(SOLVED) cant connect to web gui unless server booted into web gui mode


Recommended Posts

started noticing weird behavior today.... moved my unraid server to a new chassis, intending for it to be headless 100% of the time now. however, im no longer able to connect to the web gui from my laptop unless i boot unraid in gui mode on the hardware. im 99% certain i used to be able to boot unraid OS  (non gui mode) and still connect to the webgui. 

 

should i be able to connect to my webgui, even if the server is booted in 'non gui mode'?

 

is there a way to force unraid to always boot into web gui mode?

 

version 6.6.7

Edited by drewbuntu
Link to comment
24 minutes ago, drewbuntu said:

started noticing weird behavior today.... moved my unraid server to a new chassis, intending for it to be headless 100% of the time now. however, im no longer able to connect to the web gui from my laptop unless i boot unraid in gui mode on the hardware. im 99% certain i used to be able to boot unraid OS  (non gui mode) and still connect to the webgui. 

 

should i be able to connect to my webgui, even if the server is booted in 'non gui mode'?

 

is there a way to force unraid to always boot into web gui mode?

 

version 6.6.7

You should always be able to get into the GUI via the network regardless of the boot mode.

 

You can change the default boot mode by moving the ‘default’ entry into the appropriate section of the config/config.sys file.   The easiest way is to click on the boot device on the Main tab in the Unraid GUI.

Link to comment
2 hours ago, drewbuntu said:

is there a way to force unraid to always boot into web gui mode?

Yes, in the syslinux folder on the flash drive, edit the syslinux.cfg file.  Notice that 'menu default' is in the label unRAID OS section.  Move it to label unRAID OS GUI Mode section if you want this to be the default.

 

default menu.c32
menu title Lime Technology, Inc.
prompt 0
timeout 50
label unRAID OS
  menu default
  kernel /bzimage
  append initrd=/bzroot
label unRAID OS GUI Mode
  kernel /bzimage
  append initrd=/bzroot,/bzroot-gui
label unRAID OS Safe Mode (no plugins, no GUI)
  kernel /bzimage
  append initrd=/bzroot unraidsafemode
label unRAID OS GUI Safe Mode (no plugins)
  kernel /bzimage
  append initrd=/bzroot,/bzroot-gui unraidsafemode
label Memtest86+
  kernel /memtest

 

Is your server booting and running OK, as far as you can tell, even though you cannot connect to the GUI if it boots in 'normal' mode?

 

Did you update the BIOS before or after moving the hardware to a new chassis?  Did anything else change on your system or was it just the same hardware being moved to a different case?

 

Edited by Hoopster
  • Like 1
Link to comment
16 hours ago, itimpi said:

You should always be able to get into the GUI via the network regardless of the boot mode.

that's what i thought. thanks for confirming

 

14 hours ago, Hoopster said:

Is your server booting and running OK, as far as you can tell, even though you cannot connect to the GUI if it boots in 'normal' mode?

I'll explore this question a little more. it does boot, however when i attempted to ssh to it I noticed the IP block was vv different. normally i expect an IP in 192.x.x.x range but without gui mode its getting a 169.x.x.x IP. ssh timed out but i didnt investigate that yet

 

14 hours ago, Hoopster said:

Did you update the BIOS before or after moving the hardware to a new chassis?  Did anything else change on your system or was it just the same hardware being moved to a different case?

the only change is a different PSU. no BIOS updates or anything. AFTER discovering the problem i upgraded unraid fro 6.6.5 to 6.6.7, hoping the update would fix it. restatement for clarity, issue was originally found on 6.6.5 and persisted after 6.6.7 update.

Edited by drewbuntu
Link to comment
19 hours ago, drewbuntu said:

started noticing weird behavior today.... moved my unraid server to a new chassis, intending for it to be headless 100% of the time now. however, im no longer able to connect to the web gui from my laptop unless i boot unraid in gui mode on the hardware.

I asked what, if anything, had changed on your system besides moving to a new chassis because I had a similar issue after upgrading to unRAID 6.5.x from 6.4.x. The system would not boot at all except in GUI mode.  In my case, I had to change the flash drive to boot in UEFI (instead of legacy BIOS) and the problem was solved.  I don't think this is your issue based on what you have described.

 

If you are getting a 169.x.x.x IP address, that indicates networking problems. The GUI will not be accessible from any machine on your network if it has a non-routable 169.x.x.x address.  Does your server have a static IP address or is it configured to receive a DHCP address?  169.x.x.x usually indicates a failure to communicate with a DHCP server. 

 

You may need to attach a monitor and keyboard to the server to get some diagnostics since you can't access it via GUI or SSH.

 

If you can't get a valid IP address, check the network.cfg on your unRAID flash drive and make sure it looks OK. Is your NIC onboard your motherboard or is it an add-on card?  Do you have a spare known good PCIe NIC you can put in the server to test with to eliminate existing NICs as the problem? 

 

One of my servers is completely headless (it has IPMI) and it works just fine with all versions of unRAID up to and including version 6.7.0 rc5 which it is currently running.

Link to comment
4 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

Does your server have a static IP address or is it configured to receive a DHCP address?

DHCP. Yes, i suspect you're right about it being networking related. probably the GUI is coming up but im not able to discover the hostname

 

the NIC is onboard and i do not have a pci card available (though i can get one). first ill take a look around at the .cfg and using keyboard / monitor 

 

thanks for your input so far

Link to comment
15 minutes ago, drewbuntu said:

DHCP. Yes, i suspect you're right about it being networking related. probably the GUI is coming up but im not able to discover the hostname

Once you get this resolved, I highly suggest you assign a static IP address to the server in unRAID and your router.  It makes troubleshooting a lot easier when the server has a known IP address.

Edited by Hoopster
Link to comment

I have the same issue I have been trying to figure out all day with no luck.  I just built a new rig to consolidate my unraid server and my desktop pc into one. I am able to get booted into my server (GUI) no issues except I cannot get an IP address.  If I leave it set to automatic I get a 169.x.x.x address and setting a static IP does not help. I have an onboard NIC, no pcie NIC laying around.  My current server that I am running is 6.3.1.  Any other suggestions would be great!

Edited by jwellnitz
Link to comment
32 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

Did you reboot the router and any switches connected to the server and the router?  These things all are computer like chip sets and a reboot will often solve problems...

Yep. Rebooted multiple times, once I left them off and unplugged for 5 or so mins.

Link to comment

On your new rig, once it gets to the Login prompt, login (as root user) and type the 'df' command, should look something like this:

root@Test1:~# df
Filesystem     1K-blocks   Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs           1970548 530088   1440460  27% /
tmpfs              32768    224     32544   1% /run
devtmpfs         1970564      0   1970564   0% /dev
tmpfs            2021920      0   2021920   0% /dev/shm
cgroup_root         8192      0      8192   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs             131072    172    130900   1% /var/log
/dev/sda1        3781076 212928   3568148   6% /boot
/dev/loop0          8832   8832         0 100% /lib/modules
/dev/loop1          6016   6016         0 100% /lib/firmware

In particular /lib/modules and /lib/firmware should be mounted on loop devices.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, limetech said:

On your new rig, once it gets to the Login prompt, login (as root user) and type the 'df' command, should look something like this:


root@Test1:~# df
Filesystem     1K-blocks   Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs           1970548 530088   1440460  27% /
tmpfs              32768    224     32544   1% /run
devtmpfs         1970564      0   1970564   0% /dev
tmpfs            2021920      0   2021920   0% /dev/shm
cgroup_root         8192      0      8192   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs             131072    172    130900   1% /var/log
/dev/sda1        3781076 212928   3568148   6% /boot
/dev/loop0          8832   8832         0 100% /lib/modules
/dev/loop1          6016   6016         0 100% /lib/firmware

In particular /lib/modules and /lib/firmware should be mounted on loop devices.

I don't see /lib/modules or lib/firmware anywhere.  I have /var/lib/docker on loop0 and  /etc/libvirt on loop1.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, jwellnitz said:

I don't see /lib/modules or lib/firmware anywhere.  I have /var/lib/docker on loop0 and  /etc/libvirt on loop1.

Probably updating to 6.6.7 failed somehow.  I suggest you plug usb flash into PC, make a backup, reinstall using Flash Creator Tool and then restore your 'config' directory contents from your backup.

Link to comment
11 hours ago, limetech said:

Probably updating to 6.6.7 failed somehow.  I suggest you plug usb flash into PC, make a backup, reinstall using Flash Creator Tool and then restore your 'config' directory contents from your backup.

This worked!  Starting over with a fresh install on the USB seem to have helped.  I am going to just reconfig the whole server from scratch since my last server I had done a lot of playing around with and probably have stuff that I no longer need set up.  Thanks for the help guys!  @drewbuntu hopefully this can help fix your issue too since we were having similar issues??

Link to comment

alright sorry for the delay... got busy, just started a new job... anyways, heres my network.cfg output. ill check the mounted devices with df as the hawaiin shirt admin recommended. i always trust guys in hawaiian shirts

 

cat network.cfg

# Generated network settings

USE_DHCP="yes"

IPADDR=

NETMASK=

GATEWAY=

BONDING="yes"

BRIDGING="yes"

 

i do get an error when booting in non-gui mode related to bond0, says it cant find the device. is this part of the problem? is bonding required for unraid?

Edited by drewbuntu
Link to comment

 

7 minutes ago, drewbuntu said:

looks like all thats mounted is

/run

/dev

/dev/shm

/sys/fs/cgroup

/var/log

 

how is this system working in 'gui mode' but not in 'non-gui mode'?

Have you tried this?   (The GUI boot process is different from the non-GUI boot.)

On 3/27/2019 at 1:31 AM, limetech said:

Probably updating to 6.6.7 failed somehow.  I suggest you plug usb flash into PC, make a backup, reinstall using Flash Creator Tool and then restore your 'config' directory contents from your backup.

Link to comment
  • 3 years later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.