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3 Table of Contents

2. Installing and Upgrading FreeNAS®

Before installing, it is important to remember that the FreeNAS® operating system must be
installed on a separate device from the drive(s) that will hold the storage data. In other words, if
you only have one disk drive you will be able to use the FreeNAS® graphical interface but won’t
be able to store any data, which after all, is the whole point of a NAS system. If you are a home
user who is experimenting with FreeNAS®, you can install FreeNAS® on an inexpensive USB
thumb drive and use the computer’s disk(s) for storage.

This section describes the following:

Getting FreeNAS®
Preparing the Media
Performing the Installation
Installation Troubleshooting
Upgrading
Virtualization

2.1. Getting FreeNAS®

The latest STABLE version of FreeNAS® 9.3 can be downloaded from
http://download.freenas.org/.

Note: FreeNAS® will only install to 64-bit hardware and the installer will not work on 32-bit
hardware.

The download page contains the following types of files:

.iso: this is a bootable installer that can be written to either a CD or USB flash as
described in Preparing the Media.
.GUI_Upgrade.txz: this is a compressed firmware upgrade image. If your intent is to
upgrade FreeNAS®, download this file and see the section on Upgrading.

Each file has an associated sha256.txt file which should be used to verify the integrity of the
downloaded file. The command you use to verify the checksum varies by operating system:

on a BSD system use the command sha256 name_of_file

on a Linux system use the command sha256sum name_of_file
on a Mac system use the command shasum -a 256 name_of_file
on a Windows or Mac system, you can also install a utility such as HashCalc or HashTab

The value produced by running the command should match the value of the sha256.txt file.

2.2. Preparing the Media

Beginning with version 9.3, FreeNAS® must be installed using a menu-driven installer, as the
ZFS boot partition is created during the installation. To perform an installation, download the
.iso file and write it to either a CD or a USB stick.

To burn the .iso file to CD, use a CD burning utility.

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The command which is used to burn the .iso file to a compact flash card or USB thumbdrive
depends upon the operating system. This section demonstrates utilities for several operating
systems.

Note: if you will be burning the installation file to a USB stick, you will need two USB slots,
each with an inserted USB device, where one USB stick contains the installer and the other
USB stick is selected to install into. When performing the installation, be sure to select the
correct USB device to install to. In other words, you can not install FreeNAS® into the same
USB stick that you boot the installer from. After installation, remove the USB stick containing
the installer, and if necessary, configure the BIOS to boot from the remaining USB stick.

Once you have written the .iso file to the installation media, make sure the boot order in the
BIOS is set to boot from that device and boot the system to start the installation.

2.2.1. On FreeBSD or Linux

On a FreeBSD or Linux system, the dd command can be used to write the .iso file to an
inserted USB thumb drive or compact flash device. Example 2.2a demonstrates writing the
image to the first USB device (/dev/da0) on a FreeBSD system. Substitute the filename of your
.iso file and the device name representing the device to write to on your system.

Warning: The dd command is very powerful and can destroy any existing data on the
specified device. Be very sure that you know the device name to write to and that you do not
typo the device name when using dd! If you are uncomfortable using this command, write the
.iso file to a CD instead.

Example 2.2a: Writing the .iso file to a USB Thumb Drive

dd if=FreeNAS-9.3-RELEASE-x64.iso of=/dev/da0 bs=64k

6117+0 records in
6117+0 records out
400883712 bytes transferred in 88.706398 secs (4519220 bytes/sec)

When using the dd command:

if= refers to the input file, or the name of the file to write to the device.
of= refers to the output file; in our case, the device name of the flash card or removable
USB drive. You may have to increment the number in the name if it is not the first USB
device. On Linux, use /dev/sdX , where X refers to the letter of the USB device.
bs= refers to the block size

2.2.2. On OS X
Insert the USB thumb drive and go to Launchpad ‣ Utilities ‣ Disk Utility. Unmount any mounted
partitions on the USB thumb drive. Check that the USB thumb drive has only one partition,
otherwise you will get partition table errors on boot. If needed, use Disk Utility to setup one
partition on the USB drive; selecting “free space” when creating the partition works fine.

Next, determine the device name of the inserted USB thumb drive. From TERMINAL, navigate
to your Desktop then type this command:

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diskutil list
/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 499.2 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *8.0 GB disk1
1: DOS_FAT_32 UNTITLED 8.0 GB disk1s1

This will show you which devices are available to the system. Locate your USB stick and record
the path. If you are not sure which path is the correct one for the USB stick, remove the device,
run the command again, and compare the difference. Once you are sure of the device name,
navigate to the Desktop from TERMINAL, unmount the USB stick, and use the dd command to
write the image to the USB stick. In Example 2.2b, the USB thumb drive is /dev/disk1 , which is
first unmounted. The dd command uses /dev/rdisk1 (note the extra r) in order to write to the raw
device which is faster. When running these commands, substitute the name of the installation
file and the correct path to the USB thumb drive.

Example 2.2b: Using dd on an OS X System

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1

Unmount of all volumes on disk1 was successful

dd if=FreeNAS-9.3-RELEASE-x64.iso of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=64k

Note: if you get the error “Resource busy” when you run the dd command, go to
Applications ‣ Utilities ‣ Disk Utility, find your USB thumb drive, and click on its partitions to
make sure all of them are unmounted. If you get the error “dd: /dev/disk1: Permission
denied”, run the dd command by typing sudo dd if=FreeNAS-9.3-RELEASE-x64.iso
of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=64k, which will prompt for your password.

The dd command will take some minutes to complete. Wait until you get a prompt back and a
message that displays how long it took to write the image to the USB drive.

2.2.3. On Windows
Windows users will need to download a utility that can create a USB bootable image from the
.iso file.

This section will demonstrate how to use Win32DiskImager to burn the .iso file. When
downloading Win32DiskImager, download the latest version that ends in -binary.zip and use 7-
Zip to unzip its executable.

Once installed, launch Win32DiskImager and use its “browse” button to browse to the location
of the .iso file. Insert a USB thumb drive and select its drive letter from the “Device” drop-down
menu. Click the “Write” button and the image will be written to the USB thumb drive.

2.3. Performing the Installation

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With the installation media inserted, boot the system. This should load the FreeNAS®
installation’s GRUB menu shown in Figure 2.3a.

Figure 2.3a: FreeNAS® Grub Menu

Note: if the installer does not boot, check that the installation device is listed first in the boot
order in the BIOS. When booting from a CD, some motherboards may require you to connect
the CD device to SATA0 (the first connector) in order to boot from CD. If the installer stalls
during bootup, double-check the SHA256 hash of the .iso file. If the hash does not match, re-
download the file. If the hash is correct, try burning the CD again at a lower speed or try
writing the file to a different USB stick.

Either wait for the menu to timeout or press Enter to boot into the installer. Once the media has
finished booting, you will be presented with the console setup menu seen in Figure 2.3b.

Figure 2.3b: FreeNAS® Console Setup

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Press Enter to select the default option of “1 Install/Upgrade”. The next menu, seen in Figure
2.3c, will list all available drives, including any inserted USB thumb drives which will begin with
da. In this example, the user is performing a test installation using VirtualBox and has created a
8 GB virtual disk to hold the operating system.

Figure 2.3c: Selecting Which Drive to Install Into

Use your arrow keys to highlight the USB, compact flash device, or virtual disk to install into
and press the spacebar to select it. If you wish to mirror the boot device, arrow to the second
device and press spacebar to select it as well. After making your selections, press Enter .
FreeNAS® will issue the warning seen in Figure 2.3d, reminding you to not install the operating
system onto a drive that is meant for storage. Press Enter to advance to the screen shown in
Figure 2.3f.
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Figure 2.3d: FreeNAS® Installation Warning

Note: at this time, the installer does not check the size of the install media before
attempting an installation. A minimum of a 8 GB device is required, but the install will appear
to complete successfully on smaller devices, only to fail at boot. If you are mirroring the boot
device, it is recommended to use devices of the same size; otherwise, the mirror will be
limited to the size of the smallest device.

The installer will recognize if a previous version of FreeNAS® 8.x or 9.x is already installed, and
if so, will display the menu shown in Figure 2.3e. If the installer recognizes that a previous
version of FreeNAS® is installed and you wish to overwrite the existing installation, arrow over
to “Fresh Install” and press Enter twice to advance to the screen shown in Figure 2.3f.

Figure 2.3e: Performing a Fresh Install

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The next screen, shown in Figure 2.3f, prompts for the root password which is used to log into
the administrative graphical interface.

Figure 2.3f: 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. Input the
password, press the down arrow key, and confirm the password. Then press Enter to start the
installation.

Note: for security reasons, the SSH service and root SSH logins are disabled by default.
Unless these are set, the only way to access a shell as root is to gain physical access to the
console menu or to access the web shell within the administrative GUI. This means that the
FreeNAS® system should be kept physically secure and that the administrative GUI should
be behind a properly configured firewall and protected by a secure password.

Once the installation is complete, you should see a message similar to Figure 2.3g.

Figure 2.3g: FreeNAS® Installation Complete

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Press Enter to return to the first menu, seen in Figure 2.3a. Highlight “3 Reboot System” and
press Enter . If booting from CD, remove the CDROM. As the system reboots, make sure that
the device you installed to is listed as the first boot entry in the BIOS so that the system will
boot from it. FreeNAS® should boot into the “Console Setup” menu described in Initial
Configuration Wizard.

2.4. Installation Troubleshooting

If the system does not boot into FreeNAS®, there are several things that you can check to
resolve the situation.

First, check the system BIOS and see if there is an option to change the USB emulation from
CD/DVD/floppy to hard drive. If it still will not boot, check to see if the card/drive is UDMA
compliant.

If the system BIOS does not support EFI with BIOS emulation, see if it has an option to boot
using legacy BIOS mode.

Some users have found that some brands of 4 GB USB sticks do not work as they are not
really 4 GB in size, but changing to a 8 GB stick fixes the problem.

If you are writing the image to a compact flash card, make sure that it is MSDOS formatted.

If the system starts to boot but hangs with this repeated error message:

run_interrupt_driven_hooks: still waiting after 60 seconds for xpt_config

go into the system BIOS and see if there is an onboard device configuration for a 1394
Controller. If so, disable the device and try booting again.

If the system starts to boot but hangs at a mountroot> prompt, follow the instructions in
Workaround/Semi-Fix for Mountroot Issues with 9.3.

If the burned image fails to boot and the image was burned using a Windows system, wipe the
USB stick before trying a second burn using a utility such as Active@ KillDisk. Otherwise, the
second burn attempt will fail as Windows does not understand the partition which was written
from the image file. Be very careful that you specify the USB stick when using a wipe utility!

2.5. Upgrading
Beginning with version 9.3, FreeNAS® provides more flexibility for keeping the operating
system up-to-date:

1. Upgrades to major releases, for example from version 9.3 to 10.0, can still be performed
using either an ISO or the graphical administrative interface. Unless the Release Notes
for the new major release indicate that your current version requires an ISO upgrade, you
can use either upgrade method.
2. Minor releases have been replaced with signed updates. This means that you do not have
to wait for a minor release to update the system with a system update or newer versions
of drivers and features and that you no longer have to manually download an upgrade file
and its associated checksum in order to do so.

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3. The updater automatically creates a boot environment, meaning that updates are a low-
risk operation. Boot environments provide the option to return to the previous version of
the operating system by rebooting the system and selecting the previous boot
environment from the boot menu.

This section describes how to perform an upgrade from an earlier version of FreeNAS® to 9.3.
Once 9.3 is installed, use the instructions in Update to keep the system updated.

2.5.1. Caveats:
Be aware of the following caveats before attempting an upgrade to 9.3:

Upgrades from FreeNAS® 0.7x are not supported. The system has no way to import
configuration settings from 0.7x versions of FreeNAS®, meaning that you will have to
manually recreate your configuration, and if supported, import the FreeNAS® 0.7x
volumes or disks.
Upgrades on 32-bit hardware are not supported. However, if the system is currently
running a 32-bit version of FreeNAS® and the hardware supports 64-bit, the system can
be upgraded but any archived reporting graphs will be lost during the upgrade.
UFS is no longer supported. If your data currently resides on one UFS-formatted disk,
you will need to create a ZFS volume using other disk(s) after the upgrade, then use the
instructions in Import Disk to mount the UFS-formatted disk in order to copy the data to
the ZFS volume. If you only have one disk, backup its data to another system or media
before the upgrade, format the disk as ZFS after the upgrade, then restore the backup. If
your data currently resides on a UFS RAID of disks, you will not be able to import that
UFS volume. Instead, you will need to backup that data before the upgrade, create a ZFS
volume after the upgrade, then restore the data from backup.
The initial configuration wizard will not recognize an encrypted ZFS pool. If your ZFS pool
is GELI-encrypted and the Initial Configuration Wizard starts after the upgrade, cancel the
wizard and use the instructions in Importing an Encrypted Pool to import the encrypted
volume. You can then rerun the wizard afterwards, if you wish to use it for post-
configuration, and it will recognize that the volume has been imported and will not prompt
to reformat the disks.
DO NOT upgrade the ZFS pool unless you are absolutely sure that you will never
want to go back to the previous version. For this reason, the update process will not
automatically upgrade the ZFS pool, though the Alert system will tell you if newer feature
flags are available for the pool. Unless you need a new feature flag, it is safe to leave the
ZFS pool at its current version and uncheck the alert. If you do decide to upgrade the
pool, you will not be able to boot into a previous version that does not support the newer
feature flags.
The mps driver for 6G Avago SAS HBAs is version 20, which requires phase 20 firmware
on the controller. It is recommended to upgrade the firmware before installing FreeNAS®
or immediately after upgrading FreeNAS®, using the instructions in Alert. Running older
firmware can cause many woes, including the failure to probe all of the attached disks,
which can lead to degraded or unavailable arrays. While you can mismatch your firmware
version with a higher version and things will “probably still work”, there are no guarantees
as that driver and firmware combination is untested.

2.5.2. Initial Preparation

Before upgrading the operating system, perform the following steps:

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1. Backup the FreeNAS® configuration in System ‣ General ‣ Save Config.

2. If any volumes are encrypted, make sure that you have set the passphrase and have a
copy of the encryption key and the latest recovery key. Once the upgrade is complete,
use the instructions in Importing an Encrypted Pool to import the encrypted volume.
3. Warn users that the FreeNAS® shares will be unavailable during the upgrade; you should
schedule the upgrade for a time that will least impact users.
4. Stop all services in Services ‣ Control Services.

2.5.3. Upgrading Using the ISO

To perform an upgrade using this method, download the .iso to the computer that will be used
to prepare the installation media. Burn the downloaded .iso file to a CD or USB thumb drive
using the instructions in Preparing the Media.

Insert the prepared media into the system and boot from it. Once the media has finished
booting into the installation menu, press Enter to select the default option of “1 Install/Upgrade.”
The installer will present a screen showing all available drives; select the device FreeNAS® is
installed into and press Enter .

The installer will recognize that an earlier version of FreeNAS® is installed on the device and
will present the message shown in Figure 2.5a.

Figure 2.5a: Upgrading a FreeNAS® Installation

Note: if you select to perform a “Fresh Install”, you will have to restore the backup of your
configuration using System ‣ General ‣ Upload Config after you boot into the new operating
system.

To perform an upgrade, press Enter to accept the default of “Upgrade Install”. Again, the
installer will remind you that the operating system should be installed on a disk that is not used
for storage. Press Enter to start the upgrade. Once the installer has finished unpacking the new

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image, you will see the menu shown in Figure 2.5b. The database file that is preserved and
migrated contains your FreeNAS® configuration settings.

Figure 2.5b: FreeNAS® will Preserve and Migrate Settings

Press Enter and FreeNAS® will indicate that the upgrade is complete and that you should
reboot. Press “OK”, highlight “3 Reboot System”, and press Enter to reboot the system. If
booting from CD, remove the CDROM.

During the reboot there may be a conversion of the previous configuration database to the new
version of the database. This happens during the “Applying database schema changes” line in
the reboot cycle. This conversion can take a long time to finish so be patient and the boot
should complete normally. If for some reason you end up with database errors but the graphical
administrative interface is accessible, go to Settings ‣ General and use the “Upload Config”
button to upload the configuration that you saved before you started the upgrade.

2.5.4. Upgrading From the GUI

To perform an upgrade using this method, download the .txz file and its associated SHA256
hash to the computer that you use to access the FreeNAS® system. Then, go to System ‣
Settings ‣ Advanced ‣ Firmware Update as shown in Figure 2.5c.

Figure 2.5c: Upgrading FreeNAS® From the GUI

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Use the drop-down menu to select an existing volume to temporarily place the firmware file
during the upgrade. Alternately, select “Memory device” to allow the system to create a
temporary RAM disk to be used during the upgrade. After making your selection, click the “OK”
button to see the screen shown in Figure 2.5d.

Figure 2.5d: Step 2 of 2

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This screen again reminds you to backup your configuration before proceeding. If you have not
yet, click the “click here” link.

Browse to the location of the downloaded .txz file, then paste its SHA256 sum.

When finished, click the “Apply Update” button to begin the upgrade progress. Behind the
scenes, the following steps are occurring:

The SHA256 hash is confirmed and an error will display if it does not match. If you get this
error, double-check that you pasted the correct checksum and try pasting again.
The new image is uncompressed and written to the operating system drive. This can take
a few minutes so be patient.
Once the new image is written, you will temporarily lose your connection as the
FreeNAS® system will reboot into the new version of the operating system. FreeNAS®
will actually reboot twice: once the new operating system loads, the upgrade process
applies the new database schema and reboots again.
Assuming all went well, the FreeNAS® system will receive the same IP from the DHCP
server. Refresh your browser after a moment to see if you can access the system.

2.5.5. If Something Goes Wrong

If an update fails, an alert will be issued and the details will be written to /data/update.failed .

To return to a previous version of the operating system, you will need physical or IPMI access
to the FreeNAS® console. Reboot the system and watch for the boot menu. In the example
shown in Figure 2.5e, the first boot menu entry, FreeNAS (default), refers to the initial
installation, before the update was applied. The second boot entry, FreeNAS-1415259326,
refers to the current version of the operating system, after the update was applied. This second
entry is highlighted and begins with a star, indicating that this is the environment the system will

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boot into, unless another entry is manually selected. Both entries include a date and timestamp,
indicating when that boot environment was created.

Figure 2.5e: Boot Menu

To boot into the previous version of the operating system, use the up or down arrow to select it
and press enter.

Should a boot device fail and the system no longer boots, don’t panic. The data is still on your
disks and you still have a copy of your saved configuration. You can always:

1. Perform a fresh installation on a new boot device.

2. Import your volumes in Storage ‣ Auto Import Volume.
3. Restore the configuration in System ‣ General ‣ Upload Config.

Note: you cannot restore a saved configuration which is newer than the installed version.
For example, if you reboot into an older version of the operating system, you cannot restore a
configuration that was created in a later version.

2.5.6. Upgrading a ZFS Pool

Beginning with FreeNAS® 9.3, ZFS pools can be upgraded from the graphical administrative
interface.

Before upgrading an existing ZFS pool, be aware of the following caveats first:

the pool upgrade is a one-way street meaning that if you change your mind you can
not go back to an earlier ZFS version or downgrade to an earlier version of
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FreeNAS® that does not support those feature flags.

before performing any operation that may affect the data on a storage disk, always
backup your data first and verify the integrity of the backup. While it is unlikely that
the pool upgrade will affect the data, it is always better to be safe than sorry.
upgrading a ZFS pool is optional. You do not need to upgrade the pool if you do not need
newer feature flags or if you want to keep the possibility of reverting to an earlier version
of FreeNAS® or repurposing the disks in another operating system that supports ZFS. If
you do decide to upgrade the pool to the latest feature flags, you will not be able to import
that pool into another operating system that does not yet support those feature flags.

To perform the ZFS pool upgrade, go to Storage ‣ Volumes ‣ View Volumes and highlight the
volume (ZFS pool) to upgrade. Click the “Upgrade” button as seen in Figure 2.5f.

Note: if the “Upgrade” button does not appear, the pool is already at the latest feature flags
and does not need to be upgraded.

Figure 2.5f: Upgrading a ZFS Pool

The warning message will remind you that a pool upgrade is irreversible. Click “OK” to proceed
with the upgrade.

The upgrade itself should only take a seconds and is non-disruptive. This means that you do
not need to stop any sharing services in order to upgrade the pool. However, you should
choose to upgrade when the pool is not being heavily used. The upgrade process will suspend
I/O for a short period, but should be nearly instantaneous on a quiet pool.

2.6. Virtualization
FreeNAS® can be run inside a virtual environment for development, experimentation, and
educational purposes. Please note that running FreeNAS® in production as a virtual machine is
not recommended. If you decide to use FreeNAS® within a virtual environment, read this post
first as it contains useful guidelines for minimizing the risk of losing your data.

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In order to install or run FreeNAS® within a virtual environment, you will need to create a virtual
machine that meets the following minimum requirements:

at least 8192 MB base memory size

a virtual disk at least 8 GB in size to hold the operating system and boot environments
at least one more virtual disk at least 4 GB in size to be used as data storage
a bridged adapter

This section demonstrates how to create and access a virtual machine within the VirtualBox
and VMware ESXi environments.

2.6.1. VirtualBox
VirtualBox is an open source virtualization program originally created by Sun Microsystems.
VirtualBox runs on Windows, BSD, Linux, Macintosh, and OpenSolaris. It can be configured to
use a downloaded FreeNAS® .iso file, and makes a good testing environment for practicing
configurations or learning how to use the features provided by FreeNAS®.

To create the virtual machine, start VirtualBox and click the “New” button, seen in Figure 2.6a,
to start the new virtual machine wizard.

Figure 2.6a: Initial VirtualBox Screen

Click the “Next” button to see the screen in Figure 2.6b. Enter a name for the virtual machine,
click the “Operating System” drop-down menu and select BSD, and select “FreeBSD (64-bit)”
from the “Version” dropdown.

Figure 2.6b: Type in a Name and Select the Operating System for the New Virtual
Machine

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Click “Next” to see the screen in Figure 2.6c. The base memory size must be changed to at
least 8192 MB. When finished, click “Next” to see the screen in Figure 2.6d.

Figure 2.6c: Select the Amount of Memory Reserved for the Virtual Machine

Figure 2.6d: Select Whether to Use an Existing or Create a New Virtual Hard Drive

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Click “Create” to launch the “Create Virtual Hard Drive Wizard” shown in Figure 2.6e.

Figure 2.6e: Create New Virtual Hard Drive Wizard

Select “VDI” and click the “Next” button to see the screen in Figure 2.6f.

Figure 2.6f: Select the Storage Type for the Virtual Disk
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You can now choose whether you want “Dynamically allocated” or “Fixed-size” storage. The
first option uses disk space as needed until it reaches the maximum size that you will set in the
next screen. The second option creates a disk the same size as that specified amount of disk
space, whether it is used or not. Choose the first option if you are worried about disk space;
otherwise, choose the second option as it allows VirtualBox to run slightly faster. Once you
select “Next”, you will see the screen in Figure 2.6g.

Figure 2.6g: Select the File Name and Size of the Virtual Disk

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This screen is used to set the size (or upper limit) of the virtual machine. Increase the default
size to 8 GB. Use the folder icon to browse to a directory on disk with sufficient space to hold
the virtual machine.

Once you make your selection and press “Next”, you will see a summary of your choices. Use
the “Back” button to return to a previous screen if you need to change any values. Otherwise,
click “Finish” to finish using the wizard. The virtual machine will be listed in the left frame, as
seen in the example in Figure 2.6h.

Figure 2.6h: The New Virtual Machine

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Next, create the virtual disk(s) to be used for storage. Click the “Storage” hyperlink in the right
frame to access the storage screen seen in Figure 2.6i.

Figure 2.6i: The Storage Settings of the Virtual Machine

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Click the “Add Attachment” button, select “Add Hard Disk” from the pop-up menu, then click the
“Create New Disk” button. This will launch the Create New Virtual Hard Drive Wizard (seen in
Figures 2.2e and 2.2f). Since this disk will be used for storage, create a size appropriate to your
needs, making sure that it is at least 4 GB in size. If you wish to practice RAID configurations,
create as many virtual disks as you need. You will be able to create 2 disks on the IDE
controller. If you need additional disks, click the “Add Controller” button to create another
controller to attach disks to.

Next, create the device for the installation media. Highlight the word “Empty”, then click the
“CD” icon as seen in Figure 2.6j.

Figure 2.6j: Configuring the ISO Installation Media

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Click “Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file...” to browse to the location of the .iso file. Alternately,
if you have burned the .iso to disk, select the detected “Host Drive”.

Depending upon the extensions available in your CPU, you may or may not be able to use the
ISO. If you receive the error “your CPU does not support long mode” when you try to boot the
ISO, your CPU either does not have the required extension or AMD-V/VT-x is disabled in the
system BIOS.

Note: if you receive a kernel panic when booting into the ISO, stop the virtual machine.
Then, go to System and check the box “Enable IO APIC”.

To configure the network adapter, go to Settings ‣ Network. In the “Attached to” drop-down
menu select “Bridged Adapter”, then select the name of the physical interface from the “Name”
drop-down menu. In the example shown in Figure 2.6k, the Intel Pro/1000 Ethernet card is
attached to the network and has a device name of em0.

Figure 2.6k: Configuring a Bridged Adapter in VirtualBox

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Once your configuration is complete, click the “Start” arrow and install FreeNAS® as described
in Performing the Installation. Once FreeNAS® is installed, press “F12” to access the boot
menu in order to select the primary hard disk as the boot option. You can permanently boot
from disk by removing the “CD/DVD” device in “Storage” or by unchecking “CD/DVD-ROM” in
the “Boot Order” section of “System”.

2.6.2. VMware ESXi

If you are considering using ESXi, read this post for an explanation of why iSCSI will be faster
than NFS.

ESXi is is a bare-metal hypervisor architecture created by VMware Inc. Commercial and free
versions of the VMware vSphere Hypervisor operating system (ESXi) are available from the
VMware website. Once the operating system is installed on supported hardware, use a web
browser to connect to its IP address. The welcome screen will provide a link to download the
VMware vSphere client which is used to create and manage virtual machines.

Once the VMware vSphere client is installed, use it to connect to the ESXi server. To create a
new virtual machine, click File ‣ New ‣ Virtual Machine. The New Virtual Machine Wizard will
launch as seen in Figure 2.6l.

Figure 2.6l: New Virtual Machine Wizard

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Click “Next” and input a name for the virtual machine. Click “Next” and highlight a datastore. An
example is shown in Figure 2.6m. Click “Next”. In the screen shown in Figure 2.6n, click “Other”
then select a FreeBSD architecture that matches the FreeNAS® architecture.

Figure 2.6m: Select a Datastore

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Figure 2.6n: Select the Operating System

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Click “Next” and create a virtual disk file of 8 GB to hold the FreeNAS® operating system, as
shown in Figure 2.6o.

Figure 2.6o: Create a Disk for the Operating System

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Click “Next” then “Finish”. Your virtual machine will be listed in the left frame. Right-click the
virtual machine and select “Edit Settings” to access the screen shown in Figure 2.6p.

Figure 2.6p: Virtual Machine’s Settings

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Increase the “Memory Configuration” to at least 8192 MB.

Under “CPUs”, make sure that only 1 virtual processor is listed, otherwise you will be unable to
start any FreeNAS® services.

To create a storage disk, click Hard disk 1 ‣ Add. In the “Device Type” menu, highlight “Hard
Disk” and click “Next”. Select “Create a new virtual disk” and click “Next”. In the screen shown
in Figure 2.6q, select the size of the disk. If you would like the size to be dynamically allocated
as needed, check the box “Allocate and commit space on demand (Thin Provisioning)”. Click
“Next”, then “Next”, then “Finish” to create the disk. Repeat to create the amount of storage
disks needed to meet your requirements.

Figure 2.6q: Creating a Storage Disk

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If you are running ESX 5.0, Workstation 8.0, or Fusion 4.0 or higher, additional configuration is
needed so that the virtual HPET setting does not prevent the virtual machine from booting.

If you are running ESX, while in “Edit Settings”, click Options ‣ Advanced ‣ General ‣
Configuration Parameters. Change “hpet0.present” from true to false, then click “OK” twice to
save the setting.

If you are running Workstation or Player, while in “Edit Settings”, click Options ‣ Advanced ‣ File
Locations. Locate the path for the Configuration file named filename.vmx . Open that file in a text
editor, change “hpet0.present” from true to false, and save the change.

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