[SOLVED] FreeNAS with Areca ARC-4038 8-Bay

[joe98ritter]

I bought a Areca ARC-4038 8-Bay used off of someone for a pretty good price, except that I don't seem to know how to use it

The manual found here indicates that I have to use the RS-232C RJ-11 Port to connect with a VT100 terminal emulator. No idea what any of that really means (except RJ11). I have a SAS cable and a SAS PCI-e card to connect for storage, but I don't know where to begin to connect to the command line interface. If I can configure it without RAID, I will setup this up directly as storage for FreeNAS. If I can't, I will just use it as direct storage for Proxmox, but I would really like to use it for FreeNAS.

Can anybody tell me how I connect to the CLI of this thing (cables/terminal emu)?

 

[USAFRet]

From the manual:
"By connecting a VT100 compatible terminal, or a PC operating in an equivalent terminal emulation mode, all CLI administration func-tions can be exercised from the VT100 terminal. "

So, a VT100 emulator.
https://www.ericom.com/vt-terminal-emulators.asp

PowerVT Terminal Emulator

PowerVT is an easy-to-use VT terminal emulation application for Windows. Supports VT100, VT220, VT320, and VT52 terminals.

www.dart.com

 

[joe98ritter]

Can I use just any RJ11 to RJ45 cable and plug it into my PC?

https://www.amazon.com/Telephone-RJ11-Network-Connector-Cable/dp/B0194M8M8G

 

[USAFRet]

Can I use just any RJ11 to RJ45 cable and plug it into my PC?

https://www.amazon.com/Telephone-RJ11-Network-Connector-Cable/dp/B0194M8M8G

Possibly. No guarantees.
Nope...what he said below.

 

[kanewolf]

Can I use just any RJ11 to RJ45 cable and plug it into my PC?

https://www.amazon.com/Telephone-RJ11-Network-Connector-Cable/dp/B0194M8M8G

Not the ethernet port on your PC. The RJ11 is an RS232 serial interface. You probably want a USB to DB9 serial adapter and then a DB9 to RJ11 cable.

 

[joe98ritter]

That sounds smarter haha ... Probably have to find a RJ11 cable that matches the pinout on page 20 of the manual or re-head a cable