Lab 12 – TrueNAS NAS: installation and preparation

Dependencies

• Previous labs: Lab 01 for the addressing plan and Lab 02 for DNS, with the records for desonas.proxmox.community. The NAS does not depend on the cluster: you can prepare it in parallel with Part 0.
• Server: desonas, with 4 cores, 16 GB of RAM, a 32 GB system disk, two 100 GB data disks and a network card on the lab LAN.
• ISO: TrueNAS-SCALE-25.10.8.iso (TrueNAS Community Edition 25.10 “Goldeye”), from truenas.com, on a USB stick or on the virtual media of the management card.
• Services: DNS 172.27.199.20, NTP and proxy on netsvc.proxmox.community (aliases ntp and proxy).
• Addresses: 172.27.199.10 for the NAS.
• Credentials: truenas_admin / <lab-password> → Appendix B.

Objectives

• Install TrueNAS Community Edition and configure its static network from the console.
• Complete the basic configuration from the web interface: time zone, NTP, DNS and proxy.
• Create a mirrored ZFS pool for the data.
• Prepare the datasets that NFS, SMB and iSCSI will use in the following labs.
• Create a service user for Proxmox VE.

How it works

The role of the NAS in the lab

So far the VM disks have stayed on the nodes (local-zfs). A shared storage, visible in the same way from all nodes, makes it possible to migrate VMs without copying their disks and to restart them elsewhere if a node fails (labs 48-49). In the lab it is provided by a NAS outside the cluster, over three protocols:

Protocol	Level	What Proxmox VE sees	Lab
NFS	file	a shared directory: disks as raw or qcow2 files, ISOs, backups, templates	13
SMB/CIFS	file	like NFS, authenticated with a user name and password	14
iSCSI	block	a disk (LUN) on which to create shared LVM	15

TrueNAS Community Edition

TrueNAS Community Edition (called SCALE up to version 24.10) is a NAS operating system based on Debian and OpenZFS: the same concepts as in lab 10, managed from a web interface.

• The boot pool (boot-pool) contains only the operating system, on a dedicated disk. The data goes into a separate data pool, on the other disks.
• In the pool you create datasets, i.e. file systems with their own properties (compression, quotas, permissions), and zvols, the block devices that iSCSI needs.
• The ZFS rules apply to a real NAS too: disks seen directly, with no RAID controller (at most an HBA in IT/passthrough mode), ECC RAM recommended and, for VMs, mirrored pools.

Procedure

1. Installation from the console

1. Boot the NAS from the USB stick with the ISO (or from the virtual media of the management card) and choose Install/Upgrade.

   

2. With the space bar, select only the 32 GiB disk (sdb) and confirm with OK. The two 100 GiB disks remain free for the data pool: the disk you install on can no longer hold data. At the next prompt, confirm that the disk will be erased.

   

   As throughout the manual, the data that identify the hardware (model and serial number of the disks, name and physical address of the network card) are obscured in the screenshots.

3. As the authentication method, choose Administrative user (truenas_admin) and set the password. Direct password login for root remains disabled.

   

4. When the installation is done, remove the USB stick (or unmount the virtual media) and reboot from the disk.

   

2. Static network from the console

There is no DHCP server on the lab network, so at first boot the NAS has no address and the console warns that the web interface is not reachable:

1. Choose 1) Configure network interfaces and open the only interface. Set ipv4_dhcp to No and in aliases enter 172.27.199.10/24, then Save.

   

2. Press a to apply. TrueNAS applies the change with an automatic rollback after 60 seconds: if the new network settings made you lose access, the configuration would revert by itself. If everything works, press p to make it permanent (persist).

3. Choose 2) Configure network settings: hostname desonas, domain proxmox.community, ipv4gateway 172.27.199.1, nameserver1 172.27.199.20, then Save. In version 25.10 the gateway is set here: the menu no longer has a separate entry for the default route.

   

4. The console now shows the address of the web interface:

   

3. First access to the web interface

From the DC, open https://desonas.proxmox.community and log in as truenas_admin. The certificate is self-signed, like the Proxmox VE one.

4. Time zone and keyboard

System → General Settings → Localization → Settings: Timezone Europe/Rome, Console Keyboard Map Italian (it), then Save. Without this step the NAS clock stays on America/Los_Angeles, and logs and scheduled snapshots are nine hours off from the rest of the lab.

5. Time synchronization

Accurate time matters: notifications, logs and, in lab 14, SMB authentication depend on it. The default servers (*.debian.pool.ntp.org) are on the Internet and cannot be reached from the lab.

1. System → Advanced Settings (confirm the warning) → NTP Servers → Add.

2. Address ntp.proxmox.community, check IBurst (fast initial synchronization) and Prefer, then Save. TrueNAS queries the server right away and rejects an address that does not respond, unless you check Force.

   

3. Delete the three servers 0, 1 and 2.debian.pool.ntp.org with the trash icon, confirming each time.

6. DNS, gateway and proxy

System → Network → Network Configuration → Settings summarizes what was set from the console: hostname, domain, DNS and gateway. In HTTP Proxy enter http://proxy.proxmox.community:3128: TrueNAS will use it to check for updates, just as Proxmox VE uses the datacenter proxy (lab 04). Save.

7. The mirrored data pool

1. Storage → Create Pool. In the General Info step the name is dati, with no encryption.

2. In the Data step choose Layout Mirror; in the automatic disk selection, Disk Size 100 GiB (HDD), Width 2 (disks per vdev) and Number of VDEVs 1.

   

3. Skip the optional steps (Log, Spare, Cache, Metadata, Dedup) with Save And Go To Review and check the summary: a mirror of two 100 GiB disks.

   

4. Create Pool, check Confirm in the warning that the disks will be erased and click Continue. After a few seconds the pool is online: 95.44 GiB usable, with a scrub already scheduled every Sunday at midnight.

   

8. The datasets for the three protocols

Each protocol gets its own dataset, with independent properties and permissions.

1. Datasets → select dati → Add Dataset: Name nfs, Dataset Preset Generic, then Save.

   

2. Repeat for smb with Dataset Preset SMB and clear the Create SMB Share checkbox: you will create the share in lab 14. The SMB preset sets permissions and options suited to Windows (NFSv4 ACLs, case-insensitive names).

3. Repeat for iscsi with the Generic preset: it will hold the zvols of lab 15.

The three datasets inherit LZ4 compression and atime disabled from the pool:

9. The service user

Proxmox VE will access the SMB share with a dedicated user, not with the NAS administrator.

1. Credentials → Users → Add.

2. Username svc-pve, leave only SMB Access enabled, set the password <lab-password>. No access to the shell, SSH or the web interface.

   

3. Save.

Verification and tests

From a cluster node, check that the NAS answers to its name, that reverse DNS is correct and that its clock matches the nodes’:

root@desopve01

host desonas.proxmox.community

Output

desonas.proxmox.community has address 172.27.199.10

root@desopve01

host 172.27.199.10

Output

10.199.27.172.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer desonas.proxmox.community.

root@desopve01

ping -c2 -W1 desonas.proxmox.community | tail -2

Output

2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.503/1.300/2.097/0.797 ms

root@desopve01

curl -skI https://desonas.proxmox.community/ui/ | grep -i "^date"; date -u

Output

date: Mon, 09 Nov 2026 14:04:49 GMT
Mon Nov  9 02:04:49 PM UTC 2026

• The NAS has the static address 172.27.199.10 and the name desonas.proxmox.community.
• The NAS time matches the nodes’; the only NTP server is ntp.proxmox.community.
• The dati pool is a two-disk mirror, online and error-free.
• The datasets dati/nfs, dati/smb and dati/iscsi exist, and so does the user svc-pve, with SMB access only.

Final lab state

• NAS desonas.proxmox.community (172.27.199.10), TrueNAS Community Edition 25.10.8:
  • system on the 32 GB disk (boot-pool); administrator truenas_admin;
  • time zone Europe/Rome, Italian keyboard, NTP ntp.proxmox.community, DNS 172.27.199.20, gateway 172.27.199.1, proxy http://proxy.proxmox.community:3128;
  • pool dati: mirror of the two 100 GiB disks, 95.44 GiB usable, LZ4 compression;
  • datasets dati/nfs (Generic), dati/smb (SMB) and dati/iscsi (Generic), still without shares;
  • user svc-pve with SMB access.
• Cluster and VMs unchanged.

What you learned

• TrueNAS Community Edition is a NAS system based on Debian and ZFS: the system lives in a dedicated boot pool, the data in a separate pool.
• Without DHCP, the network is configured from the console, with an automatic rollback that protects against mistakes.
• Time zone and NTP must be fixed right away; the default NTP servers are on the Internet.
• A pool is created with a wizard: layout, disk size, width and number of vdevs.
• NFS, SMB and iSCSI are best given a separate dataset each; the SMB preset prepares permissions suited to Windows.
• Proxmox VE accesses the NAS with a dedicated service user that has only the permissions it needs.

References

• TrueNAS – Installing TrueNAS Community Edition
• TrueNAS – Console Setup Menu Configuration
• TrueNAS – Creating Storage Pools
• TrueNAS – Adding and Managing Datasets
• TrueNAS – Managing Users
• Proxmox VE – Storage