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ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
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Setting up TrueNAS Scale ...

The story so far ... Getting the software installed and running was pretty easy (see post above).

I jumped around a bit ... but here is what I managed to knock off tonight ...

  • host name - this is under Network / Global Configuration
    I have changed it to 'TrueNAS-Scale-Prod'
    Apparently ' ' are not allowed ... hence the '-'s.
    TrueNAS Scale Configuration
  • create gmail account to hold all of the NAS reports, config files, etc
    sent a test email - it worked, eventually :)
  • Created an Admin group (gave it full local admin)
  • Created a User group (gave it read only admin)
  • Created a MEAdmin user (part of the Admin group)
    This user does the admin stuff in TrueNAS
    • create datasets
    • set up scripts
    • tests scripts
    • putty's into the system
    • etc
  • Created a ME user (part of the user group)
    This user does the windows interaction with the network stuff
    • maps to shares
    • downloads bits of software, manuals, apps for Windows
    • etc
  • tested the putty situation
    • this was a pain
    • had to enable SSH
    • had to turn it on for the admin user
    • had to move that admin user to the right shell
    • had to find out what was the right shell for me (BASH - I like that the command line tells you where you are)
  • created two pools (finally!)
    • data pool on spinning disks
    • meta data pool on NVMe
  • created a share ... but not of the pool - oh, no, you can't do that (apparently, this is considered bad form)
  • stopped for the night when I realized that I will need to rethink my pool structure


ToDo List
  • Devise pool structure that will work for me
  • create pool structure
  • Plex App
    • split media from metadata
    • install GPU and test with Plex
  • MAC OS Sharing for others in the household
  • port over my BASH scripts that monitor my server

BTW - one of my NVMe drives has a heat sink on it, the other is nude. SmartCtrl reports the temps as 40°C and 38°C. Maybe I don't need the heatsink.
 

ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
8
8
ToDo List
  • Devise pool structure that will work for me
My current pool / dataset structure has grown over time and is a bit of a mess ...
  • FreeNAS - general stuff about FreeNAS including bash scripts
  • General - stuff
  • iocage - cages
  • Manuals - d/l manuals for the stuff we own
  • Music
  • Pictures
  • Software
  • PlexMedia - plex movies and tv shows
  • PlexMetaData - plex meta data
  • RecordedTV
  • MacFiles - files for the household mac users
  • TimeMachine - mac timemachine backup
  • Temp - temp
  • TempDump - more temp
  • TempDVD - temp for ripping DVDs

I am thinking of heading in this direction ...
  • Shares - [spinning] folders under this for manuals, music, pictures, software, etc
  • Plex Media - [spinning] Movies and TV Shows
  • Plex Meta Data - [nvme]
  • Macs - [spinning] for macs
  • Temp - [spinning] temp (dvd ripping, recorded tv, MCEBuddy transcribing, etc)
  • TrueNAS - [nvme] scripts, backups and what not

Any thoughts or comments?
 

ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
8
8
ToDo List
  • Plex App
    • split media from metadata
    • install GPU and test with Plex
  • port over my BASH scripts that monitor my server
I have a moderate collection of bash scripts that run on my production system. I am slowly working my way through them, updating them for Scale and also updating them for other people's code enhancements (hee hee - and thanks!) since I wrote the originals.

So far I have
- script to dump HDD info / SMART results, etc
- script to kick off SMART short and long tests (short run every night, long run on 9, 17, 25 of each month (after the nightly short run)

Plex - have a very small test case featuring DVD movies, DVD TV shows and DVR movies. Seems to be working but I can't see any HW transcoding. Need to keep fiddling with that one.
 
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ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
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Plex - have a very small test case featuring DVD movies, DVD TV shows and DVR movies. Seems to be working but I can't see any HW transcoding. Need to keep fiddling with that one.
The solution was easy. Turn on the 'GPU Configuration: Passthrough available (non-NVIDIA) GPUs' option.

Screenshot 2024-12-15 130611.png
 

ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
8
8
How to Port Production Pool to New Machine?

I have been thinking about how to port the production pools to the new machine. I have a few spare drives and I could set up my main pool (DuffleBag) on the new machine, open both in Windows Explorer and then copy the contents from OLD to NEW. Then (that copy will take a while), resliver my 12Tb disks into the new pool one at a time (I did that a few years ago ... took 10 days :( ).

Or ... I could set up my new machine, get the TrueNAS config 'just right', create a pool called DuffleBag on the new machine, get it running just like I want it to ... export the temp DuffleBag, insert the disks holding my OLD pool in to the new machine and import the pool DuffleBag. Will it care if the disks change? Will it care if it goes from a 2 disk mirror to an 8 disk RaidZ2?

I am going to run some tests.

So ... testing time :)
  1. Pool called DuffleBagA (2 x 4TB in mirror)
  2. Pool called DuffleBagB (4 x 4TB in RaidD1Z2)
  3. Dataset DSA on DBA
  4. Dataset DSB on DBB
  5. Text file A on DSA
  6. Text file B on DSB
  7. Export DuffleBagA and DuffleBagB
  8. Rename DuffleBagA to DuffleBagC (via CLI)
  9. Rename DuffleBagB to DuffleBagA (via CLI)
  10. Import DuffleBagA
  11. Import DuffleBagC
Look at the structure to see what (if anything) has changed.
 
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nexox

Well-Known Member
May 3, 2023
1,415
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At some point you may want to make a new thread with questions about TrueNAS and ZFS, because I'm likely the only one following this thread and I haven't used either of those.
 

ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
8
8
Nah ... this thread is turning into a journal of this adventure. If / when I have TrueNAS questions, I will jump over to the TrueNAS forums.
 
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ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
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So ... testing time :)
  1. Pool called DuffleBagA (2 x 4TB in mirror)
  2. Pool called DuffleBagB (4 x 4TB in RaidD1Z2)
  3. Dataset DSA on DBA
  4. Dataset DSB on DBB
  5. Text file A on DSA
  6. Text file B on DSB
  7. Export DuffleBagA and DuffleBagB
  8. Rename DuffleBagA to DuffleBagC (via CLI)
  9. Rename DuffleBagB to DuffleBagA (via CLI)
  10. Import DuffleBagA
  11. Import DuffleBagC
Look at the structure to see what (if anything) has changed.
I tried this ...
  • exporting A
  • dropping into the CLI ...
    • importing A as T (zpool import DuffleBagA DuffleBagT)
    • exporting T
  • back to the GIU ...
    • importing T
As expected, the Shares were gone. I should have backed up my config and then restored my config.

But I also got this error message ...
root@ScalePROD:~# zpool import DuffleBagA DuffleBagT
cannot mount '/DuffleBagT': failed to create mountpoint: Read-only file system
Import was successful, but unable to mount some datasets
Everything looked ok.
 

ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
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Pool Testing.png

Worked very nicely. DuffBagA was a mirror 2 wide while DuffBagB was a RaidZ2 4 wide. Now, A is the Z2 and B is the mirror. I am trying this process again but this time saving the config before and then uploading it after the name changes.
 
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ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
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8
Tried again and I trashed Pool DBagA.

I changed the name of A to B and then tried to change the name of B to A. When I swap names like this I need to to A to X, B to A and then X to B so I don't have two As (or Bs) at any one time.

Burning DBag A down at the moment and recreating it.

This is what testing is all about.
 

ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
8
8
Another test ...
Code:
root@ScalePROD:~# zpool import DuffleBagA Duffle
cannot mount '/Duffle': failed to create mountpoint: Read-only file system
Import was successful, but unable to mount some datasets
root@ScalePROD:~# zpool export Duffle
root@ScalePROD:~# zpool import DuffleBagB DuffleBagA
cannot mount '/DuffleBagA': failed to create mountpoint: Read-only file system
Import was successful, but unable to mount some datasets
root@ScalePROD:~# zpool export DuffleBagA
root@ScalePROD:~# zpool import Duffle DuffleBagB
cannot mount '/DuffleBagB': failed to create mountpoint: Read-only file system
Import was successful, but unable to mount some datasets
root@ScalePROD:~# zpool export DuffleBagB
... and then import A and B via the GUI.
 

ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
8
8
The other option is that I just upgrade my 13.3 Core to Scale. I will read through the notes on that option.
 

ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
8
8
The install saga continues ... I have a new new plex set up on the new server but I lost all of my config stuff on plex (movies posters, collections, etc). For some reason, the watch / not watched seems to have ported over ... but my collections are gone :(

So ... python with a list of movies and tags / collectdions is my solution (just so I don't have to do it manually) ... but ... how can I get python to list my movies as a starting point?

This is what I have .. but it will not import PlexServer ... and I am wary of just installing the plexapi.server module.

Code:
from plexapi.server import PlexServer
def main():
    
    # Connect to Plex Media Server. Replace PLEX_TOKEN below with your Plex token. How to get token: https://www.plexopedia.com/plex-media-server/general/plex-token/
    baseurl = 'http://local ip:32400'
    token = 'hash hash'

    plex = PlexServer(baseurl, token)
    for section in plex.library.sections():
        if section.type == 'movie':
            for movie in section.all():
                print(movie.title)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()
 

ruffhi

Member
Nov 22, 2024
59
8
8
I didn't get an answer from the TrueNAS people but then I remembered that I actually write vb.net code using Visual Studio 2022 that is installed on my Win 11 machine. AND! I can add python to that.

Now I have some python code that dumps my movie collection, sort titles, and groups ... and additional code that pushes updates to my plex collection :).

I still haven't worked out how to update the sort title or the posters. But my collections are back :). Well, most of them.