[SOLVED] Ethernet connection not registering at every reboot

[zekemdm]

On the dashboard the Network portion:

 

bond0 fault-tolerance (active-backup)

eth0 1000Mb/s - full duplex

eth1 1000Mb/s - full duplex

lo loopback

 

Sometimes the eth1 does not show, there is no activity lights flashing on that port. I have been able to correct the problem by rebooting the server.

 

The other two topics I have posted to this forum are the slow transfer speed and machine name change, I share this in case they all might be related.

 

Thank you.

nas-diagnostics-20160123-0938.zip

[John_M]

I suspect the three are related. What happens if you revert to using a simple single Ethernet connection? Does it fix the other two issues?

[jonp]

Enable bonding under network settings. This will solve your issue.

[zekemdm]

The bonding is enabled, the default setting is active-backup.

[zekemdm]

I shut down the server, disconnected one of the ethernet cables and had the same results. The machine booted with the name Tower and when I initiated the copy from the HDD to the server it showed a status bar, but the data over 5 mins or so never began to transfer. I shut down the server again and switched the ethernet from the Airport Time Capsule to the switch and had the same results.

[John_M]

Did you try reverting to a simple single Ethernet connection - without bonding or bridging, and not just unplugging one cable?

 

[zekemdm]

I reformatted the boot device so that it has more than the minimum 512MB. That seems to have resolved the machine name change problem. It has for the past few reboots remained as NAS and not reverted back to Tower. However, the issue with copying or even deleting the attempted folder copy from the share has become impossible. The delete does not occur and the transfer does not start, there is a progress bar but it says deleting or Preparing to copy... I have rebooted the server after disabling the bonding and disconnecting the secondary ethernet cable. The problem still persists.

[John_M]

So your coping issue is unrelated to the bonding.

 

I don't understand why you had to reformat your USB flash device. How big is it and why was is originally less than 512 MB? Are you trying to partition it for some reason? Don't do that. Use the whole thing. Small ones are difficult to find these days. I use an 8 GB one and it has plenty of free space, but a 2 GB one would be fine. The largest size you can use is 32 GB, I seem to recall.

 

[zekemdm]

I have a MacBook Pro and found it difficult to format the 16GB thumb drive as my boot device. It would not boot from the USB until I was able to format it on a Windows which I run in Desktop Parallels. When I initially was able to format it in the Windows OS the maximum size it would allow for some reason was 200MB. After just upgrading to unRAID 6.1.7 I saw that 200MB was not going to cut it and looked in the manual. That is when I saw the 512MB minimum and why I reformatted my boot device. I am not sure if it was the cause of any problems, but I have not experienced the machine name change since I have done that. It would previously after a reboot revert back to Tower and cause conflict between machines reconnecting like TimeMachine for example. Now after the past few reboots it remains NAS and no longer reverts back to Tower.

[John_M]

I'm using a MacBook Pro right now. I use Disk Utility (included with OS X) to format my USB flash devices. To be safe I use the Partition option, set the Partition layout to 1 Partition in the drop down menu, check that the Partition Map Scheme is set to Master Boot Record (change it if necessary with the Options... button), set the Name to UNRAID and the format to MS-DOS (FAT), then click Apply. Then I download the unRAID installer, unzip it by double clicking it. Then I copy all the files from the unzipped folder onto the flash and, finally, run the make_bootable_mac utility in the root before Ejecting and removing the device. No need for Bootcamp or Parallels. May I suggest you create yourself a good boot flash before trying to proceed.

[John_M]

Your flash currently has two partitions, the second of which is invalid.

 

Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     SanDisk  Cruzer Fit       1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 31260672 512-byte logical blocks: (16.0 GB/14.9 GiB)
Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: sda: sda1 sda2
Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk

 

Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: FAT-fs (sda2): bogus number of reserved sectors
Jan 23 09:33:10 Tower kernel: FAT-fs (sda2): Can't find a valid FAT filesystem

 

Your syslog doesn't include when you started the array and tried to read/write/delete.

[zekemdm]

Thanks for your post. I reformatted the drive and the problem of the machine name change has stopped, maybe the partition and name change were connected. I have uploaded a new diagnostic file in this post, perhaps the problems of partitions has been solved. For the time being I have only one ethernet connection plugged in and bonding disabled.

nas-diagnostics-20160124-1750.zip

[John_M]

That looks much better and everything seems good until

 

Jan 24 05:33:26 NAS afpd[12576]: get_tm_bandsize("/mnt/user/B..t"): No such file or directory

 

The message repeats over and over. Since you've anonymised the name of your user share I can only guess is that it refers to a Time Machine related operation, or at least has something to do with your client trying to access a sparse disk image. It's trying to read the size of the individual files that make up the sparse image by reading a plist inside the sparse image folder but can't find it because it doesn't exist. "B..t" doesn't seem to match anything in the shares folder of your diagnostics. Your previous diagnostics had user shares called Backups, Media and Pictures so it looks as though you've created a new share, pointed something at it (possibly Time Machine, as I said) and then deleted it. So you need to fix that next.

 

I suspect your previous problems were cause by lack of space on your flash. If there's no space the config files can't be updated so your changes don't survive a reboot. That should be good now.

 

Try re-enabling the Ethernet channel bonding, once you've fixed the above, if you want to. You might need to enable the bridge too in order to make it work (turn the Dynamix help on for more information) and note that Active-backup (mode 1) is the only channel bonding mode you can use with a regular unmanaged switch and note that you won't see any increased throughput between the server and a single client though it would benefit the case of multiple simultaneous clients and, of course, it will provide a degree of redundancy, though you might well see an increase in dropped packets.

 

[John_M]

In fact your B-----s.cfg file in the shares folder of your most recent diagnostics has an AFP volume size limit applied, which makes me think it's intended for Time Machine backups. So it looks as though that's where Time Machine should be pointing, not to B..t.

 

[zekemdm]

I'm a little lost on what I should do to correct this. Here is the full line:

 

Jan 24 05:38:35 NAS afpd[12576]: get_tm_bandsize("/mnt/user/Backups/MacBook Pro.sparsebundle/Info.plist"): No such file or directory

 

There is no indication on my MacBook Pro that the backups are not properly being executed.

 

In the share Backups there is a MacBook Pro and MacBook Pro 1 Sparse Disk Image Bundle when I view package contents, there is nothing in the MacBook Pro which is where the line above is looking. In the MacBook Pro 1 there is /mnt/user/Backups/MacBook Pro1.sparsebundle/Info.plist.

 

I am only backing up one computer that is my MacBook Pro, I am not sure why there are two sparse disk image bundles.

[John_M]

This isn't an unRAID problem but a Time Machine problem.

 

Here's a link to a very useful site for information on all things related to the care and maintenance of Time Machine.

 

The error message, now that you've filled in the blanks, is quite clear: Time Machine is requesting information from the file called "/mnt/user/Backups/MacBook Pro.sparsebundle/Info.plist" on your unRAID server but the server is failing because the file doesn't exist. It seems as though the sparse bundle has become corrupt, in all likelihood due to your earlier difficulties. Sparse disk image bundles are notably more fragile than monolithic disk images.

 

Probably the easiest solution would be to switch off Time Machine temporarily. Delete the two sparsebundle folders and all their contents. Switch on Time Machine and point it at a new destination within your Backups user share, then leave it overnight to recreate and repopulate the sparse disk image. Then check you unRAID syslog to make sure you have no recurring error messages.

 

[itimpi]

I thought I had seen suggestions that for Time Machine you should use a disk share and not a user share!  I do not have  a Mac so have no actual experience of this.

[John_M]

I thought I had seen suggestions that for Time Machine you should use a disk share and not a user share!  I do not have  a Mac so have no actual experience of this.

 

An interesting point, though the AFP options for user shares include the option to limit the volume size for Time Machine use, which rather suggests that they can be used for this purpose. I'll see if I can find out any more. I don't use unRAID as a Time Machine destination, myself, but I have used it with a simpler NAS device (a WD MyCloud). On balance I find a dedicated USB-connected 2.5-inch hard disk makes a better destination.

 

EDIT: A quick search shows a lot of historical debate and uncertainty but in the most recent advice I can find here, jonp doesn't say that the use of a disk share is mandated.

[zekemdm]

Thanks. I disabled the Time Machine backups and deleted the ones from the share. I will consider my options and maybe use an external. The unRAID box was more for my media and other data anyways. I was using the Time Machine AFP functionality because it was available. I will mark this one as solved.