ZFS Replication Setup Issue

TrueNAS General
1

Hi,

I’m using TrueNAS Scale 24.10 deployed on two different systems. I’ve been unable to get ZFS replication to work between them. Both were built using TrueNAS Core and then upgraded to Scale, as a result both have the root account enabled which i’m using to configure things.

My desired config is to have the “backup” server pulling from the “live” server. The intent is to keep the backup server self contained pulling the data from the live server. Unfortunately I found the documentation on setting this up to be quite confusing.

Steps so far: created account for backups on the live server and added it to the builtin_administrators group. It has a home directory with Read/Write/Execute at the user level and Read/Execute for group and other. It also has the options SSH password login enabled, Allow all sudo commands, and Allow all sudo commands with no password. I’ve selected TrueNAS Console for the shell.

Adding the backup credentials to the backup server appears to work and it accepts them and creates the SSH keypairs entry as well. If I deliberately key in the wrong password it reports that the credentials are wrong, so it is clearly connecting and validating them. However when I go to create the replication task and select the connection, the source box where you can expand the folder structure just doesn’t work. It is sits there saying “loading…”. I can see from the audit log on the live server that it is making a connection.

But this is as far as I’ve got, and I’m stuck. Nothing I’m doing seems to be able to produce the list of volumes to replicate. Without even an error i’m left a bit stuck and wondered if there is any easy way to troubleshoot this?

2

Hi and welcome to the forums.

Are you trying to configure replication using semi automatic or manual? I find manual works best and semi automatic can be very hit and miss.

3

  1. On the pull system go to Credentials, Backup and Generate your SSH Keypair. Paste the public key into the user’s authorised keys for the user you created on your Primary system.

  2. On the pull system go to Credentials, Backup and Generate an SSH Connection. Select manual. Fill in the fields and change the username to match the user you created on the Primary system. Click discover remote host key.

  3. Data Protection and configure replication.

NOTE: The user you created on your primary does NOT need to be in the builtin_administrators group nor does it need SSH password login enabled. What it DOES need however is a home directory, an authorised key and allow all sudo commands without password. Finally and importantly your user needs to have a shell (I pick bash) but the default nologin will not work.

For security reason don’t create a password for the user and don’t allow SSH password login or SMB access.

You will need the SSH service to be running on the primary system, System, Services. But you DON’T need to allow password authentication. Good idea not to have this on for security reasons.

Good luck!