TrueNAS on different VLAN - Best Practice

Networking & Firewalls
1

Hey there!

Pretty new to all that but stoked to learn.

I have an UDR7 Network 9.5.21 with the new Policy Engine up and running.

So I have an IoT VLAN which is not isolated and my Default VLAN where I have a TrueNAS Server. I want my HomeAssistant server on the IoT VLAN to be able to backup on my server. This is not working at the moment despite the IoT VLAN not being isolated. Does this make sense?

I can connect from my MacBook on the default VLAN to HomeAssistant on the IoT VLAN. Do I have to make some kind of rule that my HomeAssistant can backup itself on TrueNAS on the Default VLAN? My understanding is that it might not be Router thing but a TrueNAS thing. Do I need to set some specific settings in the Network tab on TrueNAS

Thanks for any pointers!

2

There’s a couple of ways to do this. My favorite is to create a non-routed storage VLAN. Because its not routed, you will have to assign IPs manually. I have my TrueNAS virtualized so it is easy to add a second virtual NIC. If your TrueNAS is not virtualized you will either want to add a second NIC, or virtualize the NIC you do have an create virtual NICs on each vlan. The benefit of a dedicated stroage VLAN is you aren’t slowed down by the router at all and your storage traffic has to contend with less broadcast traffic from other VLANs.

The other thing you may want to do is re-examine why you have HomeAssistant on your IOT VLAN. It may not actually need to be there. In my case, I moved it from my IOT VLAN to a regular VLAN because it wasn’t actually communicating with any devices on the IOT VLAN. My Ring cameras all communicate through the cloud and come back into Home Assistant over the internet and not directly through the IOT VLAN. My lights and smart plugs all communicate over Zigbee and Z-wave hubs which are VLAN agnostic.

Othereise you will neeed to create a firewall rule that allows traffic from the IP address of your Hpme Assistant to the IP address of your TrueNAS. Plus within TrueNAS you have to make sure your share allows connections from the IP address of the Home Assistant device/VM.

3

Thanks for the interesting points! I will look into the non-routed storage VLAN.

For now I’d like to take a simple approach: I have TrueNAS on bare metal with one NIC. IP is something like 192.168.1.x. Home Assistant is 192.169.30.x. I guess in TrueNAS I have to add something Network→Interfaces. What “Type“ do I need to add there? Bridge? VLAN? Both? I think the router is set up to “Allow All” between IoT and Default VLAN.

4

I am not that versed with networking in TrueNAS since I run it in a VM. But here is what Claude AI recommends when I gave it the question. YMMV, please do some research before trying this. Also, do you have a managed switch? VLANs will not work without a managed switch


Prerequisites

Switch port configured as a trunk allowing VLANs 10 and 20

Steps

Network → Interfaces → Add

First VLAN interface:

Type: VLAN

Parent Interface: eno1 (your physical NIC)

VLAN Tag: 10

IP Address: 192.168.10.10/24

Save (don't apply yet)

Second VLAN interface:

Type: VLAN

Parent Interface: eno1

VLAN Tag: 20

IP Address: 192.168.20.10/24

Save

Remove IP from physical NIC (if going all-VLAN):

Edit eno1, remove its IP address, Save

Test Changes → TrueNAS gives you a 60-second rollback window. If you lose connectivity, it auto-reverts.

Save Changes once confirmed working.

That's it. The VLAN interfaces will appear as eno1.10 and eno1.20 in the system.
5

If you want TrueNAS to be in each of the networks you can add a VLAN to that NIC with the VLAN tag that matches your IOT network.

6

Is this now the equivalent to “let me good that for you”? lol

7

sort of, but I felt bad for the guy and didn’t want to just throw my arms up and say “I don’t know”. I also didn’t want to oversell it as something I was totally confident in.

1 Like