(SOLVED) Cannot access my unraid server... seems to be pulling DHCP address?

[OrangePeel]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm having a weird issue.  I fired up my ESXi server for the first time after moving.  Unraid seems to load in ESXi, but it's pulling a DHCP address for br0.  And the network config is correct.  I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to get this working again?  Where could this be going wrong?  If I try to connect to the DHCP address, it refuses connection.  If I set the DHCP to static at the original IP, still won't connect.  What am I missing?

 

I've attached my network config file.  Is there perhaps a service not starting?

 

Brandon

network.cfg

Edited June 29, 2020 by OrangePeel

[doron]

Are you sure you're getting a DHCP address? Any chance you're seeing an autoconf address (169.254.x.x)?

I'm asking because it would indicate a different problem.

 

Also, how are you booting your VM?

[OrangePeel]

Yes, it is DHCP from my pool...  I even tried setting a DHCP reservation...  And it worked, but it also seems like its not reading the config files.

 

I can't remember how I set it up to boot...  It was first put together in 2012...  There was an intermediate step...  Maybe I missed something there?

 

Brandon

[doron]

I notice that you're running Unraid 5... It's been awhile since I ran those.

There could several different intermediate steps for the booting - could be a virtual HDD, could be a CD (PlopKexec).

 

It does seem that your server does not complete a successful boot ("Connection refused" means the web server - emhttp in Unraid 5.0 terms IIRC - is not running). You can get to its console from ESXi and see what's going on (I'd first check whether I have local network connectivity - ping another local box - then if I can ping outside - say, 8.8.8.8).

[OrangePeel]

19 minutes ago, doron said:

I notice that you're running Unraid 5... It's been awhile since I ran those.

There could several different intermediate steps for the booting - could be a virtual HDD, could be a CD (PlopKexec).

 

It does seem that your server does not complete a successful boot ("Connection refused" means the web server - emhttp in Unraid 5.0 terms IIRC - is not running). You can get to its console from ESXi and see what's going on (I'd first check whether I have local network connectivity - ping another local box - then if I can ping outside - say, 8.8.8.8).

Thanks, Doron.  This is actually version 6.  Or it's supposed to be.  

 

I went back and checked my build thread and it looks like I originally used plop, so I'm going to double check and make sure that's still in place as it is supposed to be.  Or maybe now that I'm on 6, it is not needed?  Need to double check.  The sad thing is that I'm getting all of this running only to prep it to move to another, new home server (PowerEdge R720).  Go figure.  lol

 

[doron]

3 minutes ago, OrangePeel said:

Thanks, Doron.  This is actually version 6.  Or it's supposed to be.  

Ah okay 🙂 Your sig says 5.0-rc12a.

 

3 minutes ago, OrangePeel said:

 

I went back and checked my build thread and it looks like I originally used plop, so I'm going to double check and make sure that's still in place as it is supposed to be.  Or maybe now that I'm on 6, it is not needed?

It is needed, as long as your ESXi is at a version lower than 7.0. Previous ESXi can't boot from USB, so you need to either boot from a CD e.g. PlopKexec or from a vhdd that you set up in a certain way.

 

[OrangePeel]

Ha!  Need to update that sig.

 

It was Plop.  But my new server is on 7.0.  Just installed it yesterday.  Since I was on 6, it should find the correct drives and put them in the correct order, right?  As opposed to having to take a shot of the disk assignments and making sure they're exactly the same before starting the array?

Brandon

[OrangePeel]

Actually, I just remembered, I'm not putting it on ESXi next time... I bought a second server for it.  Doh!

 

I'd still hate to need a screenshot of the drive assignments and have no way of getting one.  

Brandon

[doron]

5 minutes ago, OrangePeel said:

It was Plop.  But my new server is on 7.0.  Just installed it yesterday.  Since I was on 6, it should find the correct drives and put them in the correct order, right?  As opposed to having to take a shot of the disk assignments and making sure they're exactly the same before starting the array?

Umm, "That Depends". 

It would find the correct drives only if you created the VM the same way, and then either (a) passed the HDD controller (SAS or otherwise) through to the VM, or (b) created RDMs for each HDD and assigned all of them to the VM. There's plenty of guidance here for doing either. At that point, Unraid will see the drives and (hopefully) put them in their corresponding slots.

 

Since you have ESXi 7.0, have you set it up to boot from the Unraid USB drive?

 

However you still need to see why the system does not fully boot, I'd check that by going to the machine console.

Edited June 20, 2020 by doron

[OrangePeel]

True, true.  No short cuts.  Unless I just give up on keeping some of this data.  

Brandon

[OrangePeel]

Ultimately, I had a double failure screw me up.  I believe the old flash drive was giving up.  Even after completely rebuilding it, it would mount the boot folder sometimes, wouldn't others.  Kinda weird.  On top of that, the first time I used the unraid creator on the new flash drive, it didn't work right.  So I thought I was fighting my server.  Turns out both flash drives were screwed.  lol

 

The new flash drive is now working as expected and fortunately my Unraid 6 config transferred over to the new server perfectly fine.  I'm now running a parity check. 

Brandon

Edited June 29, 2020 by OrangePeel