25. Support Resources — FreeNAS®11.0-RC3 User Guide Table of Contents

# 25. Support Resources

FreeNAS® has a large installation base and an active user community. This means that many usage questions have already been answered and the details are available on the Internet. If you get stuck using FreeNAS®, spend a few moments searching the Internet for the word FreeNAS with some keywords that describe the error message or the function you are trying to implement.

The rest of this section discusses the following resources which are available to FreeNAS® users:

- Website and Social Media
- Forums
- IRC
- Mailing Lists
- Videos
- Professional Support

## 25.1. Website and Social Media

The FreeNAS® website contains links to all of the available documentation, support, and social media resources. Major announcements are also posted to the main page.

Users are welcome to network on the FreeNAS® social media sites:

- LinkedIn
- Google+
- Facebook
- Twitter

## 25.2. Forums

The FreeNAS® Forums are another information source which contains categorized user-contributed tips and guides. This makes it an ideal resource for learning more about a certain aspect of FreeNAS®. A search bar is included for searching by keyword. Or click a category to browse through the threads that exist for that topic.

These categories are available under Forum Information:

- Forum Guidelines: read this first before creating a forum post.
- Announcements: subscribe to this forum if you wish to receive announcements about new FreeNAS® versions and features.

These categories are available under Help and Support:

- New to FreeNAS®?: post here if you are new to FreeNAS® and are unsure which category best matches your question.
- Feature Requests: for the discussion of upcoming features.
- Bug Reporting: use this forum if you think you have found a bug in FreeNAS® and want to discuss it before creating a support ticket.
- Hardware: for the discussion of hardware and tips for getting the most out of your hardware.
- User Authentication: LDAP and Active Directory.
- Sharing: AFP, CIFS, NFS, and iSCSI.
- Storage: replication, snapshots, volumes, and ZFS.
- Networking: networking hardware, performance, link aggregation, VLANs, DDNS, FTP, SNMP, SSH, and TFTP.
- Installation: installing help or advice before performing the installation.
- Plugins: provides a discussion area for creating and troubleshooting PBIs.

These categories are available under Development:

- FreeNAS: general development discussion.
- nanobsd: the embedded operating system on which FreeNAS® is based.
- Django: the web framework used by the FreeNAS® graphical administrative interface.
- Dojo Toolkit: the javascript toolkit used to create widgets and handle client side processing.

These categories are available under How-To Guides:

- Hacking: undocumented tricks for getting the most out of your FreeNAS® system.
- Installation: specific installation scenarios (hardware and/or software).
- Configuration: specific configuration scenarios (e.g. software or client configuration).
- Hardware: instructions for setting up specific hardware.
- Useful Scripts: user-contributed scripts.

For tips on testing and increasing the performance of your system, check out the Performance forum.

These categories are available under Community Forum:

- Off-topic: want to discuss something of interest to FreeNAS® users but which is not necessarily related to FreeNAS®? This is the place.
- Resources: blogs, reviews, and other sources of FreeNAS® information not listed at freenas.org.
- Introductions: FreeNAS® Community meet ‘n greet - introduce yourself and let us know who we are chatting with.

These language-specific categories are available under International, allowing FreeNAS® users to interact with each other in their native language:

- Dutch - Nederlands
- French - Francais
- German - Deutsch
- Italian - Italiano
- Portuguese - Português
- Russian
- Spanish - Espanol
- Swedish - Svenske
- Turkish - Türkçe

To ask a question on the forum, click the Sign Up Now! link to create an account and log in using that account.

When asking a question on the forum, it is important to:

- First check to see if the question has already been asked. If a similar question exists, do not create a new thread. Instead use the Reply link at the bottom of the post to add your comments to the existing thread.
- Review the available categories to see which one is most closely related to your question. Click on that category and use the Post New Thread button to open the editor. After typing your post but before clicking the Create Thread button, make sure the Watch this thread... box is checked. To be notified by email, also check the and receive email notifications box. You will be notified whenever anyone answers your question.

## 25.3. IRC

To ask a question in real time, you can use the #freenas channel on IRC Freenode. Depending on the time of day and your time zone, FreeNAS® developers or other users may be available to provide assistance. If no one answers right away, remain on the channel, as other users tend to read the channel history to answer questions as time permits.

Typically, an IRC client is used to access the #freenas IRC channel. Alternately, use webchat from a web browser.

To get the most out of the IRC channel, keep these points in mind:

- Do not ask “can anyone help me?”. Just ask the question. If someone knows the answer, they will try to help.
- Do not ask a question and then leave. Users who know the answer cannot help you if you disappear.
- Do not take it personally if no one answers or demand that someone answers your question. Maybe no one who knows the answer is available, maybe your question is really difficult, or maybe it is a question that has already been answered many times in the other support resources. Try asking again in a few hours or research the other resources to see if you have missed anything.
- Do not post error messages in the channel as the IRC software will probably kick you out. Instead, use a pasting service such as pastebin and paste the resulting URL into the IRC discussion.

## 25.4. Mailing Lists

Several FreeNAS® mailing lists are available which allow users and developers to ask and answer questions related to the topic of the mailing list. To post an email to a list, you will need to subscribe to it first. Each mailing list is archived, allowing you to browse for information by date, thread name, or author.

These mailing lists are available:

- Freenas-announce: this is a low-volume, read-only list where major milestones, such as new releases, are announced.
- Freenas-commit: this is a read-only list. As code changes in the FreeNAS® repository, the commit message is automatically sent to this list.
- Freenas-devel: FreeNAS® developers are subscribed to this list. Technical questions about the current FreeNAS® release can be posted here.
- Freenas-docs: this list is for discussion regarding FreeNAS® documentation <http://doc.freenas.org/>`_.
- Freenas-testing: FreeNAS® developers are subscribed to this list. Technical questions about the upcoming FreeNAS® release and feedback on testing snapshots can be posted here.
- Freenas-translations: this list is for discussion regarding FreeNAS® localization <http://pootle.freenas.org/>`_ and translating FreeNAS® documentation.

Note

The mailing lists were migrated from SourceForge to Mailman in December, 2013. Archives of the SourceForge mailing lists are available at Gmane.

## 25.5. Videos

A series of instructional videos are available for FreeNAS®:

- Changes in FreeNAS® 9.3
- FreeNAS 9.3 Updates
- How to Upgrade FreeNAS® 9.3
- How to Install FreeNAS® 9.3
- FreeNAS® 9.3 Shares Overview (AFP, NFS, CIFS, + New WebDAV)
- How to Replace HDD in FreeNAS® 9.3
- TrueNAS® 9.3 Snapshots Setup
- Install Murmur (Mumble server) on FreeNAS/FreeBSD
- FreeNAS® 9.3 - First Time Setup Wizard
- FreeNAS® 9.3 Permissions Overview
- FreeNAS® 9.3 iSCSI Overview
- FreeNAS® 9.10 - Certificate Authority & SSL Certificates
- How to Update FreeNAS® 9.10
- FreeNAS® 9.10 LAGG & VLAN Overview

## 25.6. Professional Support

In addition to the freely available community resources, professional support may be available through iXsystem’s network of third-party consultants. Submit a support inquiry using the form at https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-commercial-support/.