BartDG Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 I've been using unraid v4 for a while now, but figured it might be time for an upgrade. But I want to try things out first before changing my main unraid box, so I figured I'd go virtual first and tinker with it a bit. So I downloaded the newest Unraid V6 ZIP, copied it to an 8GB Sandisk USB stick and made it bootable. Next, I created a VHD from that using WinImage. The I setup the Virtual machine, creating 4 virtual HD's extra (3 data disks, 1 parity), each 10 GB. Then I boot up the virtual machine and I can get it to boot. I can even browse to the Unraid webmanagement and see the Unraid Server configuration utility. Unfortunately, it says: "flash device error, contact support". I can see the 4 Virtual HD's, but not assign them to anything. Obviously somehting has gone wrong. Anybody any idea, 'cause I'm not a virtualisation Guru... Thanks! Link to comment
theone Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 You need to pass through the USB device to the VirtualBox Vm and also create a IDE device (VDI) that also has the unRAID OS on it. The OS image files get loaded from the IDE device to RAM and then the OS continues booting from the USB device. all the plugin and packages get loaded from the USB device. When upgading the OS the update through the plugin copies the new OS image files to the USB device - you then need to manually copy them to the IDE device. I mounted the IDE device as an out-of-array device using the unassigned plugin to simplify the process. Edit: The reason you need the IDE drive is because VirtualBox cannot boot directly from a USB device. This IDE device will "eat" one of the possible device slots available by the "FREE" evaluation version. Link to comment
BartDG Posted June 4, 2015 Author Share Posted June 4, 2015 Thanks for your speedy reply TheOne, but there's one thing I'm not getting: I'm not booting from the USB stick. I've made a VHD from the USB stick. This is a bit like a bootable ISO file. I've then connected this VHD file to Virtualbox. The system then boots from this VHD drive. (I did this specifically to cicumvent the problems with booting from USB with the free Virtualbox) But as per your advice, I ended up adding the USB stick to VirtualBox also, and tadaaaa: that worked. A bit strange needing two devices to get a proper boot, but hey, it works. Thanks for the help! Link to comment
itimpi Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 But as per your advice, I ended up adding the USB stick to VirtualBox also, and tadaaaa: that worked. A bit strange needing two devices to get a proper boot, but hey, it works. Thanks for the help! The issue is that unRAID will not work unless it can find the USB device. Link to comment
trurl Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 But as per your advice, I ended up adding the USB stick to VirtualBox also, and tadaaaa: that worked. A bit strange needing two devices to get a proper boot, but hey, it works. Thanks for the help! The issue is that unRAID will not work unless it can find the USB device. Because the USB device has the GUID that is tied to the .key file. Link to comment
theone Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 This is needed only since rc3 when the licensing was introduced. Before that a physical usb was indeed not needed. Link to comment
trurl Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 This is needed only since rc3 when the licensing was introduced. Before that a physical usb was indeed not needed. Licensing was changed with rc1. I assume you mean no usb was needed for the FREE version. A GUID has always been required for paid license since I have been using unRAID. Link to comment
theone Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 Yes, i meant that one of the latest RCs required registration even for the free evaluation version and thus requires a GUID. Link to comment
BartDG Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 After the solution TheOne provided, I was able to boot correctly and set everything up. Another thing he said was correct: one of the usable 3 disks was indeed also taken by the VHD in the trial version of Unraid. So I registered for a basic licence, something I should have done a long time ago anyway. I was able to setup the disks (even a cache disk, even though in my case it's probably useless since it's all virtual but I wanted to try it nonetheless), but the only thing that puzzled me was the I seemed unable to create shares. I could enter the "shares" tab, but there was no "create share" button or something to actually create one. Strange. I'm now at work so I can't check anything, but I'll pick this up again tonight when I'm back home. Link to comment
itimpi Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 I was able to setup the disks (even a cache disk, even though in my case it's probably useless since it's all virtual but I wanted to try it nonetheless), but the only thing that puzzled me was the I seemed unable to create shares. I could enter the "shares" tab, but there was no "create share" button or something to actually create one. Strange. I'm now at work so I can't check anything, but I'll pick this up again tonight when I'm back home. I seem to remember someone mentioning that when you enable User Shares you need to stop/restart the array before you can actually successfully set up the shares. I think this was to do with correctly initialising the FUSE file system that underlies User Shares. Link to comment
BartDG Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 Thanks so much for your help, I'll check this evening and post feedback here! Link to comment
BartDG Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 Ok, something weird going on here. Now I get the old "flash device error, contact support" error again, which is very strange since I didn't change anything to the setup. The VM is still the same and the usb stick is inserted (and readable). I'll try a few thing, but I've pretty much haven't got any idea as to why this is happening... Link to comment
theone Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 Did you change timezone or time/date? Link to comment
BartDG Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 I didn't change anything. Just powered down the VM (correctly) yesterday after not being able to create shares, figuring I'd take another look tomorrow. So today I powered it back on, and the error is back. Strange. Tried a couple of times again now, but no love. Very puzzled now. Link to comment
BartDG Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 Ok, I deleted the whole VM and started over again, and waddayaknow: it works again. I started thinking: could this be because I registered Unraid yesterday and entered a key, essentially making the data on the USB stick not 100% equal to the data on the VHD anymore? Anyway, the system's back up. Now for some playing time! Link to comment
enetec Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 After the solution TheOne provided, I was able to boot correctly and set everything up. Another thing he said was correct: one of the usable 3 disks was indeed also taken by the VHD in the trial version of Unraid. So I registered for a basic licence, something I should have done a long time ago anyway. I was able to setup the disks (even a cache disk, even though in my case it's probably useless since it's all virtual but I wanted to try it nonetheless), but the only thing that puzzled me was the I seemed unable to create shares. I could enter the "shares" tab, but there was no "create share" button or something to actually create one. Strange. I'm now at work so I can't check anything, but I'll pick this up again tonight when I'm back home. I can confirm your issue and I've already reported it here: https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=37687.0 Anyway, tomorrow I'll test a better solution: boot from Plop live CD and then from real USB passed through the VM. This way it should works fine and no drive will be 'lost' since of booting process. I'll report results on that topic. Link to comment
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