Frequently Asked Questions
- What is OMV?
OMV is an abbreviation of openmediavault.
- Is openmediavault a fork of FreeNAS?
No
- When shall i use openmediavault?
If you want to set up a NAS really fast and manage it easily, thenopenmediavault is the right solution for you. If you want to use a reallyfree software where you are not a beta tester for a commercialvariant, then openmediavault is also a solution for you.
- Does openmediavault have drivers for my hardware?
Please consult the Debian hardware compatibility list for more information.
- Can I use a usb flash drive (stick) for installing the system?
Yes, but the installation does not have any optimizations to reduce writesinto the OS disk. The usb media will most likely start failing within afew weeks of usage. Most common symptom is basic command execution doesnot work, denied login, etc. More information here.
- What are the default credentials for the UI?
Use the user ‘admin’ and the password ‘openmediavault’ for the first login.
- Can I give administrator privileges to non-privileged users to access the web control panel?
Yes. By default non-privileged users can only access their account profile, they can changepassword and their email address if the administrator has allowed changes on their account.However the current web interface framework is designed for developers to create plugins wherethey can give limited or full access to non-privileged users. An example is theopenvpn pluginby omv-extras.org.A non-privileged user can become a web interface administrator by adding them to the
openmediavault-admingroup.- I cannot read out SMART data for my storage device
For storage devices connected via USB, openmediavault relies entirely on the auto-detectionfunctionality of the smartmontools applications.To be always up to date openmediavault automatically downloads the smartctl/smartd databaseonce a week. You can do that manually by running update-smart-drivedbin the CLI.Should it nevertheless happen that a storage device is not supported, pleasesubmit a request to the smartmontools project. You can find more information intheir FAQ.If you can not wait till the upstream project has integrated your device, thenyou can add it manually to a local database at /etc/smart_drivedb.h. Pleasecheck their FAQfor more information.
- What is the file
/etc/openmediavault/config.xmlfor? It is the database configuration store file for openmediavault. When a change isperformed in the web interface, the config value is stored and/or retrieved byRPC to/from this file.
- Can I upgrade to Debian Testing/Unstable (Debian Testing/Sid) or use Ubuntu as a base distribution?
Yes. But the end is most likely a broken web interface and possibly brokensystem. openmediavault releases are heavily tight to their Debian base distribution.Get more information here.
- I´ve lost the web interface password. How do I reset it?
Simply connect via ssh into the server or login locally on the machineand type in: omv-firstaid. There is an option to reset theweb interface password.
- Can I backup or restore an existing openmediavault configuration?
There is no regular backup/restore procedure, but yes, in some way:keep the file
/etc/openmediavault/config.xmlfor referencespurposes if the option is to go for a clean re-install.- What is the default HTTP engine of openmediavault?
NGINX. The last version of openmediavault with Apache was 0.5 Sardoukar.
- Can I use Apache as HTTP engine?
Yes, but is not supported. Eventually every openmediavault package upgrade willactivate NGINX again leaving the web interface broken. A parallel Apacheinstance next to Nginx is possible, just make sure the ports are differentotherwise the openmediavault web interface will not work.
- How can use the default HTTP engine to hold my own web page?
Do not modify openmediavault default NGINX files. Place the website configurationsin
/etc/nginx/sites-availableand enable it withnginx_ensite <SITE>. Read more information in theNGINX documentation.- Why does the system rewrites a configuration file(s) that I have manually edited?
OMV takes full control of some system services. This services includemonit, ntp, samba, network, proftpd, nginx, php5-fpm, etc. Readhere.
- How can I modify an internal value of some service openmediavault has control over?
Read here for advanced configurations.
- How can I modify or add a network configuration with some custom options the web interface does not provide?
Starting with openmediavault version 5 systemd-networkd is used to configure the network.The interfaces file
/etc/network/interfacesis controlled by openmediavault butnot used anymore.To add network interfaces that are not configurable through the web interface or otheroptions not present, use advanced settings.Alternatively write your own systemd-networkd configuration files.- Why my disks mount paths have a long alphanumeric number?
The long number is called UUID, it is used by fstab to mount disks. Thisnumber is unique per filesystem (or at least unlikely possible thatanother filesystem comes with an identical one). This helps maintaining themount points. The old linux way (sda1, sdb1, etc.) is not guaranteed that/dev/sda1 is the same disk on next reboot. If having trouble identifying themin terminal, create a pool with symlinks to each file system with easy toremember names.
This behaviour has been deprecated now in current openmediavault releases.The default creation of mount paths is documented here.
- I don’t have a data disk, and I want to use my OS disk for storing data?
The default behaviour of openmediavault is to act as NAS server, that means OSfiles are separated from data disks.
However if the OS disk is partitioned the system will recognise the extrapartitions besides rootfs if is formatted. You can mount it and use it forshared folders.
The current installer does not provide access to the partition manager,use a plain Debian iso then install openmediavault on top and accommodate thepartitions, or resize the partition after installing using Gparted orSystemRescueCd.
- Can I install openmediavault on top a running Debian system?
Yes, but it is recommended that the current running OS not to have a desktop environmentinstalled.
- What is the permissions/ownership of folders in openmediavault created by shared folders?
The default is folders in
2775mode, withroot:usersownership.This means all users created in the web interface can read, write to folderscreated by the system in the data drives using the default. The setgid allowsgroup inheritance, meaning new files/folders below will always have the groupusers (GID=100) membership.- I need to delete a shared folder, why the delete button is greyed/disabled?
Shared folder configurations can be used across different services. Whenremoving a shared folder configuration is necessary to unlink it fromevery service is attached to, before the delete button becomes available.At the moment there is no internal database backend that can displayinformation about which service is holding which shares.
- What is the omv-salt command for?
omv-salt is a terminal console command that is used by thebackend of openmediavault to pipe directives and values to service configurationfiles. The arguments that omv-salt accepts are related to thename of the service it configures. Type omv-salt in terminal,press TAB key, and the terminal will display all available arguments.
- I want to experiment with openmediavault or make changes to the code
As a true open source system everything is possible. Therecommendation is do not test with the production server to avoidbreaking the web interface. The best thing to do is to use a Virtual Machine.On Sourceforgethere are preconfigured openmediavault images with virtual disks ready to launch.Alternatively checkout the openmediavault GIT repositoryand use Vagrant to create a virtualmachine.
- What is the omv-upgrade and omv-release-upgrade for?
Information about those commands are in the software section.
