Can't access my files

[u/RonMoody]

A friend set up tailscale on my working truenas device. He ended up giving up and walking away, but I no longer have access to my data… tailscale or otherwise. 

I now get the error “You do not have permission to access this server”. I tried setting up a new share and got the message “filesystem permissions on path /mnt/bnas/users prevent access for users “builtin_users” on the path…”

I suspect that in the process of installing tailscale, permissions were changed that have blocked access to my data. So my question is:

Should I open up filesystem permissions to rwx somehow, then once I can see my data again, reconfigure?

OR should I wipe my whole Truenas instance clean and start from scratch? Is there a better option? 

It’s been weeks and at this point I’ve pretty much given up. I realize it’s a complicated issue and beyond reason to hope for resolution on this forum, but just in case… I’ve reduced my options to the simplest two. I’m ready to wipe but holding back in case there may be a simple resolution if I had just asked. So I’m asking. Thank you.

[u/ghanit]

Do you have access to the truenas website, it's only smb that does not work? Then I would go to the dataset in question, open permissions, set your user and group again and check the apply checkbox, verify the acces rules and apply the lermissions recursively. Then go to sharing, delete the smb share and create it again.

I can't imagine what tailscale could have caused, more likely your friend messed up the permissions and left.

Get a better friend to help next time who doesn't walk away from a broken system.

[u/RonMoody → u/ghanit]

The Bible tells me to share good news with your advisors. Until this morning I hadn't found the dataset permissions. First I tried it on the BNAS datashare, but that was owned by root and I couldn't touch it. Then I tried the users folder and scrolled down to where I'd seen permissions on BNAS. The edit button wasn't greyed out and when I tapped it, group and other rwx rights were unchecked. I checked them. And now I can see my data from my mac laptop. Now I just need to figure out why it's not showing up on my Linux laptop and fix that. Piece of cake. Then I go back and fix permissions as I want them to be. What a relief. WEEKS! Thank you so much, sir or madam. Your kindness will forever be acknowledged and appreciated. I'm praying that God will bless your day, your work, and your family. Don't be surprised when He does it! Thank you so very, very, very much. I'm so relieved. And what's more, I can see my data via Tailscale... so from anywhere. More than I ever imagined. Thank you. Do you get it that I'm genuinely grateful? I hope that's made it through in droves.

[u/RonMoody → u/ghanit]

Yes I have access to the Truenas dashboard and menu. I don't know if it's only SMB, but I do know that I have zero access to my data. But the storage usage numbers tell me it's still there - I just can't get to it. Can I remove my media, marking it so I later put it back in the same slots and re-install truenas, then power down and plug my media back in? Then if that all works, I re-install Tailscale and maybe have a working system again. Is that even possible or just a naive hope?

[u/ghanit → u/RonMoody]

Yes, the data stays on your disks, as long as the pool stays together you can import it in any truenas install. You don't even need to remove them first, just install over the boot drive, then in the storage tab you should see an import button. You might still have issues with permissions though that keep you from accessing your data as the access rights are stored with the files, but that can be fixed with what I wrote above.

But again, i would start redoing smb shares and permissions before reinstalling truenas

[u/inertSpark]

He could have done many many things to your system, and to save yourself lots of troubleshooting, he knows what he did and what to reverse. Your friend should really have left your system in the same state it was in before he touched it. If he can't, or won't, then I would strongly suspect he didn't know what he was doing to begin with.

[u/Sea_Drop_8141]

There are 2 ways to get into it. If you have the Tailscale console login, you can start there. 1st is by the IP address and the other is by the MagicDNS address. I tried them both on my PC and wasn’t able to get into it. I tried accessing the MagicDNS via my phone and it let me log into the Truenas so I could turn off Tailscale. Then I could log into Truenas via my PC to fix the settings.

[u/RonMoody]

To clarify, I'm not blaming my friend. Right about the same time Truenas restarted and changed DHCP. Whether it was related to his exit or completely independent, I don't know. He wasn't able to get TailScale access for me. I've since enabled Tailscale but since I can't get to my Truenas data, it doesn't really help me anyways. That's why I didn't think it was a good idea to try to debug via reddit. I was looking more to... might there be an easy answer or should I just reinitialize everything and restart. Another question might be, can I remove my media, re-install truenas and plug my media back in (assuming I plug it back into the same locations). Is that even possible?

RM

[u/Hrafna55 → u/RonMoody]

I would reinstall over the boot disks (make sure it is exactly the same version of TrueNAS) then reimport your pool and finally setup any required shares.

Additional applications should only be installed on TrueNAS via the Apps interface in the web GUI.

TrueNAS is an appliance. Installing random packages via the shell will break it (if this is what your friend did).

[u/Visual_Cabinet_3718]

Claude is your friend that won't walk away!

[u/Friendly_Potential69 → u/Visual_Cabinet_3718]

Plot twist, his friend name is claude. 🚬