Configure NAS4Free on VMware ESXi Part 3

In the previous articles we have seen how to deploy and install NAS4Free on a VMware ESXi host. In this part we are now ready to begin to configure NAS4Free operating system with regards to the networking and partitions setup. The process is very quick and straight forward. A detailed walk through will show the steps.

Configure NAS4Free on VMware

After removing the LiveCD iso and rebooting we are now back to the main console. To configure NAS4Free we’ll start from the network with option 1 as per screenshot below.

If we see a screen similar to this then this is good news as the network card is supported and the OS has already the drivers to operate with this network card. During deployment of NAS4Free virtual machine I would advice to stick with the recommended devices based on OS template.

Also in some cases it might be more difficult either to find or install the appropriate device drivers. Luckily NAS4Free already ships with built-in Open-VM-Tools so no need to install them. It might be worth checking when updates are available though.

Let’s accept the default settings and click on “yes”.

Now that we have specified which network card to use (we can have multiple network cards to separate different types of traffic) we are going to setup network addresses with option 2.

I prefer not to use DHCP for servers. I will go for a static address. Also I always make sure the correct DNS entries for Forward and Reverse zones are created also testing FQDN name resolution.

Let’s specify an IP address and click “OK” to continue to configure NAS4Fee.

Of course we need to add a subnet mask. If we feel lazu we can simply indicate the network portion of the address. So by default 24 in most cases!

Let’s specify a gateway IP adress for the network where the server will be located. It is very important to configure NAS4Free network on the same domain broadcast or subnet where the iSCSI initiators are sitting. This will be more clear later on in the next articles. Also placing iSCSI Targets and Inititators in the same network is a best practice.

Let’s also provide a DNS server address. From the Web GUI will be possible to add more if needed. In addition from a networking perspective let’s make sure the DNS is reachable from the NAS4Free Server should this server be sitting on a different network.

I personally do not use IPv6 at the moment in my home lab so this option can be ignored and therefore disabled.

When going back to the main console the new changes will be reflected. Next step is to configure who or better from where the Web GUI can be accessed. For this option NAS4Free uses the Host Allow setting. Let’s go for option 10.

This rule will ask if Everyone or specific IP Addresses or Networks can access the Web GUI. Personally I like to leave this enabled. Of course we can restrict access if required.

In order to specify if restricted IP Addresses are allowed let’s “Yes” ans specify the single IP address or the network. Otherwise  we can simply choose “No” as the other option.

We can now enter from which IP addresses the Web GUI can be accessed.

At this point from any browser we can access the Web GUI as shown here.

Default credentials are user “admin” and password “nas4free” of course it is recommended to change them at the first visit to the Web console

We now have access to the Web Console from where we can operate lots of configurations conveniently stored in different menus.

From System > General we can start reviewing the basic information and amend them.

As a first time configuration I would change the default password as shown below.

Next action is to mount the Swap partition. This can be easily done from the menu System > Advanced > SWAP. Let’s enable the configuration and set the device as shown below.

This has been created as the second partition on the first drive so it will appear to something like /dev/da02b and hit save.

Next is to mount the Data partition. To do this let’s go to Disks > Management > Disk Add to add the first disk to the Management panel and let NAS4Free this disk exists!

This will appear here as per screenshot below.

Next let’s navigate to Disks > Mount Point > Add to mount the third partition to the DATA mount point as a name. Feel free to use any name you find appropriate. Also let’s make sure we are selecting the MBR partition and “3” as partition number. Description is optional

Now going back to the Home page we can see CPU and Memory usage along Swap partition consumption and the available space on Data partition mounted at /dev/da0s3b.

This concludes the initial deployment, installation and configuration part of NAS4Free on VMware ESXi. Next articles will cover preparing storage to NAS4Free server and creating iSCSI LUNs to be mounted to Windows Cluster serving a SQL Failover Cluster.