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Creating a Palworld server in TrueNAS VMs I wanted to write this out in case anyone else came across the need for a Windows Server install and couldn't find a resource for it. I pieced this together from several guides and just pushing buttons. Create the virtual disk Navigate to the TrueNAS admin page Navigate to Datasets Click Add Zvol Insert the Name, Comments (optional), and Size Navigate to Network Click Add Create a bridge for the VM to use (images to come later) In Bridge Members select your interface (eno1). Navigate to virtualization Pre-req: have your ISO loaded into a store that libvirt-qemu has full access to NOTE: If you don't allow this to have full access the VM creation will fail as it needs the ISO access to install the guest operating system. Have the virtio drivers needed to show up the disk to install in Windows. The drivers can be found here: https://github.com/virtio-win/virtio-win-pkg-scripts/blob/master/README.md - the stable build. Configure the VM with the following options: Leave Enable Display checked so you can login to it via Spice - it will not have networking when it starts. I gave it 2 cores, 4 threads because everything I could find on the internet said it needed that, and 32 GiB of RAM with 16 GiB as the minimum. Select the disk you created Select the bridge you created Select your installation media -we will add the VirtIO ISO later. I left Ensure Display Device checked - was unsure if needed it or not but left it there. Before booting click on the VM and select Devices Select Add in the top right corner and add a CD-ROM device and set the device order to lower than everything else (1003 for me). Boot the machine and connect with Spice. NOTE: If you miss the prompt to boot from CD you will have this screen here: Simply type Exit and it will drop you into a BIOs page. Select reset and then press your keyboard to boot from CD Navigate through startup until you get to disk selection, select Install Windows Only. You will notice on the next screen it cannot detect a disk - this is where the virtIO ISO comes into play. Steps below. Let it do it's initial setup of what it thinks you need. You will need to be selective otherwise it will hang. Below are the drivers I chose to install: Click Browse on the next screen Find your virtIO ISO and expand it. Expand amd64 and select 2k22 from the options. The listed driver should appear there now: Install the driver and the disk will appear. Next, we will install the network driver as well. Same steps as before, Load driver, navigate to the ISO, then select this option: All other drivers we can install with the guest tools from the ISO inside of the guest OS. Continue with the Windows installer. Select the empty disk for it to install it's files to. Once booted into the OS follow these steps: Navigate to the CD that has your virtIO ISO on it and double click on this file: Let it run. It will take a LONG TIME to install everything and will require you to interact with it somewhat. Reboot the server (Other:Unplanned) Install the Palworld dedicated server via SteamCMD located here: https://docs.palworldgame.com/getting-started/deploy-dedicated-server/ I hope this helps anyone else that might have been struggling with it. Massive shoutout to @Mobius for pointing out all my images were broken on my first post - finally figured it out!

@jonp, In case of HDD faillure it would great if HexOs guides the user with the HDD replacement. A small wizard with a few questions and then advice: do this, do that. Especialliy for non tech users it will make a big difference. Users will be nervous in case of HDD faillure. I think simple, low effort feature with big impact. Just my 2 cents.

The deck shows my hexOS server as unavailable and won't connect. I can see the server is online, shares are up and running, and I can log into the trueNAS web ui directly. I did have tailscale on at first, but I have turned that off and tried everything short of restarting hexOS.

Thank you for the update. I like your journey 🙂

I bought my license for HexOS day 1, cause I knew I wanted to try it out and see how it would do with a home NAS for simplicity (namely to see if it would be worthwhile to use for family and friends that aren't as technical), but didn't get around to building my NAS until now for various reasons XD Still waiting on the case and drives to come in later, but I got everything else in today and did a test run and installed HexOS ^_^ Looking forward to finishing the build and finally having a NAS~ Please ignore the fact that I did my tests and OS install the way you see it in the photo XD As for the build itself, I'm gunna be rocking the following~ CPU: 14600k MoBo: MSI Pro B760M-A DDR4 II RAM: 32GB HDD: 12TB x3 (For my uses, expanding by 12s when I need to is more than enough XD) Case: Jonsbo N5 I figure this will be good for playing around with things and having a NAS+PLEX machine that won't give me any issues.

I've been using Plex for about 11 years now, going by the date of the receipt for my lifetime payment (that works out to about $7/year, at present, so I'm pretty happy with that deal), and I'd say... not really. On the one hand, it's working great for my use case, and I use it pretty much every single day. But, there are some small issues here and there that just never gets fixed. When I do searches for them I find years old reports that were ignored, so I don't even bother contacting them. Luckily, for my use case, the issues are mostly tiny cosmetic things. Like how the Android TV client won't show a file is HDR if it only contains DV, not HDR10 as well. The server identifies it correctly, the web client displays it, but not the Android client (to clarify, it plays DV content just fine, it just won't tell you it's a DV file).

If you are comfortable doing it from the TrueNAS side, it’s really not all that hard, even for a beginner. I have an NVIDIA card, and what I did was: 1. Open the TrueNAS webpage. 2. On the left side of the page, click "Apps". 3. Find your Plex application and select (click) it. 4. Find and click the "Edit" button next to "Application Info" on the right. 5. Scroll down to the very bottom of the screen. There you should find "GPU Configuration". 6. If you see your specific card, check the box next to it, then click "Update”. If you do not see your specific NVIDIA card, you may have to enable the NVIDIA drivers. This can be done by: 1. Going to the Apps section. 2. Click "Configuration" then "Settings”. 3. Make sure the "Install NVIDIA Drivers" box is checked if it’s not. Then after enabling the NVIDIA drivers, you should be able to continue to step 4.

Just installed hexos for the first time and I can't seem to get apps to install no matter what I do. After a few troubleshooting attempts I did a fresh install thinking that I may have not set up the pool properly, but the issue persists. The Hexos install seems to create all the necessary folders in my pool, and claims that the install succeeded but the install button remains and the app does not move to the "installed apps" section. Additionally, when I check the truenas logs for the HexOS install attempt it shows the folder creation as successful but the app install as a failure. I went into the truenas apps page and the install pool was correctly set to the one created when I re-installed hexos. I have also tried installing the apps through truenas directly but I end up with the same error message as I do through hexos which I have pasted below. My hardware specs are as follows: Intel i5 7400 ASRock z270 Killer SLI 4x8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 2666 CL16 4 Seagate Ironwolf NAS 12TB 7200 rpm Crucial P3 Plus 1TB M.2 SSD (Boot Drive) There's a 3070ti in there too if that matters Error message: [EFAULT] Failed 'up' action for 'immich' app, please check /var/log/app_lifecycle.log for more details Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/job.py", line 488, in run await self.future File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/job.py", line 535, in __run_body rv = await self.middleware.run_in_thread(self.method, *args) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1364, in run_in_thread return await self.run_in_executor(io_thread_pool_executor, method, *args, **kwargs) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1361, in run_in_executor return await loop.run_in_executor(pool, functools.partial(method, *args, **kwargs)) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3.11/concurrent/futures/thread.py", line 58, in run result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/service/crud_service.py", line 268, in nf rv = func(*args, **kwargs) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema/processor.py", line 55, in nf res = f(*args, **kwargs) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema/processor.py", line 183, in nf return func(*args, **kwargs) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/apps/crud.py", line 203, in do_create return self.create_internal(job, app_name, version, data['values'], complete_app_details) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/apps/crud.py", line 248, in create_internal raise e from None File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/apps/crud.py", line 241, in create_internal compose_action(app_name, version, 'up', force_recreate=True, remove_orphans=True) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/apps/compose_utils.py", line 57, in compose_action raise CallError( middlewared.service_exception.CallError: [EFAULT] Failed 'up' action for 'immich' app, please check /var/log/app_lifecycle.log for more details

Hi @Dylan, this is always an interesting dilemma. It mainly comes down to how much regret you'll feel if you lose your data, in other words, the cost of losing it. RAID-Z is not a backup; it ensures continuity. @PsychoWards makes some great suggestions. I agree that having two NAS devices in RAIDZ1 with buddy backup/replication gets you a long way, especially when combined with an offline backup. I also find it challenging to determine the right balance between extra resilience and extra costs for my own setup. I've solved this by categorizing my data. My most important data, such as photos and critical documents, are stored on my Synology NAS (RAID 6), with a daily "offline" backup to the cloud. For the rest, I'm fine with RAIDZ1 and use Proxmox Backup Server for copies. This approach is more focused on getting back up and running quickly if a device fails. The tricky part is that you only truly know if you’ve set things up properly when disaster strikes.

I was testing File Browser but my HBA died and it will be a min before i can get the nas back online. but I will say with the time i had it running it was nice that i could point to my phones web browser and get files that way

Hi @RSOL I'd look at TailScale which can enable you to interact with you remote data as if it were local. If local (and remote with some configuration) I am a HUGE fan of RSync do to its ability to create a delta of data copied should a transfer attempt fail.

Raidz2 is DEF the front runner but 36TB is not what I'll yield in usable space. After formatting call it 35TB minus 20% to keep ZFS write-caching happy and healthy and I'm left with ~28TB of usable storage. Which when measured against my 4x8TB N100 NAS (raidz1) gives me ~17TB of usable capacity using the same -20%. 4x8TB @ $150 per drive (not including a spare) = $600/17TB = ~$35 per TB (raidz1) 4x18TB @ $300 per drive (again, not including a spare) = $1200/28TB = $42 per TB (if in a raidz2) While I DO love me some redundancy the price per TB rise using raidz2 is what is making me flinch a little. Don't mind me....I'm just complaining about costs 🙃

RaidZ2, or do you really need those 54TB? If the 36TB are enough then go Z2 🙂

Hi @Dylan, I would go for the Ryzen 7. Much more CPU power, more memory and 2 M2 SSD slots. I also have a Shuttle DL30N with a N100. I can run a good performing Windows 11 VM on my Aoostar. On my N100 server it works, but performs very slow. The only con I can think of is the transcoding in Plex or Jellyfin. I think the N100 wil perform better. See 11:26 of this review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct4yewC7mKA

I agree with @ubergeek Since your AMD version has more storage and more power anyway, it should be your primary NAS and your n100 your backup, else you just have wasted storage on your backup which will never be used and you possibly faster run out of cpu power depending on how crazy you want to go with apps.

I would let the n100 be a backup for major data and use that powerhouse of a 8525 do the rest

Yeah i think @PsychoWardsis likely spot on

I am not aware of any special pricing but feel free to reach out to support@hexos.com and welcome!

Third

Second that!

I would like to see first party support for placing any app behind some of the most popular VPNs (PIA, Nord, Express, Proton, Tailscale, etc), as well as custom VPNs (WireGuard, OpenVPN, etc). For example, you may install “The Lounge” IRC client and have all internet communication pass through a PIA VPN so that your home IP is not exposed while chatting. Traditional methods of doing this involve painful configuration of iptables or other firewall rules. I believe this is an area where HexOS could really simplify things: Install a VPN plugin, authenticate with it, and then simply assign an app to a VPN plugin via the app’s settings if desired. It would be fully accessible from the home network without going through the VPN, but all internet traffic would go through the VPN with a kill switch in case the VPN goes down. Thoughts?

Yes, unfortunately I don't have a Master's in NAS/Filesystems and neither does the individual in question I'm guessing so we'll just bow respectfully to you and continue on our way 😉

Nextcloud is a big one yeah.

Nextcloud, tailscale, and home assistant! I still haven’t figured out HA properly

you can just add them as a users. I am not sure how many permission options they have. The license is for the hardware machine to run HEXos. So if you want a second machine or an offsite backup it would need a second purchased license.

Not sure if others have mentioned this already, but zerotier is super important, especially for installations like mine. Most large ISPs in India either charge for port forwarding or straight-up don't allow it, living in double-NAT situation turns home servers useless without zerotier. Note: If anyone can suggest a faster solution that would be much appreciated (zerotier is fine but highly throttled)