Hi folks,

 

I am sure I am doing something really dumb. But hopefully someone can help me debug this.

 

I am trying to setup Unraid. I have installed unmenu and added the line in /boot/config/go to run uu.

 

But I cannot connect via port 8080. I changed my server name to "UnRAID" and typing //UnRaid:8080 or //<192.168.xxx.xxx>:8080 into my browser does nothing. It just keeps saying "connecting". Entering my IP by itself (without the 8080) brings up the Dynamix GUI.

 

I am on UnRAID 6.0.1

 

Any ideas or tips are most appreciated - Thanks!

 

PS: What is the difference between these two GUIs?

Simple: don't use unmenu.

Simple: don't use unmenu.

 

    I suspect Joe might disagree 

 

 

I have installed unmenu and added the line in /boot/config/go to run uu.

 

How did you install UnMenu?    You not only have to create the correct folder on your flash drive ["Unmenu"], but you also have to download and run the installer ["unmenu_install"] ... i.e. "unmenu_install -i -d /boot/unmenu"

 

After that's all done, THEN you can invoke UnMenu with the "uu" command, running it from the installed folder [e.g.  \boot\unmenu\uu]    You can also add that line to your GO script in the Config folder ... is that what you've done?

 

 

Just for grins, I just installed it on one of my v6 test servers, and it works just fine.

 

 

In this day and age of unraid 6, there is no reason left to use unmenu.

Just realized the test server I used was still on v6.0, so I upgraded it to v6.01 "just in case"  [i love the in-GUI update feature] ... and UnMenu still works just fine.

 

 

EXACTLY what line did you add to your GO script?

... and did you do it with a "safe" editor that doesn't add any extra carriage return/LF characters?

In this day and age of unraid 6, there is no reason left to use unmenu.

 

Agree that much of the utility of UnMenu is now incorporated in the base UnRAID install ... notifications; UPS support; etc.    But there are still a few nice bits of info provided in UnMenu in a very convenient format ... and regardless of whether it's "needed" or not, the question was whether it should be working with port 8080 or not => and the answer is it should.

 

Are you sure you don't have anything else trying to use port 8080? Plugins or dockers?

Just for completeness => I upgraded to v6.1 RC1 and confirmed that UnMenu still works fine with it.

 

So most likely you either didn't install it correctly; or you have some conflict with port 8080 (perhaps a plugin or Docker as trurl noted).

 

 

Many thanks to everyone for their comments and help. Couple of comments:

 

1) I am following the configuration instructions here: (http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Configuration_Tutorial) - It says to install it so I was...If I do not need it, that is fine by me.

 

2) I did follow those instructions and I can see "uu" running when I do a ps...

 

3) I would not be surprised if it has something to do with the actual port...but I am super early in the install process so in theory there is nothing else really running at this point.

 

While I was trying to solve this, I did wonder why this was needed. I can see that there are dockers and other tools available. And the current Dynamix  console seems fine for everything I want. I may blow away my current work (it is early days) and start again as I am a bit worried that all my messing around will cause some issues to lurk in the background and bite me. And as pointed out, in theory, this should work fine so I am worried there is a deeper issue.

 

All I am doing is working my way through those instructions to "pre-clear" my drives. The instructions here (http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Manual_6#Getting_Started) seem much simpler. Should I just follow those? Or is there an alternative set of instructions to do a minimal, simple configuration of UnRAID?

 

Many thanks for all the support! Even though I am having some early issues, I am enjoying getting this going....

 

I have another question but I am going to start another thread on that....Thanks!

 

OK - I had a feeling it was "pilot" error. It was. :-)

 

The instructions I was following are for unRAID 4....Doooohwp!

 

I guess I was so excited to get started that I missed that. Sorry for the trouble. I will start afresh using the latest instructions.

Yes, the current instructions for installing UnMenu are here:

https://code.google.com/p/unraid-unmenu/

 

But as already noted, it's not really needed much these days, since v6 has incorporated both UPS support and notifications.    I still like the "MyMain" feature in UnMenu and some of the system info stuff; but it's not nearly as "mandatory" as I would have said in v4 and v5.

 

In fact, I didn't have it installed on my v6 test servers until I did it just for this question to confirm it still works okay (it does).

 

In any event, if you DO want it, I'm sure it will work fine if you install it correctly 

Just did a search in that unRAID 6 manual you linked, and it doesn't mention preclearing drives. Most people still recommend preclears since it is a very good way of testing drives. Having confidence in all your drives is very important because they are all needed if one of them fails.

 

It seems like the "official" documentation never talks about preclears, probably because it is not built-in to the product. Hopefully this will change some day.

 

I would say forget about unMenu for now. If you already have preclearing figured out then go ahead with that.

So the "//Tower" works fine in most cases....

 

1) It works from my desktop and other systems on the network except for an old "work" laptop.

 

2) Typing //Tower works fine in IE, Chrome and Opera. But in Firefox I have to type"http://tower/".'>http://tower/". I am just curious to why this would be?

 

3) On my other (main) laptop - it was a work laptop and I think was set up for "Domains" and not WorkGroups. I have tried to configure it so it works as a "home" laptop but not sure I have gotten rid of all the cruft. All works fine for IE, Opera, Chrome but on Firefox, when I type //Tower - it redirects me to an external web site (my old company). It even does this for "http://tower/" so something is still not right. I may delete and reinstall Firefox. But I do not really care at this point...just curious.

 

I would definitely like to "preclear" - are there other instructions you would recommended for version 6?

 

Again, many thanks for the support from the community...

 

Dave

A word about pre-clearing ...

 

When JoeL wrote the pre-clear utility a LONG time ago (~ 7 years ago I think), the key benefit was that you could clear a disk before adding it to the array; so the array wasn't unavailable for the time it took to write zeroes to a new disk (that is still the case if you add a disk that hasn't been cleared to your array).

 

Joe included a lot of additional testing in the script, so the drive was not only cleared (zeroed), but he also did both a pre-read and a post-read to provide some level of confidence that the drive was good [the pre-read basically confirms that every sector can be read;  the post-read confirms the same thing, but also confirms that everything is zero ... i.e. that the writes were all good;  and he does some fairly extensive seek tests as well.    This testing also results in reallocation of any bad blocks by the S.M.A.R.T. firmware on the disk.

 

It quickly became a fairly common practice to use the pre-clear script as a way to test new drives ... and indeed many folks run 2, 3, or even more cycles of it to thoroughly exercise a drive before adding it to the array.

 

But the fundamental reason to do it is to eliminate the need for UnRAID to clear a new drive ... and you can do this by itself by skipping the pre- and post- reads, which then takes about 1/4th of the time of a normal cycle.    You do this with the -n parameter ... i.e.  ./preclear_disk.sh -n /dev/???    (where = the disk to pre-clear)

 

I do NOT recommend just doing that for a new disk, but if you're adding a well-tested disk (i.e. from another system; or perhaps an old parity disk) it lets you do so MUCH quicker.    And even for new disks, it may be more convenient to test them using manufacturer's test utilities on another system before adding them to UnRAID, and then just use the -n option to get them cleared so they can be added "instantly" to the array.    I frequently do this -- using either WD's Data Lifeguard or Seagate's SeaTools to do a very thorough set of tests before putting a drive into service.

 

In this day and age of unraid 6, there is no reason left to use unmenu.

I like unmenu because I can configure MyMain to display the fields I want in the order I want.  When that makes it to Dynamix I will stop installing unmenu - or unmenu no longer works - whichever comes first.

In this day and age of unraid 6, there is no reason left to use unmenu.

I like unmenu because I can configure MyMain to display the fields I want in the order I want.  When that makes it to Dynamix I will stop installing unmenu - or unmenu no longer works - whichever comes first.

 

Have you put in a feature request for that?

In this day and age of unraid 6, there is no reason left to use unmenu.

I like unmenu because I can configure MyMain to display the fields I want in the order I want.  When that makes it to Dynamix I will stop installing unmenu - or unmenu no longer works - whichever comes first.

 

Agree.  I have it installed on all of my servers as well for exactly that reason.  Didn't have it on my v6 test server until I did it for this question, but that's not an operational server that I actually use on a regular basis.    I also like some of the other displays scattered around UnMenu.    MOST of this info is indeed available in v6, but it's very nicely displayed in UnMenu, and very nicely configurable in MyMain, so I simply don't see any reason to change.

 

 

There is an option to change the port. If you have trouble finding it I will post later tonight.

In the UnMenu folder on your flash drive there's an UnMenu.conf file.

 

It has the following section:

 

# Unmenu defaults to using port 8080.  If you wish to configure a different port, you may

# set it here, by setting MyPort to the desired port value.  If you wish to set it to 90, 

# just remove the leading pound symbol from the following line.

#MyPort = 90

 

As noted, if you want to use a different port than 8080 just remove the pound symbol from "MyPort" and set it to whatever port you want to use.

 

 

In this day and age of unraid 6, there is no reason left to use unmenu.

I like unmenu because I can configure MyMain to display the fields I want in the order I want.  When that makes it to Dynamix I will stop installing unmenu - or unmenu no longer works - whichever comes first.

 

Have you put in a feature request for that?

Nope.  Only just started using Dynamix with 6.0.0 and haven't had time to write up anything.  Takes me longer to do that then to install unmenu.

... Takes me longer to do that then to install unmenu.

 

 

Agree ... and there's also the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule; not to mention that UnMenu is simply a rock-solid little add-on that just works and works well.

 

If everyone followed that same notion, How are the developers supposed to know what people want when the people don't speak up? Then improvements wouldn't be made to the main product and everyone would still be running all the old items, unraid 3.x series.

Add compelling new features 

 

e.g. v5 added support for drives > 2TB

 

v6 added Dockers and VM's

 

Doling up the web interface is nice, but hardly compelling.    And the jury's out as to whether v6 will be as rock-solid reliable as v4.7 and v5 were.    Quite frankly, if v4.7 had > 2TB support I suspect a lot of us would still be running it (with UnMenu of course)      Especially for systems that are used strictly for their NAS functionality.

 

The next compelling new feature IMHO will be dual fault-tolerance.

 

 

I think you underestimate the importance of a good interface, it is not only the engine which counts, if that were true we still be driving Ford Model T ...

 

I think you underestimate the importance of a good interface, it is not only the engine which counts, if that were true we still be driving Ford Model T ...

 

You probably wouldn't like my 1910 Buick then 

 

I agree there needs to be a reasonable, informative interface for a NAS appliance with certain key features that were, in fact, missing from UnRAID for a long time -- but added by UnMenu.  e.g. notifications, UPS support, and SMART data on the drives.    For a NAS appliance where you only look at the GUI when you are either making changes or have received a notification e-mail, UnMenu and the stock GUI provided a perfectly GOOD interface for years.    I know a lot of folks toyed around with "improvements" like Simple Features and Dynamix, but in terms of improved capabilities for UnRAID, these added nothing. ... just a more graphic interface.    UnMenu with MyMain provided virtually a perfectly good interface for the information you really need.

 

Indeed, one of the original "benefits" of UnRAID was its isolation from the underlying Linux OS ... but now many folks are moving towards Linux scripts and command line tools to do things directly on the server instead of maintaining that isolation.

 

Don't read this wrong -- I agree the v6 GUI is a nice improvement in "look & feel" => and it certainly adds a lot of capability with its Docker and VM management features.    It's also nice to have UPS support and notifications directly controllable from the main GUI.    It's just not a "compelling feature" ... and whether, for example, SMART data is displayed by MyMain or on the Dashboard simply doesn't matter.