I began setting up my new server from scratch following the manual, and got to the point of downloading and trusting the root CA certificates, on both a Windows (10) machine and Linux (PopOS) machine. But now I’m stuck. Can’t connect to my server using my personal .local address, or the Tor .onion address. I’ve run through all the troubleshooting steps (except restarting my server - more on that later).
On Windows I uninstalled and re-installed Bonjour (and re-added the certificate in the Windows Management Console), but it made no difference. I’ve tried both the Brave and Firefox browser, but get “DNS address could not be found”.
On my Linux machine it just says “can’t connect to the server at xxxx-xxxxx.local”. Also can’t connect via Tor to the .onion address of my server.
I’ve powered off and powered on my router. Still no luck.
I have my server connected by ethernet cable through a switch and firewall to my router, and have ruled out wifi issues by plugging my laptop into the same ethernet switch (with wifi off). Still can’t connect.
One trouble shooting step is to restart my server, but since I have no way to access my server I don’t know how to safely power down and restart my server, and there’s nothing in the Start9 manual or docs to explain how to do that aside from via the Start9 home GUI. Do I just unplug it from power? Or do I hit the power button on the front? Is it like a PC - press and hold the power button to hard-reset???
Or is this all maybe stemming from the firewall I have in place? It’s a Protectli Vault running pfsense, and I have set it up to use the quad9.net DNS resolver. But if I’m trying to access my server from within my home network and both my server and laptops are on the same local network on the same side of the firewall, shouldn’t it still be able to connect?
You can try to push the button once to see if it will initiate a graceful shutdown. I try to avoid pulling the plug as often as possible but sometimes it is required. I have never had any data loss as a result but not saying that is totally impossible. I am assuming that you didn’t yet get around to setting up SSH but this will help you a lot. I mainly use mac and sometimes it just won’t connect and I eventually do a restart on the server. Often though I cannot connect on my browser I can still connect on my terminal via SSH. Once you have this set up you can open your terminal and ssh start9@adjective-noun.local Then sudo reboot to restart the server
And I would check the firwall settings to make sure mDNS is not blocked or if there is an option to allow lan connections make sure it is on. This very well could be the problem
I tried this and pushing the power button on my server does nothing (). Haven’t yet tried unplugging.
On my Linux machine I was just using the Tor Browser, but on my Windows machine I followed the guide and set up Tor as a service, confirmed it was running, made the Firefox setting changes, etc.
Checked this and confirmed it’s running.
I couldn’t find any settings in my firewall related to mDNS. LAN connection is enabled.
Let’s narrow down the scope a bit. We’ll get this figured out. Can either the PopOS machine, or the Windows machine be connected via Ethernet, to the same switch as the StartOS server, for troubleshooting purposes? Please let me know the model of switch you are using.
mDNS(.local) resolution generally does not traverse any sort of network boundaries. If the server is on a different vlan, or subnet from the client devices you’ll have to do network setup that’s specific to your network environment. Even on the same vlan, or subnet, with a smart switch, or firewall, you’ll have to make sure that the mDNS resolution is not being blocked. This why I suggest starting with your PopOS machine and server to be physically connected to the same switch. But even so, the “smart” features of the switch may be interfering with the mDNS resolution. With both the server and the PopOS machine on the same switch, try your server’s unique adjective-noun.local address. If this does not resolve, find your server’s IP address in your router, and direct your browser to that. If this works, you’ll know that something in the switch is blocking mDNS. If you still can’t connect via IP address, there might be a problem with the server itself. In that case I’d connect it to a monitor, mouse, and keyboard to server to find out what’s going on.
). Haven’t yet tried unplugging.