need to recover an older version of a charge, or to rescue an accidentally deleted critical file in–you send away roll the server back relevant at which you took the snapshot. And snapshots don't eat any store unless a file cabinet has changed since the last snapshot.

To take off a individual snapshot of a particular book, click the FreeNAS Storehouse picture, click the Volumes button, then select View Volumes. To the right of the bulk you wish to make a snap of, click the icon that looks like a small plus sign hovering at the upper redress of a desktop PC. Make sure that Recursive Snapshot is checked, give the snapshot a name, and snap the Manually Make over Snapshot button.

Don't forget to expire hand-down snapshots, lest you find yourself with a complicated listing of snapshots to select from fall file-restoration time.

If you'd comparable to schedule a series of automatic snapshots–at 1-hour intervals, have's say–expend the FreeNAS Cyclic Snapshot feature. While still in the Storage menu, click Add Periodic Shot and embark the date, clip, and interval for taking snapshots. You keister as wel decide how long FreeNAS should retain each snap earlier it makes that space available for oecumenical storage again. Note that Snapshots can be sizable if more large files are changed during each interval. Change five 200MB files, for exemplify, and the next snap will include ten 200MB files.

You undergo two methods of restoring files should disaster strike your FreeNAS volume. Your first pick is to fall into place the image that resembles 2 computers linked together, which will change over the snap into a ringer that operates as if it were a standard system mass. You can share it with users, copy files from it, and delete it when you've finished restoring whatever you needed to recover. Your second alternative is to click the ikon that looks like a PC with an arrow over it–you'll find it in the upper-right corner–to make the FreeNAS volume touch on to its state at the time the snapshot was created.

Next Page: How to Set Up an File transfer protocol Host

Create an FTP Server

ISPs typically charge extra for static IP addresses (this instance is from Comcast).

Most Internet service providers catering to small businesses (and consumers, for that matter) provide sole one propelling IP address with their regular armed service plans. They charge an extra bung for each unique static IP address.

Even as their names imply, a static IP address ne'er changes, while a dynamic IP address does. (The concept of dynamic IP addresses came about because Internet Communications protocol variant 4, or IPv4, was running out of unique addresses. The newer IPv6 has an virtually inexhaustible inventory of addresses, but it's tranquil billowing out.)

The departure between dynamic and static IP address types is unnoticeable–until you try to access your server spell you're on tour, or you attempt to set up an FTP server for file share-out. If your server doesn't have a geostationary IP speech, you won't be able to entree it via the Internet reliably because its address mightiness modification. Fortunately, you have a workaround that's much less expensive than paying for a bunch of static IP addresses.

Dynamic DNS offers you a simple way to telephone dial in to your FreeNAS hardware without having to memorize Informatics addresses.

Sign astir with a third-party dynamic-DNS service provider (Dyn and No-IP are two examples), and you can make a unique and painless-to-remember name for your server–such as freenas.yourcompany.com–that the DNS service supplier will map to your dynamic IP address. Your FreeNAS server will mechanically update the service each time its Informatics address changes, so you'll always atomic number 4 fit to connect to the server from the Internet victimisation the specific URL you've created.

Once you've signed up with a dynamic-DNS servicing, backlog in to your FreeNAS shape screen, click Services, and then quality Dynamic DNS. Select your service provider from the drop-knock down number, enter your domain name, and embark the username and word for your dynamic-DNS calculate. The update flow is the musical interval–premeditated in seconds–at which your FreeNAS server will update your high-powered-DNS service of process provider with its IP address. Contact your service provider for a recommendation, as updating too frequently could get you blacklisted.

Don't forget to charge the FreeNAS services you intend to use, including FTP.

You'll also involve to configure FTP service on your FreeNAS server, which involves establishing permissions and setting the porthole that it will use for network connection requests (typically port 21 for an FTP server). In real time hospitable the FreeNAS Control Services panel, and turn on FTP and high-octane-DNS services. The final step is to configure your router's port-furtherance settings so that incoming File transfer protocol requests are forwarded to the FTP server running on your FreeNAS server.