[Solved] Server not showing up on network

[kayjay010101]

Hey everyone, would love some help as I'm about to pull my hair out after 3 days of troubleshooting.

 

Recently moved my server into a new room as I was adding a disk shelf and the noise would be unbearable, so it had to go into the storage room. Anyway, after turning the server on again after the move, it seemed that the web UI never was available. So I tried pinging the IP, and nothing. All right, shut it down, plug in the GPU from my main computer and check the console. All looks fine, it still has the same IP and everything. But it's not possible to ping anything on the network. And since unraid runs my pfsense, I have no internet connection. I've tried ifconfig, which shows a 0.0.0.0 broadcast address? Is this right or irrelevant? Also, I tried ethtool br0 (I have a bridged interface: my 10GbE card is bridged with the main motherboard NIC and I run 10GbE downstairs to my main computer) which states "link detected: no". Strange, as I've now tried every single ethernet port on the server. Each on the 4port Intel card, and both on the motherboard. They all say no link detected. I always connect them to the same switch that then goes to my laptop, and the laptop is able to communicate with the rest of the network no problem. I also see the disk shelf from my laptop, which again goes through the same switch. The entire network is on 10.0.0.x, the server being 10.0.0.41, laptop 10.0.0.4, and disk shelf 10.0.0.5. Gateway is 10.0.0.1, which is my pfsense vm, but pfsense never runs, of course. Another strange thing to note is when I run in safe mode with GUI the localhost thing that pops up doesn't get a connection. So not even the server itself can get a connection to the web UI. And yes, I've tried multiple cables and a direct connection from the laptop to the server. Link still not detected.. it's 100% not a physical problem as far as I can see. But I'm open to be proven wrong, of course. The ethernet NIC on the laptop is set as IP: 10.0.0.4, mask: 255.255.255.0 and gateway 10.0.0.1. WiFi card is set to 10.0.0.184, same mask and gateway 10.0.0.179. Neither has gotten any contact with the unraid server. When trying connection with the ethernet card I disable wifi just in case there's some interference.

 

What I've also tried which might or might not be relevant:

• chkdsk on the flash drive. No problems.
• downloaded 6.8.3 files and replaced bzroot, bzimage and bzroot-gui on the flash drive. Did this because bzroot was stuck at one point and I couldn't even boot the server. This was prior to any network problems.
• renamed the network.cfg file to network.old.cfg in order to try to get unraid to create a new network.cfg file. With this config unraid just got a 169. address, which makes sense as I have no DHCP server and it's DHCP as default. Taking the flash out and checking it, there was no network.cfg file created so I couldn't set a static IP... Tried just creating a new one with the settings that should be correct. 
• tried changing gateway to 10.0.0.179 which was what my other laptop had gotten as its gateway (I guess because that IP belongs to an AP I have?), but still no luck. 

 

I've attached my diagnostics zip.

 

 

tower-diagnostics-20200731-1839.zip

Edited August 1, 2020 by kayjay010101
Request was solved

[kayjay010101]

Just connected up the old ISP router (ew) and it's working for every device apart from the unraid box. DHCP doesn't work when booting without a network.cfg file and when using the old one it says link not detected. I'm at my wits end here

[Frank1940]

For some reason, you do not have a ethtool.txt file in the system folder of the Diagnostics.  I then looked at the syslog and did not find that the boot process never detected an NIC device.  I would be checking the BIOS and opening up the Case since you are using a plugin NIC card to see that everything is properly seated.  Look at the LED lights on the RJ-45 sockets and compare the patterns to the cables plugged and unplugged.

[kayjay010101]

2 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

For some reason, you do not have a ethtool.txt file in the system folder of the Diagnostics.  I then looked at the syslog and did not find that the boot process never detected an NIC device.  I would be checking the BIOS and opening up the Case since you are using a plugin NIC card to see that everything is properly seated.  Look at the LED lights on the RJ-45 sockets and compare the patterns to the cables plugged and unplugged.

Thanks for the advice.

 

In the meantime after posting this post I tested with a new stick running a fresh install of unraid. No problems, it got a DHCP from the ISP router and I can access the Web UI from my laptop.

I am using a quadport NIC for the PfSense VM- but there's two NICs built into the motherboard that I actually use for Unraid, the quadport card is passed through. When I connected to the NICs on the motherboard itself it is now working with DHCP. This did not work on the old stick. The old stick still recognized a link when I ran without a network.cfg file, and the activity LEDs on the sockets were blinking like they should. It just never got an IP assigned. Running the network.cfg file that has been working for months the activity LEDs stayed the same- but there was no link detected on any NIC according to ethtool.

This leads me to believe the install on the old stick is broken, and not a hardware issue, and as you mention I am missing an ethtool.txt file. What would be my steps for fixing this issue? Is there a way to rebuild the key, but save my settings and assignments? What files would I need to re-add after reinstalling to keep my stuff in case I decide to do that? Or is there something else we should try first, like adding a new ethtool.txt file?

Also, what could have happened to cause this issue? All I did was move the server and plug everything back in the way it was.

Thanks for the help

[Frank1940]

All of the configurable settings are in the config folder.

 

You could easily copy over all of the bz* files from the ZIP distribution and see if that fixes the problem.  (Unraid is actually installed from the ground up every time it is is booted-- including hardware detection and installation of the required drivers.  Your customized settings are stored in files in the config folder and applied as the system 'builds'.)

 

You mentioned pfsense.  I have heard of it but I have absolutely no knowledge of its setup and workings.  You also mentions a pfsense vm.  If you are running this on the server, You might want to make sure this is not creating some of your problems. 

[Frank1940]

One more thing, try booting in to the 'SAFE Mode'.  It is an option on the Unraid boot menu

[kayjay010101]

25 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

All of the configurable settings are in the config folder.

 

You could easily copy over all of the bz* files from the ZIP distribution and see if that fixes the problem.  (Unraid is actually installed from the ground up every time it is is booted-- including hardware detection and installation of the required drivers.  Your customized settings are stored in files in the config folder and applied as the system 'builds'.)

 

You mentioned pfsense.  I have heard of it but I have absolutely no knowledge of its setup and workings.  You also mentions a pfsense vm.  If you are running this on the server, You might want to make sure this is not creating some of your problems. 

THANK YOU! Copied over every bz* file in the 6.8.3 zip and booted again, Web UI is back up on the old stick! Thanks again for your help!