Installation of TrueNAS on Bare Metal
How-To: TrueNAS Setup Part 1
April 16, 2023
The Setup
The goal is to install TrueNAS on a server, connect it to an iSCSI target and use it as a Hypervisor platform.
Involved Hardware and Software
Hardware
This is the hardware and intended setup used:
Notes:
This is the hardware I happened to have laying around. A recommended setup would involve a TrueNAS storage array. I didn’t know about TrueNAS or storage design in general when I acquired the Synology NAS. It’s all trial and error.
It’s very handy to have 4 ethernet ports available on the server. I recommend having one port dedicated for MGMT of the system.
Any switch that supports VLANs, multiple FIBs and LACP will do.
Software
I’m going to install TrueNAS Core, since I don’t have RAID setup or 2 identical disks. It’s good enough for home usage and learning.
Recommended design for production: TrueNAS Scale is preferred if you have a TrueNAS storage array or any compatible hardware.
Installation of TrueNAS
Step 0: You need to have a bootable media of the TrueNAS image. You can use Balena Etcher to create a bootable media in Linux or Windows. Here are Install instructions for Debian-based or Redhat-based platforms.
Step 1: Start the installation.
You can either install it directly connected to the machine; or use the IPMI, iLO, iDRAC interface… whatever it’s called on your specific system. It’s up to you.
Step 2: Choose a disk
When choosing multiple disks, TrueNAS will be installed on both disks. If one disk fails, you can just replace it and the system will be intact.
Notes:
I ended up installing it on only one disk; because I do not have 2 identical disks. I could still install it on both disks, however, both disks will be unavailable for other purposes like hosting VMs or jails.
The whole disk will be reserved for the TrueNAS system. There is no way to partition it. Don’t use your biggest SSD harddrive for this.
Confirm:
Step 3: Enter a root password. This will be used to login on the system later.
Step 4: Boot via UEFI or whatever is suitable for your system.
Note: Unsure what to use? Try UEFI first. If the system won’t boot after installation, you can try with BIOS. That is at least how I did.
Step 5: Create a swap partition (recommended).
Step 6: You should now be at the stage where the installation is completed. Reboot the system and remove the installation media.
Basic Setup after Installation
The only thing you need to do from the TrueNAS console is to setup the MGMT interface so you can reach the webinterface. Once you have done that, you can login with root and the password you set during the installation.
Note: If there is DHCP in the network, TrueNAS will use that and you will be shown which IP to use to reach the web UI. You can change to manual settings inside the web UI.
And that concludes the first guide. Next is to setup network, iSCSI initiator and Storage Pools.
Related Posts
TrueNAS: Open Source Storage and Hypervisor Alternative
TrueNAS Setup Part 2: Network and Storage
TrueNAS Setup Part 3: Virtual Machines and Networks
TrueNAS Setup Part 4: Configuring LDAP and Certificates