Would you like to build an app with the Storj network as backend? Let's create a local test network with Storj-Sim on your freeBSD powered FreeNAS!

If you want to try it on Linux, you can read the article https://github.com/storj/storj/wiki/Test-network

In addition, you can try it on Windows: Getting started with Storj Testnet on Windows.

Author: Our fellow Community member @Odmin

FreeNAS® is an embedded open-source network-attached storage (NAS) operating system based on FreeBSD and released under a 2-clause BSD license. A NAS has an operating system optimized for file storage and sharing.

FreeNAS® provides a browser-based, graphical configuration interface. The built-in networking protocols provide storage access to multiple operating systems. A plugin system is provided for extending the built-in features by installing additional software.

FreeNAS has independent hardware recommendations for newly built system, so before you begin, please make sure that you meet at least the minimum hardware requirements.

Once your hardware is ready you can move forward with installation.

Install Storj inside a FreeNAS Jail

We will create a ZFS dataset and create a new FreeNAS Jail to run a local Storj test network (Storj-Sim), following the steps outlined below.

Create a new ZFS dataset for store Storj data:

Figure 1. Creating a new dataset for storage

Specify options for a new dataset - see Figure 2.

Figure 2. Options of the new dataset

Please make sure you have the following settings configured:

• Name - Stojv3_data

• Compression - lz4

• Share Type - Unix

• Enable atime - OFF

• ZFS Deduplication - OFF

Then click on Advanced Mode.

Depend on your HDD pool configuration, you can see the default value for Record Size (in our case 32K) - see Figure 3.

Figure 3. Record Size for the Pool

Create a new FreeNAS Jail

To activate Pool for Jail Manager, just click CONFIG. See Figure 4.

Figure 4. Creation of a new Jail

Then click ADD. Fill in a new Jail name and select the latest FreeBSD release (Figure 5)

Figure 5. Adding a new Jail with parameters

Select both options - DHCP Autoconfiguration IPv4 and VNET (Figure 6)

Figure 6. DHCP Autoconfiguration IPv4 and VNET

Check configuration and click SUBMIT (Figure 7)

Figure 7. Submit configuration of a new Jail

Wait until the new Jail has been created, then click the three dots on the right side and specify the mount point inside a Jail to store data (Figure 8)

Figure 8. Mount point

Select our dataset (we created it earlier with name Storjv3_data) as a source and mount point inside a Jail (which will be storj_data) as a destination - see Figure 9.

Figure 9. Options of mountpoint

Here is an example - see Figure 10.

Figure 10. Example of options for the mountpoint

Now you can start a Jail - see Figure 11.

Figure 11. Starting a Jail

Configure the FreeNAS Jail

Select the three dots on the right side and select Shell to access the Jail console - see Figure 12.

Figure 12. Starting a Jail shell

Let’s enable SSH access and allow connections to the Jail for your favorite SSH client. See example on Figure 13.

sysrc sshd_enable="YES"

Figure 13. Example of the command execution

Install useful packages

pkg install nano git bash

Set PermitRootLogin to yes in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Uncomment PermitRootLogin and set to yes (see Figure 14), then save the file (Press Ctrl+X for exit and Y for save changes).

Figure 14. Changing PermitRootLogin option in the text editor

Start the SSH service:

service sshd start

Set a new password for root user:

passwd

Now you can log in via SSH using login: root and your password (check the Jail section for the IP address) - see Figure 15.

Figure 15. IP address for connections to the Jail

Install the latest Go package

pkg install go

Check Go version (Figure 16)

go version

Figure 16. Check Go version

go env

Figure 17. Example of environment variables for Go

Add a new user for Storj with Username “storj” and set shell: bash - see Figure 18.

adduser storj

Figure 18. Adding a new storj user

Become a storj user:

sudo su storj

Setup Go Environment

Open your .profile file and add a global variables as follows at the end of the file. See Figure 19.

nano /home/storj/.profile

Figure 19. Adding a global variables to the .profile

Press Ctrl+X for exit and Y for save changes

Update the current shell session

source ~/.profile

Compile Storj from Source

Connect to the Jail shell and execute:

git clone https://github.com/storj/storj.git storj
cd storj
go install -race -v storj.io/storj/cmd/storj-sim storj.io/storj/cmd/bootstrap storj.io/storj/cmd/satellite storj.io/storj/cmd/storagenode storj.io/storj/cmd/uplink storj.io/storj/cmd/gateway storj.io/storj/cmd/identity storj.io/storj/cmd/certificates

check the binary folder

ls /home/storj/go/bin/

Let´s create a local test network, containing the Satellite, Uplink, S3 gateway and 10 storage nodes and run it.

storj-sim network setup
storj-sim network run

Now the test network is ready and you can see the output like this - see Figure 20.

Figure 20. Example of the output of a local test network

More information - Test network

See also

• S3 Gateway
• Uplink CLI
• Libuplink Walkthrough