First Boot, 169 IP, stuck at 'tower login'

[WalnutBread]

So I've been struggling with this for a few weeks now, I'm new to UnRaid so I'm probably missing something basic here.

 

So I have UnRaid on a flash drive, everything boots like it should and the box is directly connected to the router via ethernet cable, but the console is only displaying a 169.xxx.xx.xx IP address, and it is not showing as a device on my router.

 

I can't access the tower login when i use a browser on another machine and on the console it just shows "tower login:" but when I enter my username/password it shows as 'incorrect login' and back to 'tower login"' I think it's doing that because it's not actually able to reach the internet.

 

In either case I don't seem to be able to get past the 'tower login' process to access the console. Same thing if boot to the GUI as well.

 

I've used this same machine as a FreeNas system in the past and haven't had any issues with obtaining an IP address when that was used.

 

Are there any other steps that I might have missed? Most of the other posts I've seen related to this problem seem to indicate the need for a log but since I can't get through the login i'm not sure the next steps to take

[trurl]

13 minutes ago, WalnutBread said:

when I enter my username/password it shows as 'incorrect login' and back to 'tower login"

Have you ever been able to login? What user are you trying to login as? The console only allows user 'root' to login, and if you haven't set a password then it is blank.

[Squid]

14 minutes ago, WalnutBread said:

username/password

the only access to the server at the command prompt (or to the webUI) is via the user "root" and whatever password you set for it

 

Once you get in, from the command prompt

diagnostics

and then upload the resulting file here

[WalnutBread]

3 hours ago, trurl said:

Have you ever been able to login? What user are you trying to login as? The console only allows user 'root' to login, and if you haven't set a password then it is blank.

 

no i haven't ever been able to login, not being able to reach the 'tower' page I don't think I can register the copy of UnRaid. I was trying to use my 'WalnutBread' user name, didn't realize that root was an option. Once I did that I could get through that to the console. Thanks for the help!

 

3 hours ago, Squid said:

the only access to the server at the command prompt (or to the webUI) is via the user "root" and whatever password you set for it

 

Once you get in, from the command prompt

 

diagnostics

and then upload the resulting file here

 

 

Okay great, i assumed that the 'Tower Login: ' prompt was for the the actual login stuff. I was able to get to the prompt, typed 'diagnostics' and got a message saying the ZIP file was written to /boot/logs/tower-diagnostics....zip, then i typed the 'powerdown' command per the post in trurl's signature.

 

Except that when i plug the USB stick into my (Windows 8 for the record) laptop that directory doesn't seem to exist.

 

The closes i can get is 'EFI-/boot' but there's no /logs directory

 

 

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. Appreciate the assistance.

Edited August 5, 2018 by WalnutBread
added response to quote

[Squid]

/boot just means the root of the flash drive.  Is there the logs folder in the root of the flash drive?

[WalnutBread]

58 minutes ago, Squid said:

/boot just means the root of the flash drive.  Is there the logs folder in the root of the flash drive?

 

Nothing there either 

 

[JonathanM]

Sounds like the stick was not prepared properly, or is incompatible. Are you SURE it's FAT32?

[WalnutBread]

2 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Sounds like the stick was not prepared properly, or is incompatible. Are you SURE it's FAT32?

Yup. I reformatted it using the built-in windows tool. I've also tried setting up the flash drive by both using the 'unraid media creation tool' and just unzipping the files and running the 'make-bootable.bat' file (as admin)

 

It's a SanDisk Cruzer Blade 8GB flash drive. I'll admit I didn't check it against the list of known un-registerable flash drives so maybe it's that. I might have something that's not a MicroCenter USB drive laying around to try that as well...

[itimpi]

Not quite sure why it is happening, but it looks if for some reason the flash drive is not being recognised after the initial boot.   The boot process should be mounting the flash drive at /boot so that the unRAID configuration information can read.   If this is not happening then this explains why you are not getting an IP address as well and why the unRAID GUI is not being initialised.  Are there any messages before the console login prompt is displayed that might indicate the flash drive is not being found?   If you have a choice USB2 ports tend to be more reliable than USB3 ones.

 

One way to check is if when you log in via the console is to use the ‘df’ command.    This will show any mounted file systems and should include the flash mounted at /boot (typically as device /dev/sda).   You can also try the command ‘is /boot’ which should show the contents of the flash drive if it has been correctly mounted.

[WalnutBread]

20 minutes ago, itimpi said:

Not quite sure why it is happening, but it looks if for some reason the flash drive is not being recognised after the initial boot.   The boot process should be mounting the flash drive at /boot so that the unRAID configuration information can read.   If this is not happening then this explains why you are not getting an IP address as well and why the unRAID GUI is not being initialised.  Are there any messages before the console login prompt is displayed that might indicate the flash drive is not being found?   If you have a choice USB2 ports tend to be more reliable than USB3 ones.

 

One way to check is if when you log in via the console is to use the ‘df’ command.    This will show any mounted file systems and should include the flash mounted at /boot (typically as device /dev/sda).   You can also try the command ‘is /boot’ which should show the contents of the flash drive if it has been correctly mounted.

Yup that seems to be the issue. df produced the below mounts:

 

• /
• /run
• /dev
• /dev/shm
• /sys/fs/cgroup
• /var/log

so looks like the flash drive isn't getting mounted for some reason. Also I looked a little closer on the "powerdown" process as it ran and saw "/boot not found" Interesting that it can load from the flash drive, but isn't able to mount the drive. 

 

I'll probably go ahead and order one of the flash drives from the 'recommended hardware' page just to be sure and in the meantime play around with the BIOS/USB ports.

[pwm]

41 minutes ago, WalnutBread said:

Interesting that it can load from the flash drive, but isn't able to mount the drive.

 

It's different code involved for the initial boot and for the later parts. In the initial boot, the BIOS supports booting from the USB drive and so reads in initial code to run. In the later stages, it's the Linux kernel itself that needs to access the USB drive for continued use.

 

There are also sometimes issues that an advanced USB controller may be able to emulate a simpler USB controller. So when the machine boots, it behaves as a simple USB 2 or even USB 1.1 host controller. Enough so that the BIOS can boot from USB or so that the BIOS can make use of USB keyboards and mice. Then when Linux boots, a more advanced driver detects that the USB controller is actually a USB 3.0 controller and wants to reconfigure it to take full advantages of the additional functionality. And that step may not always work well.

[trurl]

5 hours ago, WalnutBread said:

i assumed that the 'Tower Login: ' prompt was for the the actual login stuff.

You're obviously not getting to this point yet, but for future reference:

 

The actual login stuff for logging into the webUI is also the 'root' user. The other users you create in the webUI are only for file access over the network. Those users will never have access to the console or the webUI. And 'root' user doesn't have file access over the network.

[WalnutBread]

So it turned out that it must have been something to do with the thumb-drive that I was using.

 

I bought a SanDisk Cruzer Fit on my lunch today and loaded it up on a whim. Lo-and-behold. 192 IP address, tower login worked. even got the trial-key installed.

 

So far this is so much more intuitive than FreeNAS

 

Thanks so much for the help!