TrueNAS CORE 12.0 Install Tutorial

This video tutorial should be all you need to get your first install of TrueNAS Core up and running. I'll take you through creating a USB Install disk, Installing TrueNAS on your server, creating a Storage Pool, creating a Windows network share, configuring a user and permissions, and connecting for the first time.

But first... What am I drinking???

It's been 95+ for the last week, so I went for a Pilsner this time around. It's Perle Haggard from Ex Novo Brewing (Portland, OR), a 'German Style' Pilsner (their words, not mine), clocking in at 5.1%. In the words of Maurice Moss... "It's certainly a beer."

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Music:
Shades of Spring by Kevin MacLeod

[retnikt]

8:09 I'm pretty sure that's a Firefox feature not a TrueNAS feature lol

[galen__]

5:11 — Missing step: If using Static IP (not DHCP), go to Network —> Global Configuration — then type in your Default Gateway and DNS Servers, then Save.
Without those details, your TrueNAS system won’t be able to reach outside the local network to download updates.

Thank you Jeff for all your videos. It’s odd that the GUI doesn’t warn about this when you change from the default DHCP to a static IP. I just started a new TrueNAS build and noticed this while following your guide.

[jacobrohr]

For all of those who (like me) were confused by the Hostname change at 5:15, after tinkering around with it you have to go to Services->select edit pencil for desired service (eg SMB), then change NetBIOS name to desired value (Changes will apply after next step). Next, go to Network->Global Configuration and change Hostname to desired value. Once you do, it should change the SMB name in Windows Explorer (at least it does for me on TrueNAS-13.0-U1). If you do it in the reverse order (Global then Services) it won't work right away. You would then have to restart the NAS for the change to apply.

[TechnoTim]

Another great tutorial! Thanks for giving us that are scared to jump on the beta a preview!

[roderick]

This is the most straight forward tutorial on truenas. No bs just straight to the point....

[leggeddog]

This is the kind of video that I like, save to my favorites and put in my "to do" list

[derekgreenhalgh]

I'd love to see a video focused on setting up jails with the proper permissions (Such as Plex for "optimizing" media for remote playback without live transcoding.) Thanks for the great tutorial!

[FSULAUBACH]

Just circling back around to this video again. I have used this quite a few times and just wanted to thank you again!

[wyfyj]

Finally... a tutorial that made sense to me. I have been looking into refurbishing a dying pc and making it a NAS/media server. I will be upgrading it with Linux instead of Windows.

When I've seen other videos talk about making their own NAS, they don't show the process. Some creator said to follow prompts and were very vague. But after seeing this, I can totally do this with Gentoo.

[akurenda]

Your explanation on Wheel and how to chmod was 10/10 good sir. Permissions questions plague the FreeNAS reddit.

[praecorloth]

8:52 Nononononnononono. Leave primary user at craft, use aux groups for additional group memberships. I mean, if you only have 1 user on your TrueNAS Core machine, that's probably okay...? Maybe? But when you need more than 1 user, you really want to dive into the permissions a little bit. For a basic, multi-user TrueNAS Core setup:

Step 0. Create your datasets. This is the step that everyone seems to ignore. Don't share out your base dataset. Create additional datasets for different purposes, like home directories, document file shares vs video file shares, etc. This will make your life so much easier down the road with permission, snapshots, etc.
Step 1. Create three groups, lowsec, medsec, highsec. The highsec group also gets medsec and lowsec. The medsec group also gets lowsec. This way you only need to assign one security group to each user, and they have access to all the things at their security level and below.
Step 2. Create your users. Give them an aux group of lowsec, medsec, or highsec. Make sure you give them a home directory to work with. Again, this will make your life easier down the road.
Step 3. In, I believe it is Storage, you have the option to set the owner, owning group, and permissions for each dataset.
Step 4-n. Set up your network share(s)
Step n+1. Have a beer.

This is a pretty basic permissions setup for a NAS. So much data these days does not fit into a typical "low/medium/high" security model. It's far more nuanced than that. However, this should be effective for a good chunk of the home and home office users. But it's definitely worth while knowing how the *nix permissions model works. People think it's very complicated, because in Windows you just click a directory, go to permissions, and select the users and/or groups that have access to it, or specifically don't have access to it. But once you've admin'd a couple of Windows based file servers, you understand what a huge rat's nest that becomes, even if you're applying whatever best practices Microsoft has put out this week.

[BrianLongoria]

Perfect timing. Looking to get a build of this in the next 5-10 days. Way new to the Free/True NAS side. I have a set of 4 x 8TB drives. I'm going to need to see what options I have as I don't want 20+ TB of just storage. Hoping I can break up the main pool to function in several diff ways. i.e. SMB/NFS storage, VM platform (small) and storage for other off machine VM's. Great beginner vid and I really like what you're doing. Cheers!

[tropmonky]

NICE, was going to load it up in the next day or two, always nice to see a quick simple setup video like this.

[MR-vjdn]

You're a bit quick when explaining but I enjoyed the video. Thanks for sharing. And also, a German pilsner is about the only beer I enjoy. 😊

[pyrooz]

I just stumbled on you rpage as i was trying to use truenas and your tutorials are easy to follow and understand.

[ITWorksSoftware]

This video should be in your FreeNas playlist…I couldn’t find it. 😉👍 P.S. thank you for your spectacular videos and beer recommendations. Love them!

[vascovalente]

Fantastic...im using this for my Veterinary Hospital, Thanks a lot

[poppipo]

Flawless tutorial, could not ask for better. Thank you!

[MaelosV]

Looking forward to more. Keep em coming! Short and sweet tutorials.

[TheBitKrieger]

I am sure he meant it differently... but what he said was: you don't need a swap partition if you use a zfs cache...