Upgrade to FreeNAS-8.0.4-RELEASE-p2

FreeNAS-8.0.4-RELEASE-p2 has been released and all users of the 8.0.x series are encouraged to upgrade to this patchset as it addresses 2 security vulnerabilities:

• CVE-2012-2111: this Samba vulnerability affects FreeNAS systems when the CIFS service is enabled. This vulnerability could allow an authenticated user to grant themselves the "take ownership" privilege. This privilege is used by the smbd file server to grant the ability to change ownership of a file or directory which means users could take ownership of files or directories they do not own.
• FreeBSD-SA-12:01.openssl: this OpenSSL vulnerability affects all FreeNAS systems as OpenSSL is built into the operating system. This vulnerability can result in a denial of service attack against the system.

Before upgrading, backup your configuration in System -> Settings -> General -> Save Config. If you are upgrading from a release earlier than 8.0.4, be sure to read the Release Notes first.

Presentation and Booth at NWLF

LinuxFest NorthWest is this weekend at Bellingham Technical College in Bellingham, WA. James Nixon will be giving a presentation on FreeNAS. There will also be a FreeBSD booth which will be handing out FreeNAS CDs and cool swag. This is a free event, so if you're in this part of the world, drop by and say hi!

FreeNAS 8.2.0-BETA3 is Now Available for Testing

FreeNAS 8.2.0-BETA3 is now available for download and testing. The plugin architecture has changed significantly since BETA2 and the wiki documentation will be updated over the next week or so as this beta's plugin architecture is tested and documented. If you find outdated wiki documentation, either be patient or create a wiki account in order to assist with the documentation. If you find a bug in BETA3, please submit a ticket after reading the section on how to submit a bug report.

The other significant change in this beta is the patch to support istgt (iSCSI) reload. Note that  target reload is supported for adding and removing (but not changing) targets on the fly. Since the Logical Unit Controller (LUC) is used for this, reload will not function if the LUC is not enabled.

The forum announcement containing the release notes for BETA3 is here.

Upgrade Now if You're Using CIFS

If you are using CIFS/Windows shares on your FreeNAS 8.0.x system, you are urged to update to 8.0.4-RELEASE-p1 immediately.

Earlier this week, a vulnerability was discovered in Samba that allows remote code execution as the root user from an anonymous connection. All versions of Samba were affected. You can read more about the vulnerability here.

Since FreeNAS uses Samba to provide CIFS/Windows shares, unpatched systems are susceptible to this vulnerability. 8.0.4-RELEASE-p1 contains the necessary patch and is available for download here. Instructions for upgrading FreeNAS are in section 4.6 of the Guide.

FreeNAS at ILF

There will be a FreeNAS presentation at Indiana LinuxFest on Saturday, April 14 in Indianapolis, Indiana. We will also be giving out FreeNAS CDs at the BSD booth in the expo area.

If you are interested in learning more about FreeBSD administration (the operating system FreeNAS is based upon), there is an all day course on FreeBSD for Linux System Administrators on Friday, April 13.

There is no cost to attend either the course or the conference. Pre-registration is encouraged so that you don't have to wait in line to register when you arrive.

FreeNAS Presentation at NLUUG

Michael Dexter will be giving a presentation entitled The FreeNAS Storage Platform: A minute to learn, a lifetime to master at NLUUG's Spring conference. This event will be held in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands on April 11th.

FreeNAS 8.2-BETA2 Available for Testing

FreeNAS 8.2-BETA2 is now available for testing. There are many changes between the 8.0.x and 8.2 branches. The 8.2 documentation has been updated with the new screenshots and the new functionality is mostly documented, but is still a work in progress. If you find any bugs in the beta, please search support.freenas.org to see if a ticket has already been created and create one if one does not already exist.

Notable changes from the release notes:

The 8.2 branch of FreeNAS introduces many functional changes when compared with the 8.0.x releases.

ZFS can be manipulated from the CLI, and changes for supported items tracked by FreeNAS will be reflected in the GUI. zvols, datasets, and entire volumes can be created, destroyed, or manipulated on the CLI and will be propagated to the GUI.

The GUI now supports active-passive multipath capable hardware, which targets mainly SAS drives on dual expander backplanes. Any multipath capable devices that are detected will be placed in multipath units which are then exposed to the GUI, and the parent devices will be hidden.

Plugins are now available. Third party modules can be added to FreeNAS which will persist across upgrades and can be manipulated and configured from the GUI. Documentation on using and creating plugins is available at http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Plugins_Configuration. BitTorrent, DLNA/uPNP, and iTunes plugins are available as of this writing.

The GUI now includes a webshell, which allows you to access a root shell from within a web browser.

The "Create Volume" modal was renamed to "Volume Manager".

Extending existing pools is more intuitive than it was previously; selecting multiple disks for a storage volume is now done via a multiselect widget instead of checkboxes to improve ease of use when creating volumes.

ZFS volumes can now have periodic scrub tasks configured for them; the default is set to 35 days to be consistent with the OS default.

An autotuning script is now available -- disabled by default. It sets various tunables and sysctls based on system resources and components. The predetermined values are exposed through the GUI from the Sysctls and Tunables panes.

A newer web toolkit is used, which behaves better with modal dialogs and more intuitively in general when compared with older versions. It also has better browser compatibility, including compatibility with Android / iOS mobile devices!

 A more responsive service state detection mechanism was added to improve FreeNAS interoperability in VM software (VMware, VirtualBox, etc).