F2-223 dropping off the LAN

[Gysek]

Problem.I set the "Security Isolation Mode" after the reboot, access to the nas disappeared.
The router is marked "offline".
Without hdd initialization takes place, asks to insert a disk.After that, I turned it off through the button, inserted the disk, turned it on, and the server is not online again.

You can't get into the SSH terminal
tnas.local does not find
the utility does not find either
IP:8181 to no avail

What should I do?

[TMroy]

"Security Isolation Mode" only block traffice from connecting from outside. Have no idea why it disappeared on your local network. Try the followings to reinstall your TOS:
1. power off your TNAS;
2. remove all your drives;
3. power on without drive plugin;
4. when you prompt to insert drive, DONOT power off, just insert your drives;
5. continue to finish the installation by following the guide;

[bidmead]

It's a pity that @Gysek hasn't finished this story by telling us what happened. It would have been very useful to know if @TMroy's helpful solution worked.

I've just run into a very similar situation with my F4-223, which I put into Security Isolation Mode (SIM) in order to test whether Terra Photos requires an Internet connection to do its AI face recognition.

The NAS rebooted once I'd set SIM, but failed to appear on the LAN. It remained invisible to a TNAS PC scan, so presumably had not come back with a different LAN IP address (possible if unlikely with DHCP) but had come back with no IP address known to my LAN.

Applying an engineer's technique known as "fingers crossed" I held down the NAS's power button to shutdown the device, gracefully (let's hope). On powering up again the NAS returned with its original IP address.

My working conjecture is that there may be a timing problem with these Terramaster auto restarts and my (and possibly @Gysek's and others') DHCP servers. One way of testing this would be to set a static IP address for the NAS. I may pursue this if the same thing happens again.

Meanwhile, Terra Photos AI face recognition message "The AI intelligent recognition is in progress..." persists though SIM. So it appears that the process is entirely local and does not depend on an Internet connection.

--
Chris

[bidmead]

> I may pursue this if the same thing happens again.

It did happen again, immediately following the next autoreboot. I took the opportunity to switch the IP acquisition to manual, using the same IP address. But a subsequent autoreboot left the NAS stranded in exactly the same way, and this was cured exactly as before by a manual reboot.

I think it's fair to conclude from this that DHCP isn't part of the problem and that, at least in the case of my LAN, the problem lies in the way TOS 5 autoreboots. The workaround for me, obviously, is to avoid autoreboots and always reboot manually when required.

If others report here that they're having the same problem that is solved by the same workaround it will be worth passing this on to the devs.

Details: F4-223 running TOS 5.1.40-00005
Using LAN port 2

--
Chris

[titanrx8]

"Security Isolation Mode" only block traffice from connecting from outside. Have no idea why it disappeared on your local network.

I can corroborate that security isoltion mode made 2 of my F2-221's blocked from the local network. I never used the mode or the TOS firewall because my network has its own firewalls and isolates the TOS systems from ALL internet traffic. In preparation for service downtime of the network firewalls, I activated the security isolation mode on both systems which immediately prevented either one from being acceessed locally. No problems with any of the other devices on the LAN, only the TOS units with security isoltion activated.

I manually powered off the TOS units and disconnected them from the network. Then I set up a separate LAN with an ethernet router acting as a DHCP server and powered the TOS machines back up. I was able to access them via the IP address assigned by this small network. I immediately deactivated the security isolation mode and safely powered off the units. Reattached the TOS machines to the network after the firewalls were back online. No issues accessing the TOS machines since deactivating the security isolation mode.

[TMroy]

Thank you for your feedback, we will verify.

[bidmead]

If the same thing that happened on my LAN when I switched to SIM as happened on your LAN, @titanrx8, it may be that your solution was overkill. Both your NAS and mine were switched to SIM and autorebooted with unusable IP addresses. Your instinct, like mine initially, was to assume SIM was the culprit.

But my subsequent investigations clearly show that, in my case, the real culprit was the autoreboot. Whether it's the autoreboot after switching on SIM or after switching it off, the result is the same—IP munging. In either case, following up with a manual reboot always puts the NAS back on the LAN, with whichever SIM status you set in operation.

Have you tried a manual reboot after setting up SIM? It would be good to know if this fixes the problem for you.

If my diagnosis is right, it should be reasonably simple for the devs to fix the autoreboot issue. But this also raises the question: why is a reboot necessary? We can swap a drive on our NAS without rebooting, so shouldn't we be able to close down the Internet connection equally simply?

Which brings me back to another question I raised here in the Forum earlier. Isn't SIM itself over-reaching? I understand that PHP, Java and Python are handy tools for outside attackers to use. But if you've effectively shut off the Internet connection, why is it unsafe for these tools to be running on your system?

These tools are essential for several of the apps you might want to keep active on your isolated LAN. It's true that they're also useful for an inside intruder, but that's a completely different issue. For NAS installations where this is a consideration, perhaps make this an additional optional switch. And as SSH (a valuable admin tool even for an isolated LAN) already has its own switch, including mandatory SSH shutoff in SIM is redundant.

--
Chris

[titanrx8]

{L_BUTTON_AT}bidmead

For the sake of brevity, I didn't elaborate on the measures I took to get the units back online that didn't accomplish that goal. Each unit was manually rebooted as well as scheduled auto reboots before setting up a new network. Also reconfigured the network and firewall to remove the TOS machines from active monitoring. The only thing that allowed the TOS units to become visible again was setting up a non-secured network where they became visible, able to the logged into and turning off SIM.

[bidmead]

Thanks for that clarification, @titanrx8. Some further information from my own setup here may be useful for the devs:

I've just done an update to the latest TOS 5.1.67. These updates conclude with an autoreboot, and this morning the autoreboot left the F4-223 invisible to the LAN with an extinguished LAN light. A manual reboot fixed the problem.

I conclude, therefore, that at least in my own case, the SIM switch is not responsible for the loss of the IP address. It seems rather that the autoreboot is failing to pick up the IP address, whether established using DHCP or set up statically.

It is simple enough to do a manual reboot if the autoreboot leaves the NAS isolated from the LAN. But if the devs were able to fix this it would save a lot of faffing about.

--
Chris

[TMroy]

Did you connect your TNAS via proxy or VPN? The issue has been verified in our lab, we will fix it in future releases.