FreeNAS

Vote for FreeNAS!

2012-02-09T17:19:00.003+01:00

FreeNAS is in the running for the Sourceforge March Project of the Month. Take a minute to vote for FreeNAS.

FreeNAS on FLOSS Weekly

2012-01-19T14:56:00.001+01:00

In episode 198 of FLOSS Weekly, Simon Phipps interviews James Nixon from the FreeNAS Project.

FreeNAS 8.0.3 Users Guide Available

2012-01-18T23:18:00.002+01:00

The FreeNAS 8.0.3 Users Guide is now available in the following formats:

This version addresses the changes between FreeNAS versions 8.0.2 and 8.0.3 and adds two new chapters to cover the new Loaders and Sysctls functionality.

This will be the last documentation in the 8.0.x series and the next published version will be for the much anticipated 8.2 version of FreeNAS.

Contact me if you are interested in translating the 8.0.3 Users Guide.

If you wish to assist in polishing the documentation for 8.2, see the documentation wiki.

FreeNAS at SCALE

2012-01-13T14:46:00.003+01:00

We'll be handing out DVDS of FreeNAS 8.0.3 at the FreeBSD booth during SCALE, to be held next weekend at the Hilton LAX in Los Angeles, CA. If you're in the area, drop by to pick up some cool swag and to chat about FreeNAS.

Registration for the expo area is $10.

FreeNAS Google+ Page

2011-12-30T00:22:00.007+01:00

For those of you on Google+, there is now a FreeNAS page.

FreeNAS 8.0.3 RC1

2011-12-28T17:31:00.000+01:00

The first release candidate for FreeNAS 8.03 is now available for testing. Before installing or upgrading to RC1, take the time to read the cautionary notes in the announcement. Please report any bugs to the support website or testing mailing list.

This release includes the following enhancements and bug fixes. See the announcement for the complete list.

reduced footprint
added tunable / sysctl support so settings that affect kernel behavior persist across upgrades
bump samba from 3.5.11 to 3.6.1
bump netatalk to 2.2.1
NFSv4 ACL support
fix email regressions so that non-SMTP authentication based emails work again

FreeNAS at LISA

2011-11-28T18:35:00.001+01:00

There will be a FreeBSD booth during LISA in Boston, next Wednesday and Thursday (December 7–8). We’ll be giving out FreeNAS 8.0.2 DVDs, cool swag, and answering BSD and FreeNAS related questions. Entrance to the exhibition area is free, but you do need to register first. If you’re in Boston, stop by booth #408 and say hi!

iXsystems will also have a booth at #305 if you'd like to check out some TrueNAS hardware and meet some of the FreeNAS developers.

FreeNAS Presentation at FSOSS

2011-10-19T16:52:00.000+02:00

The annual Free Software and Open Source Symposium provides a venue to share the latest trends in open source. It is an event aimed at bringing together industry, developers, educators and the community and any other interested parties to discuss open source, open web, and academic/industry partnerships. It will be held in Toronto, Canada from October 27-29.

During FSOSS, Dru Lavigne will be giving a presentation FreeNAS 8: Open Source Storage for the Enterprise. In addition, conference attendees will receive a FreeNAS 8 and PC-BSD 9 DVD in their conference bag.

Announcing FreeNAS-8.0.2-RELEASE

2011-10-17T23:41:00.002+02:00

The FreeNAS team is pleased to announce FreeNAS 8.0.2-RELEASE. This can be considered a minor release that fixes a few of the more glaring issues in 8.0.1-RELEASE.

Major changes since 8.0.1-RELEASE:

The email subsystem was not working correctly in 8.0.1-RELEASE, which resulted in the system not being able to send mail, as well as disfunction of the alerting system in the GUI.

Changes since 8.0.1-RELEASE:

- Allow decimal numbers for a dataset quota. (r8728)

- Fix setting recursive ACLs. (r8270)

- Start proftpd after ix-ssl to use the correct SSL cert. (r8246)

- Use wildcards in cron and rsync jobs instead of listing all values. (r8214, r8211)

- Fix case in iSCSI targets to match the behavior specified by RFC 3722. (r8120)

Known Issues:

CHAP doesn't work with GlobalSAN initiators on OS X.

Upgrades from FreeNAS 0.7 aren't supported.

The installer doesn't check the size of the install media before attempting an install. A 2 GB device is required, but the install will appear to complete successfully on smaller devices, only to fail at boot.

The installer will let you switch from i386 to amd64 architecture and vice-versa, but some files, such as the rrd files used by the statistics graphing package are architecture dependent.

Latest Video

2011-10-17T14:10:00.001+02:00

The latest FreeNAS video, Backups in Depth, is now available on Youtube and Vimeo.

FreeNAS 8.0.1-RELEASE and Documentation Released

2011-10-01T16:04:00.000+02:00

FreeNAS 8.0.1 was released yesterday. The forum announcement containing the changes since RC2 is here.

The press release highlights some of the new features of 8.0.1.

The 8.0.1 User Guide has also been released. The links to the HTML, PDF, and ODT versions are available at doc.freenas.org. The front page of the documentation wiki has been reorganized to make it clear where the documentation is for .7x users, for the current release of the operating system, and for the development of the upcoming 8.1 documentation. The EPUB version should be available early next week and the Kindle version should show up in Amazon by Tuesday.

You can download FreeNAS 8.0.1 from Sourceforge. If you are upgrading, be sure to read the section on Upgrading first.

NOTE: If you are currently running a nightly, save your configuration and perform a new install as upgrades from nightlies are not supported. After installation, you can auto-import your volumes and restore your configuration.

FreeNAS Videos on TooSmart Guys

2011-09-28T19:37:00.000+02:00

The Too Smart Guys show has created a series of FreeNAS videos:

FreeNAS 8.0.1-RC2 Available

2011-09-19T17:22:00.001+02:00

FreeNAS 8.0.1-RC2 has been released. From the Release Notes:

This is Release Candidate 2 for FreeNAS 8.0.1....hopefully the last stepping stone to FreeNAS 8.0.1-RELEASE.

*** IMPORTANT ***

The image size increased in 8.0.1-BETA3. The new size requires a 2 GB storage device. The GUI upgrade can be used to upgrade a system from BETA3, BETA4, or RC1 but upgrades from earlier releases can only be done from the CD. The other option is to save the config, reinstall the new version, then restore the config.

Major changes:

- The mail subsystem has been rewritten due to major interop issues with the previous implementation of the mail subsystem and various mail server setups (including gmail). This was done by removing msmtp and replacing it's functionality with python code. (r7756, r7757, r7758 )

- The iSCSI target daemon (istgt) has been updated to address interoperability issues with VMWare ESXi 5.0 (r7530, r7652, r7817)

Changes since 8.0.1-RC1

- Fix a bug where a failed upgrade after a config was uploaded was resulting in the system "reverting" to using the uploaded config instead of the previous running config. (r7535)

- Save config now uses a hostname/date combo in the file name. (r7567)

- Fix a bug with replacing devices in place. (r7575)

- Add a confirmation password field for dyndns. (r7576)

- If the webgui can't bind to the address specified in the GUI bind to the wildcard. Set an alert if this is done. (r7562, r7563, r7570, r7579)

- Add a save debug button in the system -> advanced GUI to ease collecting diagnostic information when shell access isn't configured. (r7592)

- Allow an interface to accept tagged and untagged packets. (r7604, r7609)

- Improvements to ataidle. (r7648)

- Reverse the list for ipv4 netmask. (r7663)

- Fix openldap authenticating against servers that require SSL/STARTTLS (r7685)

- Build python with a larger stack size. This should solve intermittent django stability issues (r7689)

- Move the USB 3 driver to a module so it can be disabled for hardware that has issues booting with the module enabled. (r7691)

- Allow the iSCSI extent file browser to show files. (r7695)

- Allow iSCSI extents to be used by one target->extent mapping. (r7697)

- Restrict the iSCSI target name to values allowed by the target and the RFC covering iqns. (r7698)

- Restart collectd properly when volumes are created or destroyed. (r7704)

- Make timezone changes take effect immediately in django. (r7720)

- Use the file browser for editing iSCSI file extents. (r7728)

- Ensure that the selection for an iSCSI file extent is a file and not a directory. (r7729)

- Allow auto-importer to work when there are zpools that contain subsets of each other's names. eg: tank and tank2 (r7732)

- Update django to 1.3.1 to address multiple security vulnerabilities. (r7745)

- Fix a bug where the system would attempt to change permissions from an unknown user to root:wheel. (r7762)

- Disable building the weekly locate database. (r7765)

Errata:

CHAP doesn't work with GlobalSAN initiators on OS X.

Upgrades from FreeNAS 0.7 aren't supported.

Using Life Preserver to Backup PC-BSD to FreeNAS 8.0.1

2011-09-06T14:36:00.004+02:00

The September issue of BSD Magazine has an article describing how to backup the home directories on a PC-BSD system to FreeNAS 8.0.1 using Life Preserver. The article is on page 10-14 of the magazine, which is available as a PDF for free download. A PDF of just this article is also available on Slideshare.

FreeNAS-8.0.1-RC1 Released

2011-09-01T15:01:00.003+02:00

Josh announced the availability of FreeNAS-8.0.1-RC1 last night. From the announcement:

I'm pleased to announce that FreeNAS-8.0.1 Release Candidate 1 is available for download.

Release Notes for FreeNAS 8.0.1-RC1

This is the first release candidate for FreeNAS 8.0.1. At this point, we are no longer including new features or functionality into 8.0.1. From here on out, only bug fixes and regressions will be addressed.

*** IMPORTANT ***

The image size increased in 8.0.1-BETA3. The new size requires a 2 GB storage device. The GUI upgrade can be used to upgrade a system from BETA3 or BETA4, but upgrades from earlier releases can only be done from the CD. The other option is to save the config, reinstall the new version, then restore the config.

Major changes:

- There is no longer a default password. The GUI can be accessed without a password until one is set. The root shell user also does not have a default password, which means that logins by root from the console or via ssh are impossible until this is done. The edit password field for the GUI admin user contains a checkbox to set the root shell user password to the same value.

- The GUI incorporates an alert system in the form of a stoplight that is visible from every page in the GUI. If the light is red or yellow clicking on it will open a window with the condition that is causing the alert. On new installs the light will be red due to their being no password set for the GUI. Also, when there are no alerts a Green Light is displayed. Clicking the Green Light opens a blank dialog.

- Netatalk 2.2 is included, which provides support for Time Machine backups to OS X Lion clients.

- Deleting ZFS volumes is now really an export operation, which means that a "deleted" volume can be imported via the volume importer until the member disks are reused in a new volume. The GUI contains options for wiping the disks if you really want the volume to be non-recoverable, as well as an option for not cascading the deletion of a volume to shares based on that volume.

- The system now supports disabling the creation of a swap partition on every device in a volume. Furthermore, since L2ARC and cache devices are generally small, high speed, and more expensive $/GB than the main storage drives, swap to these devices is always disabled.

- UFS volumes support setting arbitrary mount points, this can be leveraged to move /var to a persistent storage device.

Changes since 8.0.1-BETA4

- Rework the stats gathering daemon to pull volume information from the database and exclude all other volumes. This should fix issues where systems with large numbers of snapshots were filling up /var as the system would try to collect stats on each snapshot.

- Support for remote syslog servers.

- Rework and improvement in snapshot replication tasks.

- iSCSI file extents use the directory browser.

- Support multiple lagg interfaces properly.

- Bulk manipulation of snapshots.

- Ability to specify a bind address for the webGUI.

- Add support for alias IPs on interfaces.

- Add support for the RocketRaid 4322 and 4321.

- Add the user info to allow anonymous FTP setups to work properly.

- Fix disk replacement in RAIDZ volumes.

- Add iozone and iperf to the base system.

- Add sge network driver.

- Update to Samba 3.5.11 version, plus security fixes.

- Fix the NTFS volume importer.

- Add the ability to specify the port the webGUI uses.

- Add sym driver to the build.

- Add wget to the base system.

- Add iperf to the base system.

- Raise default blocksize and fragment size for UFS to 32K and 4K.

- Add some shell customizations and aliases to make the default shell more useful.

- Add uplcom to the kernel.

- Add an SNMP module in that provides a number of useful MIBs.

Errata:

iSCSI doesn't work with VMWare ESXi 5.0. An update to the iSCSI target software that addresses this issue will be available before 8.0.1-RELEASE.

CHAP doesn't work with GlobalSAN initiators on OS X.

Upgrades from FreeNAS 0.7 aren't supported.

OLF Institute Course: FreeBSD for Linux System Administrators

2011-08-29T20:56:00.002+02:00

Though it doesn't deal directly with FreeNAS administration, this course may be of interest to some of you as it describes the differences one experiences when going from a Linux system administration environment to a FreeBSD one.

The course "FreeBSD for Linux Administrators" is one of the courses being offered at the OLF Institute as part of the Ohio LinuxFest. This one day course will be held on Friday, September 9 in Columbus Ohio. The course description and cost are detailed on the OLF Institute's website.

FreeNAS 8 Nightly Snapshots

2011-08-20T16:45:00.000+02:00

Earlier this week, Josh announced the availability of nightly snapshots. The FreeNAS Guide describes these snapshots as follows:

Upgrading to a Nightly Snapshot

Changes to FreeNAS™ occur daily as developers address the bugs and enhancement requests reported by FreeNAS™ users. A new version that incorporates these changes is automatically built every day and is available for download as a "nightly". If you wish to install or upgrade to the very latest version of FreeNAS™ (i.e. the version that addresses all fixed bugs up to today's date) or you need to upgrade to a version that incorporates a fix you are waiting for, you should download the latest nightly version.

NOTE: it is possible that a recently implemented change will not work as expected or will break something else. If you experience this, take the time to add a comment to the applicable support ticket so that the developer's can address the problem.

Nightly builds are available as either an ISO or as a full_install.xz. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of FreeNAS™ 8.x, see the section on Upgrading FreeNAS™ for instructions on how to upgrade.

RSS Feeds for FreeNAS 8 Forums

2011-08-04T16:18:00.005+02:00

The FreeNAS 8 Forums now have the following RSS feeds, making it easy to see new threads in your favourite RSS reader:

http://forums.freenas.org/external.php

http://forums.freenas.org/external.php?type=RSS2

FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA4 Available

2011-07-14T01:07:00.004+02:00

The fourth beta of FreeNAS 8.0.1 is now available for testing. If you test this beta and find any bugs, please report them on the freenas-testing mailing list. From the Release Notes:

This is the last BETA planned for the 8.0.1 release cycle. This line was present in the BETA3 release notes as well. BETA3 contained several fairly significant bugs, and a patch release was planned to address them, unfortunately due to a myriad of issues that patch release was delayed enough that doing another beta made more sense than any sort of patch.

*** IMPORTANT ***

The image size increased in 8.0.1-BETA3. The new size requires a 2 GB storage device. The GUI upgrade can be used to upgrade a system from BETA3 to BETA4, but upgrades from previous releases can only be done from the CD. The other option is to save the config, reinstall the new version, then restore the config.

Changes since 8.0.1-BETA3:

ACLs and UNIX file system permissions work properly on both UFS and ZFS volumes. Because the ACLs needed by windows and UNIX are mutually exclusive the GUI now prompts for which system you will be using and sets permissions appropriately.
Changes to link aggregations which resulted in a regression in functionality have been reverted. There was a workaround to the issue in BETA3. A migration has been added to the system to clear the workaround. If you are upgrading from something other than BETA3 you don't need to do anything. If you are upgrading from BETA3, and BETA3 broke your link aggregations BETA4 will fix things. If BETA3 broke your link aggregations and you applied a workaround the migration should revert the workaround and things will work properly. If upgrading to BETA4 causes link aggregations to stop working the best solution is to delete and recreate them.
BETA3 completed the change from hard wiring device names in the database to using identifiers. iSCSI device extents were not changed properly. This BETA addresses that issue.
A method was accidentally deleted from the middleware that prevented smartd from running. This has been resolved.

ZFS snapshots are now exported to CIFS shares and are visible in Windows as shadow copies. How you access these varies between Windows versions.
Many improvements have been made to replication that increase it's speed and robustness.
The CD upgrade now preserves all of /data instead of select files.
Fix a bug in the graph generation script which would allow the graphs of deleted volumes to persist.
Fix a bug in UFS volume creation, where newly created UFS volumes would only show after a reboot.
Add tmux to the system. Just like GNU screen in functionality only BSD licensed and actively maintained.
Add dmidecode to the system. This can provide very useful hardware diagnostic information.
Updated the version of Intel NIC drivers to handle Intel's latest round of hardware.
Add support for Marvell MX2 SATA controllers, sold with some WD 3TB drives.
Make netatalk (AFP) compatible with OS X 10.7

FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA3 Available

2011-06-30T15:35:00.002+02:00

The third beta of FreeNAS 8.0.1 is now available for testing. If you test this beta and find any bugs, please report them on the freenas-testing mailing list.

From the README:

This is the last BETA planned for the 8.0.1 release cycle.

*** IMPORTANT***

The image size has been increased from 1GB to 2GB. As more features have been added to the system it has crept towards the max size. The translations have brought this to a head, the current image just barely fits in 1GB, but the translation effort is about 50% finished. Since an image size bump is inevitable, it's happening now. Due to this size change the system now requires a 2GB device to install to. Furthermore, the GUI upgrade is not possible. Booting from the CD will work to do the upgrade, otherwise save config, reinstall, restore config is the recommended upgrade path.

Changes since 8.0.1-BETA2:

Several issues relating to permissions with CIFS shares have been resolved.
Setting permissions from windows using either AD or not should work properly.
A bug that was preventing folder renames from windows was fixed.
Samba has been updated to 3.5.9
Drive replacement in volumes now works properly.
iSCSI allows targets to be created with no extents, which eases adding targets to an already configured system.
Deleting a volume now turns the screen red much like shutdown to alert user they are doing something potentially destructive.
Django sessions have been removed from the database and into /tmp
Importing ext2 volumes now works.
Timezone issues have been fixed.
Some fixes for the SATA driver have been backported from FreeBSD STABLE, this should resolve an issue where certain systems had issues detecting disks.
GEOM_RAID has been ported from FreeBSD STABLE, allowing the system to use Intel matrix RAID and some other BIOS RAID solutions.
SNMP was not validating it's config settings properly, and was only restarting properly at system boot. This has been resolved.
Disk sizes match between the GUI and the console.
A bug in pw preventing users with home directories from being created was fixed.
Anonymous AFP has been fixed, as well as time machine.

"How to Install FreeNAS 8" Video‏

2011-06-16T21:54:00.000+02:00

A video on how to install FreeNAS 8 in a virtual emulator is now available on the FreeNASTeam Youtube Channel as well as Vimeo. This will be the first in a series of instructional videos.

FreeNAS 0.7.2.6694 Sabanda Released!

2011-06-14T22:14:00.004+02:00

The FreeNAS Development Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeNAS 0.7.2 Sabanda. This is the Final release of FreeNAS 0.7.2 it improves it's functions and the translations of the WEBGUI. many things are updated and stabillity is improved.
We hope you like it just as much as we do!

Downloadpage:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files/FreeNAS-7-Stable/

Upgrade Notes
=============
- Before upgrade you must always backup your configuration file, your
system disk and all your data (if possible).
- DO NOT use firmware upgrade if your installed FreeNAS revision is lower
than 0.7.2(5175).
- If your version is after 0.7.2(5175), you can upgrade it by any ways.
- If your version is lower than 0.7.2(5175), and you install by option #1
(no data in the boot disk), and there is space of at least 128MB in the
boot disk, you can upgrade it from LiveCD. Otherwise, a new installation
is necessary. (This procedure formats the boot disk.) And, you must
remove the mount point of the boot disk, and add it again.

Other Notes
===========
- The system requirements are changed. The minimum space to install:
OS disk: 128MB(120MiB), Mem: 384MB for embedded.
OS disk: 400MB(380MiB), Mem: 256MB for full.

Downgrade Notes
===============
- Downgrading from 0.7.2 to any version lesser than build 0.7.2(5726) is not
supported.

Release Notes
=============
FreeNAS 0.7.2 (Sabanda) Stable rev.6694 - 12-06-2011

Majors changes:
- Upgrade to FreeBSD 7.3-p6.
- Upgrade unison to 2.40.61.
- Upgrade bsnmp-ucd to 0.3.2.
- Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.41.14.
- Upgrade smartmontools to 5.41.
- Upgrade php5 to 5.3.6.
- Upgrade transmission to 2.22.
- Upgrade samba to 3.5.8.
- Increase image size to 72MB, mfsroot to 180MB.
- Increase default install size embedded to 120MB, full to 380MB.
- Increase default swap size to 256MB.
- Increase memory disk for firmware upgrade to 128MB.
- Create 4KB aligned data partition on the boot disk.
- Upgrade arcconf to 6.50.18579.
- Upgrade cdialog to 1.1.20100428.
- Set kern.hz=100 when running on virtual machine and kern.hz>100.
- Add virtual machine guest support (open-vm-tools/vbox-additions).
- Upgrade inadyn-mt to 02.24.36.
- Upgrade bash to 4.1.011.
- Upgrade istgt to 20110529.
- Upgrade msmtp to 1.4.24.
- Upgrade nano to 2.2.6.
- Upgrade gzip to 1.4.
- Upgrade tftp-hpa to 5.0.
- Introduce iSCSI boot/install feature (isboot 0.2.4).
- Upgrade 3ware driver to 9.5.3.
- Upgrade proftpd to 1.3.3d.
- Upgrade lighttpd to 1.4.28.
- Upgrade iperf to 2.0.5.
- Upgrade ataidle to 2.5.1.
- Upgrade nut to 2.61.
- Upgrade rsync to 3.0.8.
- Upgrade aac driver to 2.4.1.
- Upgrade iscsi to 2.3.1.

Minors changes:
- Add "Czech", "Korean", "Slovak" and "Portuguese (Brazil)" translations.
- Add multiple CPUs usage.
- Add AIO WebGUI for CIFS/SMB service.
- Remove /var/tmp symbolic link.
- Support Advanced Format 4KB sector. (UFS/GPT data partition only)
- Set fsck enable by default at Disks|Mount Point|Add.
- Set kern.geom.debugflags when formating.
- Modify Tuning values.
- Add ability to disable File Manager.
- Make three backups of configuration when writing new one.
- Add amdtemp module. (FR 2992462)
- Add ability to probe on-die digital thermal sensor.
- Enable disk quotas of kernel option.
- Remove a useless partition.
- Add ability to mount 'a' partition on MBR/UFS.
- Add variables to change upload directory of lighttpd.
- Disable fsck on MBR/UFS mount point due to 4KB alignment. You need
re-enable it after upgrading.
- Add wireless firmware modules.
- Add logical block length for iSCSI target.
- Add ability to disable/enable for iSCSI target.
- Add unused extents to the list in iSCSI target edit mode.
- Add kernel module directory (/boot/modules).
- Set Large read/write by default (Services|CIFS/SMB|Settings).
- Add crypto accelerator driver (hifn, safe, ubsec).
- Move upload directory to /var/tmp/ftmp from /ftmp.
- Change iSCSI initial parameter.
- Add new parameter of istgt 20100522.
- Add minimum set of zfskerntune feature.
- Add Hyper-V reboot issue patch.
- Add ZFS pool with 4KB sector support.
- Add ZFS cache and log device support.
- Improve parameters for Samba 3.5.x.
- Improve Active Directory support.
- Display Device model on 'Status|Disks and Disks|Management'.
- Improve automatic firmware check "Embedded" installs.

Bug fixes:
- Fix wrong validation when WINS is enabled.
- Fix missing /var/tmp in full installation.
- Fix upload fail when firmware upgrade.
- Fix AIO checkbox is not disabled if samba is disabled.
- Fix fail to update index.php if some value is undefined.
- Fix control of Ctrl+Alt+Del if console menu is disabled (BR 2976816).
- Fix the document link on Services|Rsync|Server|Settings (BR 2997828).
- Fix fail to connect SSH if ActiveDirectory is enabled (BR 2821715, 2898371).
- Fix UPS support for Megatec USB UPSs fails (BR 3079159).
- Fix Unable to create ZFS datasets with . or / in the name by WebGUI (BR2934275).
- Fix Remote root vulnerability in exec_raw.php.
- Fix SSL/TLS, test e-mail did not work correct (BR3306572).
- Fix the usage of AFP service.
- Fix Blocklist functionality transmission.

Regards,
FreeNAS Development Team

FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA2 Available

2011-06-10T16:15:00.000+02:00

The second beta of FreeNAS 8.0.1 is now available for testing. If you test this beta and find any bugs, please report them on the freenas-testing mailing list.

From the README:

This is the second of three planned betas in the 8.0.1 release cycle.

Most of the changes from BETA1 are bug fixes. In particular several bugs have been fixed in the migrations from 8.0-RELEASE. The system was not relabeling ZFS volumes to use the new devicename-independent naming scheme correctly in BETA1. Also the database migration scripts in BETA1 do not migrate NFS shares properly.

Changes since 8.0.1-BETA1:

The upgrade/migration scripts have been improved. In previous versions failure of the database upgrade was easy to miss, and it could leave the system booting to single user mode with error messages that had nothing to do with the root issue. This has been rectified. If a database migration does fail, the error message will be clear as to what happened, also the system will save diagnostic information that can be used by the developers to recover from the failed migration as well as make changes to prevent the issue from affecting users in the future.

iSCSI has been improved. The SCSI serial number can be set on a per target basis. This fixes an issue where MMIO was seeing different FreeNAS server as the same device. Multiple IPs can also be specified per portal.

The ssh daemon now logs to /var/log/auth.log

Several fixes have been incorporated into the volume import procedure.

Several fixes and improvements have been made to the remote replication process.

The system handles the timezone setting better.

CIFS now defaults to AIO enabled.

FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA1 Available

2011-06-04T14:45:00.000+02:00

The first preview of the upcoming 8.0.1-Release for FreeNAS is available for testing. If you test this beta and find any bugs, please report them on the freenas-testing mailing list.

From the announcement:

Since the release of FreeNAS 8.0 it has seen widespread use and testing. We've been hard at work fixing the issues users have encountered and reported, as well as continuing to add functionality to FreeNAS 8.

This is a Beta release of what will be in 8.0.1-Release, at this point the system is for the most part feature complete and ready for wider testing.

Changes from 8.0-Release:

Upgraded software stack across the board. New version of django, dojo, istgt and many many other software upgrades.

The new version of istgt fixes issues people were having in a Hyper-V environment.

Vastly improved remote replication, with much better error notification as well as the ability to recover from failure situations.

Device names are no longer hard wired in the database. The system will keep track of drives as they shift device names, thus preventing drive reordering from confusing the GUI and allowing a drive that is already used to be shown as available.

Users can now be given an email address, making them more useful for use in cron jobs.

The ability to add cron jobs via the GUI is now present.

rsync jobs can now be created via the GUI. Additionally the system can act as an rsync server.

Shares are now done at the filesystem level instead of the volume level, allowing more flexibility to CIFS as well as UFS based shares.

The ability to add ZFS zvols has been added, they are now eligible to share as device extents in iSCSI.

The ZFS volume importer handles existing volumes with datasets better than the volume importer in 8.0-R did.

A bug that prevented network interface graphs from being generated was fixed.

It is now possible to set the MTU of lagg and vlan interfaces in the GUI.

System -> System Information now shows the available RAM.

Translations are now hooked up. You can check the status of a translation here. The GUI will use translations when possible when the language is changed in System -> Settings -> Advanced.

The GUI can show django tracebacks without the use of debugging tools such as firebug by selecting Show Tracebacks in case of fatal errors in System -> Settings -> Advanced.

The CLI menu on the console contains options to reset the GUI password as well as reset the system to factory defaults.

Active Directory now works properly with w2k8.

Errata:

It is believed that anonymous access via AFP is non-functional.

An issue with the iSCSI target software prevents initiators from seeing multiple LUNs per target properly.

Usage of this Beta:

Depending on your use case, this Beta may fix critical bugs that were present in 8.0-Release making it unusable. For instance the drive renumbering issue or the ability to set an MTU on a VLAN may have rendered 8.0-R a non-option. In that case, this Beta is a good alternative. On the other hand, it has not undergone the testing that 8.0-R went through, nor has it seen much exposure to a wide variety of use cases, so in a situation where 8.0-R is working well it's advisable not to upgrade.

Upgrades from all public releases of 8.0-X are supported and should work, whether an 8.0 Beta release, RC or 8.0-Release. Upgrades from arbitrary SVN revisions built from the public repo may not work properly due to database migration issues.

The migration tool for FreeNAS 0.7 is not included in this Beta, although it will be included in 8.0.1 at some point.

Introduction to FreeNAS 8.0 Article in June BSD Mag

2011-06-02T14:23:00.000+02:00

The June 2011 issue of BSD Mag has an article "Introducing FreeNAS 8.0" on pages 14-18. You can download this issue for free here. The publisher has also made this article available as a separate PDF which is available here.

The article describes:

* the reasons behind the redesign
* differences between .7 and 8.0
* an overview of the graphical interface
* FreeNAS 8.0 resources

Requesting Software for 8.1 Plugin System

2011-06-01T16:47:00.000+02:00

Beginning with 8.1, FreeNAS will support the installation of software packages through the use of a plugin system. These packages will be in the form of PBIs (Push Button Installers) which is the packaging system used by PC-BSD.

There is a PBI forum where you can request the creation of PBIs. If there is an application that you'd like to see available for FreeNAS 8.1, read the README on the PBI Request Forum first as it contains instructions for determining if a PBI already exists and, if it does not, how to request that a PBI be created. More information about how the PBI request process works can be found in the PC-BSD Handbook.

If you're interested in trying to create your own PBI, use the instructions in this page of the PC-BSD Handbook. It is important to note that the PBI format will be changing between versions 8.x and 9.x. If you are interested in creating a PBI for FreeNAS 8.1, follow the 8.x instructions.

New FreeNAS 8 Forums

2011-05-27T16:00:00.000+02:00

Until now, FreeNAS 8 forum discussions took place in a sub-forum of the Sourceforge FreeNAS forums. This was confusing to users as it wasn't always clear if the information in the rest of the forums was applicable to 8 or only worked on earlier versions of FreeNAS.

FreeNAS 8 now has its own dedicated Forums at an easy to remember URL: forums.freenas.org. If you wish to post information or ask questions about FreeNAS 8, please use the new forums. FreeNAS .7 users should continue to use the existing forums.

The FreeNAS 8 Guide has been updated with links to each category in the Forums.

At the moment, the Forum categories are English only but we would be happy to add language forums upon request. To request that a language be added, leave a comment or drop me an email.

FreeNAS Review on Sourcetrunk

2011-05-25T18:53:00.000+02:00

Dimitri Larmuseau, host of the Sourcetrunk podcast, recently took FreeNAS 8-RC5 for a test drive. The result is a 40 minute review (not counting the first 4 minutes where he discusses beer) that is available in MP3 and OGG formats at the Sourcetrunk website.

FreeNAS 8 Documentation

2011-05-20T01:51:00.000+02:00

FreeNAS 8 documentation is a work in progress and is steadily moving along. The documentation has been moved from the old wiki to a new wiki which can be accessed from the Documentation page of the website. Please update your bookmarks accordingly and point people to the new location as the old one is now stale.

At the moment, the 8.0 Guide is fairly usable as it contains screenshots for each GUI menu and tables for each configurable option (most of which have some sort of description). This provides a framework to start with but it still definitely needs contributions to fill out the "when" to do something, provide more understanding of how various services work, usage tips, and real-world scenarios with configuration examples. If you would like to contribute to an area that you have expertise in, create a wiki login and add your writeup. Don't worry if your English or writing ability is not perfect; we get an email for every edit and can clean up contributions for readability and technical accuracy.

Once the official FreeNAS artwork is available, a version of the FreeNAS 8.0 Guide will be "published" in various formats (PDF, epub, kindle, html). The plan is to release an updated version of the Guide with each version of FreeNAS moving forward. As the documentation matures, the "released" Guide will match the features that came with that release and the wiki version will be considered the "CURRENT/HEAD" area for updating the documentation to reflect the features being added to the next release.

We're still working on configuring and testing the translation plugin for Mediawiki. If you have experience configuring this extension for another project and can help out, definitely let us know as we could use your help! In theory, this extension lets translators know when the English version is modified so that they can translate the new material.

In the mean time, the translation plan is as follows: once the timeline for 8.1 release is known, a documentation freeze date will be included. The wiki will be "frozen" (meaning all changes will be ignored until after release) to give time for translators to translate and for the published version to be formatted and converted to various formats in time for release.

FreeNAS 8 is Ready for Localization

2011-05-17T15:28:00.000+02:00

Are you interested in seeing the menus in the FreeNAS 8 graphical administrative interface localized to your native language? If so, we are looking for translators!

A Pootle server has been setup for FreeNAS 8 localization and all of the text strings have been imported into the server. Pootle is an easy way to find out the status of a language's localization and provides an easy to use translation editor that can be accessed from any browser.

You'll find the FreeNAS 8 Pootle server here. There is a page in the FreeNAS 8.0 Guide to get you started on localization. A translators mailing list has also been created; if you're interested in helping out with localization, subscribe to that list so you can interact with other translators.

Security Alert: All users need to upgrade to the latest release (0.7.2.5543)

2010-11-07T09:19:00.000+01:00

All users need to upgrade their FreeNAS to the latest stable (0.7.2.5543).
If you can't upgrade: Restrict WebGUI acces from trusted IP addresses.
Thanks to Brian Adeloye from Tenable Network Security for reporting this vulnerability.

FreeNAS 0.7.2.5462 Sabanda Released!

2010-10-18T19:36:00.005+02:00

The FreeNAS Development Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeNAS 0.7.2 Sabanda. This is a maintenance release of FreeNAS 0.7. it improves it's functions and the translations of the WEBGUI. Also we did add 2 new translations and give it some new features.

New Features
==========

- Samba 3.5.5.
- AIO settings from the WEBGUI.
- AMD CPU on-die digital thermal sensor.
- Advanced format 4kb sector (UFS/GPT data partition)
(data partition in the boot disk is always aligned to 32KB)
- Virtual machine guest support (VMware and Virtialbox)

Full release notes:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files//stable/0.7.2/NOTES%200.7.2.txt/view

Download:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files/

The FreeNAS Development Team.

FreeNAS 8 alpha: How to use it

2010-09-07T11:09:00.000+02:00

Since FreeNAS 8 binaries snapshots are available, here is a little HOW-TO with one disk shared by CIFS.
Simplified steps

log on the webgui with login "admin" and password "freenas"
Declare the disk
Create a "group" (single) using previously declared disk
Create a volume (mount point) using previously created group
Enable a share service
Add a share corresponding to the service previously enabled

Detailed steps with screen-shots:

Go in Disk: Add disk
Add your hard drive:
Go in Disk: Group disk
Create a "single" group type:
Go in Disk, Create Volume
Enter the detail of this Volume (mount point):
Go in Services, CIFS/SMB
Enable CIFS by Checking ON and clicking on save:
Go in Services, CIFS/SMB, Add share
Create your CIFS share by entering the name of your share, a description and the name of the volume you want to share, then click on save:

Share available with CIFS :-)

iXsystems' FreeNAS snapshot

2010-08-11T08:24:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, iXsystems upload a snapshot of their new FreeNAS release on the SVN.
The new FreeNAS is based on nanoBSD, then here are all the steps for generate the disk image of this release (from a FreeBSD 8.1 amd64).
Refer to the README file for more information.

cd /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd
svn co https://freenas.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/freenas/experimental/ix freenas

cd freenas

Then for build the 64bit release:

sh ../../nanobsd.sh -c freenas64.conf

Of for build the 32 bit release:

sh ../../nanobsd.sh -c freenas32.conf

The resulted disk image will be found in:
/tmp/YOUR-LOGIN/obj.freenas64|32/_.disk.full

(Don't forget to copy the disk image in other place and before a reboot if you have the 'clear_tmp_enable="YES"' in you rc.conf!)
Cross-compilation of a 32bit release should be possible, but didn't works for the moment (stop during compile of ports/net/unison).

The generated image can only boot from the first IDE device (/dev/ad0s1a) because of original nanoBSD script limitation (removed in BSDRP).

If you would test it from an USB key, first step is to copy it on your key (/dev/da0 for this example):

dd if=_.disk.full of=/dev/da0 bs=128k

And we need to adapt it, first by setting glabel on each partitions:

glabel label cfg /dev/da0s3

glabel label data /dev/da0s4

glabel label freenas /dev/da0s1a

Then mount the root filesystem of the FreeNAS:

mount /dev/label/freenas /mnt

And add this line to boot/loader.conf (it's a FreeBSD 8.1 boot from usb «feature»):
kern.cam.boot_delay=10000

Modify the etc/fstab like that:
/dev/label/freenas / ufs ro 1 1
/dev/label/cfg /cfg ufs rw,noauto 2 2
/dev/label/data /data ufs rw 2 2

And at last, modify conf/default/etc/remount too:

mount -o ro /dev/label/cfg

Unmount the key:

umount /mnt

Now you can try to boot from your usb key (login: root, no password).
FreeNAS is configured as DHCP client, you can try to connect to the very experimental WebGUI, but as wrote in the readme, this first snapshot is only a testing of the «base» system.

BSDay 2010 (Nantes,France)

2010-05-20T21:51:00.000+02:00

Hi,

there is a BSDay at Nantes (France) the 1st june 2010.
We will present pfSense, FreeNAS and FreeBSD ZFS.

Free entry (no registration required) !

Solutions Linux / Open Source 2010 (Paris)

2010-02-10T23:14:00.000+01:00

I will be on the FreeBSD stand during the 3 days of Solutions Linux / Open Source 2010 in Paris (16-17 and 18th march).
Meet me here !

FreeNAS ready for the next step !

2009-12-05T00:50:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

FreeNAS needs some big modification for removing its present limitation (one of the biggest is the non support of easly users add-ons).
We think that a full-rewriting of the FreeNAS base is needed. From this idea, we will take 2 differents paths:

Volker will create a new project called "'OpenMediaVault" based on a GNU/Linux using all its experience acquired with all its nights and week-ends spent to improve FreeNAS during the last 2 years. He still continue to work on FreeNAS (and try to share its time with this 2 projects).
And, a great surprise: iXsystems, a company specialized in professional FreeBSD offers to take FreeNAS under their wings as an open source community driven project. This mean that they will involve their professionals FreeBSD developers to FreeNAS! Their manpower will permit to do a full-rewriting of FreeNAS.

Personally, I come back to actively work in FreeNAS and begin to upgrade it to FreeBSD 8.0 (that is "production ready" for ZFS).

Community Choice Awards 2009 - Your vote is needed

2009-06-24T12:09:00.003+02:00

FreeNAS has been nominated as Community Choice Awards 2009 finalist in the following categories

Best Project
Most Likely to Change the Way You Do Everything

You can vote for FreeNAS by clicking on the picture below

Your project, FreeNAS, is a finalist in these

categories:

Best Project

Most Likely to Change the Way You Do Everything

Sourceforge CCA 09: Vote for FreeNAS!

2009-06-22T21:28:00.005+02:00

Thanks to all for your votes on this first round !

FreeNAS has been chosen as a finalist in the categories:

Best Project
Most Likely to Chang the Way You Do Everything

Now, the "second round" is open : Vote for FreeNAS !!

You can found on youtube a personal video for motivate the voters.

Misc articles about FreeNAS

2008-09-02T22:33:00.001+02:00

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com.au/articles/26686-REVIEW-FreeNAS
http://thaed.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/building-a-32-tb-server-a-thought-experiment/

FreeNAS book available

2008-09-02T22:27:00.001+02:00

You can find a great book about FreeNAS here. Thanks to Gary Sims.

AMD64 build for 0.7 available

2008-06-14T20:43:00.001+02:00

Finally a AMD64 build from FreeNAS 0.7 is available. It can be downloaded in the 'Nightly Build' section.

Actual state of FreeNAS development

2008-06-13T09:12:00.003+02:00

Right at the moment we had some problems with systems running >= 2GB RAM. It is not possible to boot FreeNAS on this systems. To solve the problem the current workaround is to reduce RAM to 1GB. I will keep an eye on this problem.

ZFS integration has been done in 0.7, so it is possible to create pools and datasets via WebGUI. The integration of ZFS is not really seamless because of the new workflow ZFS uses, e.g. it is not necessary to mount the disks manually as it has to be done when using 'normal' disks/filesystems.

Till 0.69/0.7 revision 3468 the following changes has been done:
- Included access restrictions WebGUI for mount points, so it is possible to define access rights for each mount point.

- Removed ACPI in kernel, using kernel module instead. Hopefully this will fix misc problems on some systems that do not like ACPI.

- LiveCD creation scripts has been improved, maybe this will also fix some boot problems on misc systems.

- VLAN and LAGG support has been included

- WLAN WEP/WPA should work now

Actual state of FreeNAS 0.7

2008-03-11T20:15:00.005+01:00

The migration to FreeBSD 7.0 was more easy that planned.
I've still one problem to solve with the circular log rotating patch, but it's works...
Now I'm working on migrating the internal configuration of disk/geom volume: I will use the idea of Volker for storing real disk and geom drive.
Here is the actual state:

Migrate to FreeBSD 7.0: 80% done (need to fix the clog problem and adapt iSCSI initiator that is now include in FreeBSD)
Migrate the internal disk/geom management and config file: 40% done (lot's of internals function to change)
Review all the disk/mount point management WebGUI: 0%
Adding gjournal, ZFS and gvistor: 0%

Here is an idea about the new approach of manasge disk/geom class :

Disk: This mandatory step will permit to add a physical disk (ATA, SCSI and HW RAID) and to choose use it directly (by formatting or keeping existing data) or to put it in a «available pool». If the user choose to use it directly, the disk will be formatted and mounted (the mount part will be transparent to the user: no more «mount» page)
Virtual disk (or other name... need to define): This optionnal step will permit to create graid5, geli,gstripe, ZFS, etc.... using the disks in the «available pool», and propose to use this new virtual disk directly or to re-put the virtual disk to the «available pool» (for creating encrypted graid5 volume, or RAID 1+0, or any combinaison you want).
Share: This mandatory step will permit to create a share on a selected disk and to set user/group permission and quotas on it (this step will transparently create a directory on choosen disk).

Begin to port FreeNAS on FreeBSD 7.0

2008-03-01T10:04:00.002+01:00

I'm back :-)
And start to works on FreeNAS 0.7 release that wil include bigs changes:
1. Migrate to FreeBSD 7.0 (yes... with ZFS)
2. Full review of the Web Interface, especialy rewrite the disk management/mount point process for pemetting real share configuration (with pemission and quotas support).

FreeNAS on "c't special Netzwerke" CD

2008-01-10T08:48:00.000+01:00

FreeNAS is mentioned in on of the biggest german computer magazines. Have a look here.

New FreeNAS article in german PC magazin

2007-09-28T09:23:00.000+02:00

Have a look here.

Nightly builds

2007-09-27T08:07:00.000+02:00

Currently there are no nightly builds available because i did not have i-net access to upload them. Hopefully they will be available again in mid october.

Using more the WIKI on the website

2007-08-26T19:22:00.000+02:00

I've start to more use the WIKI:

I've rewrite all the Setup and User guide on the WIKI. (I should find a method for generating a PDF from a WIKI now).
I've begin to add and update the french version too....
I've added an HOWTO section too.

I will try to more use it, I hope that the user will do the same. The user guide should be more easly improved by the users community now.
For example, there are very interressing contribution on the forum that should be create on the WIKI (HOWTO to add Bacula to FreeNAS, etc...).

FreeNAS video workshop in german PC magazin

2007-08-15T15:11:00.000+02:00

Today i found a video workshop in a german PC magazin. Have a look here:
Video 1
Video 2

FreeNAS 0.685b released

2007-07-14T15:12:00.000+02:00

After a long time and hard work we've released a new beta version of FreeNAS. It includes many new features and hopefully less bugs than the previous version.

You can have a look on the changes here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?group_id=151951&release_id=523100

Convertion to sysvinit nearly completed

2007-07-02T11:58:00.000+02:00

The boot code currently used in FreeNAS has been nearly completely converted into shell scripts. This has been done to use the FreeBSD sysvinit system and to make FreeNAS working more like FreeBSD. This enables us to provide the ability to use the FreeBSD package system without any big code changes. Because of the FreeNAS system architecture this is only possible on the new harddisk installation option that will be provided with 0.685b.

IPv6

2007-06-12T22:44:00.000+02:00

Internet IPv6 migration seem very slow (in US and Europe), then here is my little contribution to this big task:
By continuing to improve the upgrade process of the new 'full' release, I've start on adding IPv6.
The actuall FreeBSD kernel used in FreeNAS support allready IPv6, the only change is to permit to configure IPv6 from the console and webGUI. This first step will be very easy.
The next step will be to check that all services (CIFS, FTP, etc…) can use IPv6 too.

Working on user validation input for IPv6, I've discovered an excellent PHP Filter Functions.
PHP provide a function for validing email/url/IPv4/IPv6/etc.... This will simplify a lot the FreeNAS code!!

At the BarCampNantes, I’ve meet Bertrand Florat (the project manager of the open source software Jajuk) .
And he gives me lot’s advices for managing an open source project, and the more important: To read this book Producing Open Source Software: How To Run Sucessful Free Software Project.

SF.net 2007 Community Choice Awards

2007-06-05T02:02:00.000+02:00

The SF.net Community Choice Awards are back for 2007.

You can vote for your favorite software ;-) by clicking on this link:
(SF.net account needed)

BarCamp at Nantes (FR)

2007-06-04T14:55:00.000+02:00

Hi all,
There is a BarCamp at Nantes (in France) friday (the 8th june), and I will be present.
If you want to speak about managing an open source project (in french), you're welcome!

Refactor services code and integrate sysvinit

2007-06-02T01:23:00.000+02:00

Currently i'm thinking about how to replace the current services php init code by using FreeBSD's init system. This will make it easier to start/stop/restart services the Unix way.

New experimental installation mode

2007-05-29T00:42:00.000+02:00

I’ve just added a new method for installing FreeNAS: It’s a real ‘install’ method that no more use the RAM drive.

For preparing these change, I’ve begin to rename the platform name:

Here are the new platform names:

FreeNAS-i386-liveCD: For the CD-ROM release (using a RAM drive)
FreeNAS-i386-embedded: For the classical .IMG release (using a RAM drive)
FreeNAS-i386-full: For the release installed with the new method (real install)

These new name will permit to add ‘amd64’ release, or other architecture.

I think that it will be complex to add an ‘upgrade feature’ with the ‘full’ release, but possible.

Now I need to fix all bugs that I've added with these changes (I've just found that firmware upgrade doesn't work with the 'embedded' for example).

Samba/CIFS performance initiative

2007-05-24T19:33:00.000+02:00

After recoding most the FreeNAS build scripts now we are able to add original FreeBSD patches into our ports. Due this i've added the Samba patches in the hope of increasing its performance.
My current results are between 8.5 and 9.1 MB/s on a 100MBit network connection. Maybe my switch is a bottleneck, so i hope to get a 1000MBit soon.

Last day in Ottawa for BSDCan 2007

2007-05-20T15:43:00.000+02:00

It was my first BSD conference, and it was very interesting.
This conference permit to meet lot’s of people from the *BSD world:

- Pawel Jakub Dawidek (The GEOM guru) presented his actual work for porting ZFS under FreeBSD 7.0 and it was an incredible demonstration!!! (I never see ZFS in action before).
Pawel confirm me that ZFS and RAID-Z feature will simplifier a lot the FreeNAS disks management by adding a powerful Volume Management tools into FreeBSD.
=> As soon as FreeBSD 7.0 will be available, FreeNAS will migrate on it for using ZFS!
But Pawels work alone for this task, and he need other developers: Then if you know C programming, filesystem and optionally FreeBSD, please help him on this big task!

- Scott Ullrich and Chris Buechler (the pfSense guys). Talking with them permit to learn a lot about their experience from pfSense. They have created a company for professional services on m0n0wall and pfSense too (this permit to reassure some company about using these open source firewalls).
I’ve learn that pfSense use only the WebGUI of m0n0wall, and all the base system is create using FreeSBIE. I understand now why there are so differences between the core of m0n0wall and pfSense.

- Marko Zec did an excellent demonstration of the Network stack virtualization with FreeBSD. He shows us how, from one FreeBSD server, create 10 routers (including routing between) in less than 5 seconds ;-)

- George Neville-Neil gives an interesting lesson about security with IPv6.
Bad news, IPv6 seems to have the same security problem as IPv4: And he does a demonstration with NDP poisoning (same as ARP poisoning on IPv4).
Good news: There are peoples who are testing IPv6 a lot, and when it will be fully used, these problems should be resolved.

- Andrew Clunis permit me to play a little with a prototype of a One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). But I can’t participate to its presentation because I was giving the FreeNAS presentation at the same time.

And there were lot’s of other events that I can’t participate (there are 3 conferences in at the same times): The Varnish HTTP accelerator (Poul-Henning Kamp), PC-BSD (Matt Olander), Portsnap (Colin Percival), How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People (Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman), etc….

Preparing BSDCan2007

2007-05-15T21:36:00.000+02:00

There is a long time that I didn’t post here…. Hopefully Volker is very active on the FreeNAS code and on this blog :-)

I’m preparing my travel to Ottawa for BSDCan2007. I will try to put some photos and day-to-day comments about this event and conferences.

I will present this paper about FreeNAS: I hope that my spoken English will be understandable :-)

About FreeNAS actual work: I’ve replaced geom_raid5 module by a new release.I found a little bug that crash the system when trying to remove inexistent disk to an inexistent raid5 volume (for example “graid5 remove nonexistentvolume ad12” crash FreeNAS ).
Arne fix this bug in few minutes, and it will be include in the next release.

There is a high performance geom_raid5 module (TNG) too, but I will wait more test about his module before to replace the actual by FreeNAS.

I’ve meet a big temporary limitation by choosing to use GPT for formatting drive: The actual version of the FreeBSD gpt tools doesn’t permit to increase the size of a GPT partition.

Then I can’t use the cool features of geom_raid5: Adding a disk to an existing geom_raid5 volume , or replacing each disk one-by-one by bigger disk. All this step works great when working directly on the graid5 volume (“/dev/raid5/bigdrive” for example) because it doesn’t use partition, and need only a ‘growfs’. But if you create a MBR partition on it (“/dev/raid5/bigdrives1” for example), you need to modify the partition size before to use growfs.

Hoppefully, Marcel Moolenaar are working on a replacement of the gpt tools that will support GPT partition re-size.

I must now fix some bugs on the actual working release (regarding the mount tools about graid5 volume) and I must create a new method for installing FreeNAS… And this step is an hard step!

Loader bootmenu

2007-05-03T16:50:00.000+02:00

Today i've added a loader bootmenu. I think this is a nice feature for error diagnostics. It is also possible to disable ACPI with a finger tip, do some advanced diagnostics on the loader prompt, enabling debugging, ...

Under the hood

2007-04-27T09:35:00.000+02:00

Currently i'm doing much code reviews which hopefully results in better and stable code. Through this reviews i've found a lot of errors which have been fixed immediately. Also i want to concentrate my development for the next time to improve the FreeNAS PHP engine (the scripts behind the WebGUI :-)), there is much to do, e.g cleanup code, reduce duplicate code, ...

LCDProc

2007-04-26T13:22:00.000+02:00

After the LCDProc package (build scripts and plugin interface) has been finished, i wanted to test it in real action. So i bought the following hardware:

USB to HD44780 adaptor
HD44780 comp. 16x2 LCD display (blue)

Hopefully i receive them very soon, so i can start testing. From my experiences with that i will generate a simple GUI for FreeNAS.

NTFS

2007-04-26T13:12:00.000+02:00

Yesterday i've upgraded the NTFS support, now we are using fusefs-ntfs v1.417 and fusefs-libs v2.6.3. There is only one problem in the WebGUI that we will hopefully fix soon.

Nightly builds

2007-04-26T13:04:00.000+02:00

Because some users want to test the newest features added to FreeNAS, but can't create their own build, i've added a 'nightly build' archive to sourceforge. I will upload my latest builds from time to time, so if you are interested please have a look into the archive from time to time.

Current state

2007-04-20T09:48:00.000+02:00

Yesterday i've added a nice bootsplash to make the booting process a little bit nicer :-)
I've choosen a low resolution (640x480) to make sure it will be displayed on nearly every display and to keep the mem cosumption as low as possible.

Also Olivier and i thinking about how to integrate plugins and additional kernel modules into FreeNAS. One option is to provide a harddrive installation that enables the user to add plugins and additional drivers (kernel modules).

I've added the plugins infrastructure (on client and build scripts) already and there is also the first plugin available: lcdproc (without GUI, will be added soon). A WebGUI to administrate plugins will be available soon, too.

At Last: FreeNAS 0.684b is out

2007-03-31T00:35:00.000+02:00

I’ve found two little bugs just before release it, but it’s not very important bug:

When pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del, the rc.shutdown script doesn’t work (http://pastebin.ca/417482)
The French accent are not correctly displayed: I’ve have the character ‘e in the place of è and ^o in the place of ô.

I’ve added the QEMU image too (excellent free virtualization tools).

I will try to debug the FreeNAS AMD64 release one day too.

Still not resolved the file permission problem (I must improve my file permission knoledge under FreeBSD before).

My 5 years old PC is dying: I will try some iMac this week-end…

File permission problem

2007-03-27T23:56:00.000+02:00

Dan just found a bug on the 'rev 688' of FreeNAS:

Here are some command enter by a simple user (not root, not in the wheel group):

> mount
/dev/md0 on / (ufs, local)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local)
/dev/raid5/BigDiskp1 on /mnt/big_share (ufs, local, soft-updates, acls)
/dev/ad0s1 on /cf (ufs, local, read-only)
> ls -alh
total 20501
drwxrwxrwx 3 root wheel 512B Mar 27 23:36 .
drwxrwxrwx 3 root wheel 512B Mar 27 23:33 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 root operator 512B Mar 26 23:54 .snap
-rw------- 1 root wheel 20M Mar 27 23:36 swap_file
> rm swap_file
override rw------- root/wheel for swap_file? y
> ls -alh
total 5
drwxrwxrwx 3 root wheel 512B Mar 27 23:55 .
drwxrwxrwx 3 root wheel 512B Mar 27 23:33 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 root operator 512B Mar 26 23:54 .snap

Yes.... a simple user can delete a '600' file !
Then I try with system file:

> ls -alh /var/etc/master.passwd
-rw------- 1 root wheel 899B Mar 27 23:36 /var/etc/master.passwd
> rm /var/etc/master.passwd
override rw------- root/wheel for /var/etc/master.passwd? y
rm: /var/etc/master.passwd: Permission denied

Now I must found the difference between this two files...
Why can I delete the swap_file ??

0.684b is very close

2007-03-27T00:03:00.000+02:00

I’ve found the problem with openssh-portable : It seem that openssh-portable haven’t the same default value as the FreeBSD sshd implementation. It needs the line “PasswordAuthentication yes” on the sshd_config file.
And I’ve added some messages about umouting drive that are used by swap file or iSCSI target and other little fix and prevent to format “used in a software raid drive” disk.
Now the code seem ready for 0.684b ;-)

User documentation is updated about the last features added: Only one choice for UFS (screen shot updates), and permit to use an USB key for storing configuration when using FreeNAS CDROM.

I’ve tried the just created FreeNAS-amd64 release CDROM, but my QEMU crash when I boot the CDROM… there should be a bug somewhere on the make.sh with the amd64 release :-(

Successful booting my software modified XBOX with the FreeBSD release (xbox-6stable-20060821.iso) .But I’ve just seen that the XBOX have only 64MB of RAM… And FreenNAS need a minium of 96MB :-(

For solving this 64MB problem I think that I should add a new install process for hard drive: It should no more use the method as flash device (using a RAM drive), but being installed directly on the hard drive (this will permit to simplify user modification of FreeNAS too). But this task is complex and will not be planned for the 0.684b. pfSense seem to use this method: I should check their code. This install method will permit to create a real SWAP partition too (permit to solve the ‘not enough RAM’ for fsck problem).

I’ve meet a problem since I’ve replace mini_httpd with lighttpd (there is a long time) : On the exec.php page the output of some commands (help option or error message) are no more display, but are send to the error.log of lighttpd… Perhaps this problem is solved on the pfSense project.

Add recovery tools and improve performance under VM

2007-03-24T20:03:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I did a big mistake: I’ve upgrade my NAS server with a non-tested release of FreeNAS. And this release had a big bug that prevent me to start it again :-(

The process for recovery my system is quite simple:
1. Boot from a working FreeNAS CDROM
2. Mount the partition where is installed the bugged FreeNAS
3. Copy the config.xml from this partition to a tmp directory (in the RAM drive)
4. Unmount the partition
5. Re-install a working release of FreeNAS on this partition
6. Re-mount the partition where is now the working release
7. Copy the backuped config.xml from the RAM drive to this partition
8. reboot the computer

I choose to automated this process and add this tool as option on the install menu of FreeNAS (the install menu is now displayed only when booting from CDROM).

I found an interressant post on the forum that link to this cool blog:
http://ivoras.sharanet.org/freebsd/vmware.html
This article explains how to increase the performance of FreeBSD under a VM machine by replacing the network drivers and changing one kernel parameter.
Changing a network driver is not users transparent (because they must re-configure their LAN interfaces)… But I should not forget to add this mention in the 0.684b release notes:
If your FreeNAS is using a “lnc” interface, plug a keyboard/screen on your PC before to start the upgrade because you will have to reconfigure your LAN interface for using the new “le” driver!

I've installed FreeBSD on my laptop too (removed ubuntu)... This will permit to play with my aironet card and WPA one day.

I've still not added the code for protecting to format a disk used in a RAID volume :-(
I think to hide them for the format option, but it's more complex that I thought.

Using USB stick to save configuration.

2007-03-24T13:28:00.000+01:00

I have added a new feature to use a USB stick to save the configuration when booting FreeNAS from CD. Alternatively a floppy disk can be used also.

Playing with /dev/speaker

2007-03-23T21:01:00.000+01:00

I've started to compile FreeNSD on FreeBSD AMD64 (my QEMU is still compiling the software used on FreeNAS).
And I found, for the moment, two problems:

===> aaccli depends on executable: aaccli - not found
===> aaccli-1.0 you need the 32-bit libraries installed under /usr/lib32 to use this port..
===> beep depends on executable: beep - not found
===> beep-1.0 is only for i386, and you are running amd64..

And, in my quest for a solution to solve the FreeBSD port of"beep", I found that this tools can be removed without problem ;-)

Here is example of using /dev/speaker device (you need to do a "kldload speaker.ko" before):
echo geL2eL4fdL2dL4cdefggg > /dev/speaker

echo
"l12<eaebegae>c<e>d<eb>c<eaebegae>c<e>d<eb>c<ebe"
> /dev/speaker
echo "T250L8CE-GE-C" > /dev/speaker

Then I can remove the 'beep' tools now, but I must found the equivalence to this old command:
beep -p 500 75
beep -p 1000 75
beep -p 2000 75
beep -p 3000 75

My actual equivalence is:
echo "O1L15aO2L15bO3L15cO4L15d" > /dev/speaker

Is someone can propose a better equivalence ?

Games open ;-)

Limiting UFS File system creation choice

2007-03-22T21:17:00.000+01:00

My 4 hours of train today, permit me to work on FreeNAS:

Replaced the 4 UFS choices for formatting an hard drive, by only one (EFI GPT with soft updates) and add the possibility to choose the minimum free space reserved (between 8% and 1%).
Rename the Software RAID name on the WebGUI by replace “geom. Mirror” by “RAID 1”, “geom. Concat” by “JBOD”, etc…
Continued to work on the FreeNAS presentation for the BSDCan2007

I’ve received a new language file: Russian, and a patch that permit to mount an ISO file directly from FreeNAS (But I think that I will add this feature after the 0.684b).

Next feature that I will works on:
Prevent the user to format an hard drive that is using in a software RAID volume.

And good news for blog reader…. As soon as the openssh-portable port will be fixed, I will release the 0.684b :-)

I will try to prepare and AMD64 release too (but using QEMU64 under a 32bit PC is very slow).

Guide for Installing FreeBSD with QEMU under Windows XP

2007-03-21T23:37:00.000+01:00

We've decide to use only the FreeBSD 6.2-release, and not the lastest FreeBSD code for FreeNAS.
Then I re-install a new FreeBSD under my Windows XP laptop and write a little guide with some screen shots for "HOW TO Install FreeBSD with QEMU under Windows XP for compiling FreeNAS".
I will try to keept this guide updated.

Disable openssh-portable

2007-03-21T18:52:00.000+01:00

I've disabled the openssh-portable package again because of ssh login failures.
The original sshd shipped with FreeBSD6.2 is used instead, but this one has no HPN patch.

LDAP will not be working for the 0.684b

2007-03-21T14:55:00.000+01:00

Here is the actual state of the day about my works.

RSYNC bug fixed : I forgot to add the hidden ‘id’ value (corresponding to the entry number) in the web form.

FAT32 and EXT2 formatting: I’ve remove the BSD label creation for these filesystem (it was an old bug created when I didn’t understand what was BSD label).

New problem founded with the Openssh-portable port: I meet the same problem as Volker. I can’t use SSH anymore: after entering my username I’m disconnected. I'm using the latest CVS code...

I found new features to be added:
- FreeNAS don’t use the background filesystem check for UFS. This is important to be added I think (because FreeNAS us Softupdate).
- I need to simplify the hard drive formatting page by proposing only one UFS type (I should impose using gpt) and let the user to choose only it’s ‘minimum free space threshold’ between 8% and 0%.

It seem that LDAP feature will no be working in the 0.684b release. I don't have time for setting up a OpenLDAP server on my FreeBSD.
And I must release this version soon: This will permit me to work on my paper about FreeNAS for the BSDCan2007.

Install problem fixed

2007-03-20T10:40:00.000+01:00

My previous problem encounter when using the latest FreeBSD 6.2 code was fixed:
Replaced the defective FreeBSD 6.2 gzip binary by the gzip port.
Now I can install and upgrade my FreeNAS again.
I hope that the FreeBSD team will fix this problem on gzip (imported from NetBSD).

This week, If I got enough time, I will try to:
- Testing the possibility of creating ext2 filesystem that Volker just added.
- Fix the exisiting bug (that Dan discovered on the working 0.684b about RSYNC)
- Try to install an OpenLDAP server for testing the actual LDAP authentication feature that I've added but not tested.

Can't no more install FreeNAS

2007-03-18T23:52:00.000+01:00

(First post!)

Since the last week, I can't install FreeNAS on my virtual machine (same problem under KQEMU and VMware).
When booting from the CDROM (or upgrading from WebGUI) I meet this error message (try to install it in both mode):

gunzip: error writing to output: Broken pipe
gunzip: img file: uncompress failed

Then, from the shell I've try to install it manually:

# mkdir /mnt/cdrom_fr_0507
# mount -t cd9660 /dev/acd0 /mnt/cdrom_fr_0507
# /usr/bin/gunzip -S "" -c /mnt/cdrom_fr_0507/FreeNAS-generic-pc.gz | dd of=/dev/ad0 bs=512
dd: /dev/ad0: Invalid argument
1278+1 records in
1278+0 records out
654336 bytes transferred in 0.917600 secs (713095 bytes/sec)

It seem ok but I don't remember if the message "dd: /dev/ad0: Invalid argument" is a normal message.

Then I check the fresh hard drive:

# mkdir /mnt/tutu
# mount /dev/ad0a /mnt/tutu
# ls -alh /mnt/tutu/
ls: boot: Bad file descriptor
ls: conf: Bad file descriptor
total 15291
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 512B Mar 18 16:11 .
drwxrwxrwx 4 root wheel 512B Mar 19 00:03 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 root operator 512B Mar 18 16:11 .snap
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 15M Mar 18 16:11 mfsroot.gz

It seem that the IMG file is not correctly 'dd' on the hard drive (Bad file descriptor for the boot directory).

Then I checked the IMG file on the CDROM (using another drive ad1 for testing it):
# fdisk -I /dev/ad1
******* Working on device /dev/ad1 *******
fdisk: invalid fdisk partition table found
fdisk: Geom not found
# newfs /dev/ad1s1
/dev/ad1s1: 99.9MB (204560 sectors) block size 16384, fragment size 2048
using 4 cylinder groups of 24.98MB, 1599 blks, 3200 inodes.
super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
160, 51328, 102496, 153664
# mkdir /mnt/testing
# mount /dev/ad1s1 /mnt/testing/
# cp /mnt/cdrom_fr_0507/FreeNAS-generic-pc.gz /mnt/testing/
# cd /mnt/testing/
# gunzip FreeNAS-generic-pc.gz
# mdconfig -a -t vnode -f FreeNAS-generic-pc -u 1
# mkdir /mnt/check
# mount /dev/md1a /mnt/check/
# ls -alh /mnt/check/
total 15293
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 512B Mar 18 16:11 .
drwxrwxrwx 6 root wheel 512B Mar 19 00:07 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 root operator 512B Mar 18 16:11 .snap
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 512B Mar 18 16:11 boot
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512B Mar 18 16:11 conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 15M Mar 18 16:11 mfsroot.gz

No problem on this IMG file.. the problem seem coming from the "dd" command...

FreeNAS

Vote for FreeNAS!

FreeNAS on FLOSS Weekly

FreeNAS 8.0.3 Users Guide Available

FreeNAS at SCALE

FreeNAS Google+ Page

FreeNAS 8.0.3 RC1

FreeNAS at LISA

FreeNAS Presentation at FSOSS

Announcing FreeNAS-8.0.2-RELEASE

Latest Video

FreeNAS 8.0.1-RELEASE and Documentation Released

FreeNAS Videos on TooSmart Guys

FreeNAS 8.0.1-RC2 Available

Using Life Preserver to Backup PC-BSD to FreeNAS 8.0.1

FreeNAS-8.0.1-RC1 Released

OLF Institute Course: FreeBSD for Linux System Administrators

FreeNAS 8 Nightly Snapshots

RSS Feeds for FreeNAS 8 Forums

FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA4 Available

More Videos in the FreeNAS 8.0 HowTo Series

FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA3 Available

"How to Install FreeNAS 8" Video‏

FreeNAS 0.7.2.6694 Sabanda Released!

FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA2 Available

FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA1 Available

Introduction to FreeNAS 8.0 Article in June BSD Mag

Requesting Software for 8.1 Plugin System

New FreeNAS 8 Forums

FreeNAS Review on Sourcetrunk

FreeNAS 8 Documentation

FreeNAS 8 is Ready for Localization

Security Alert: All users need to upgrade to the latest release (0.7.2.5543)

FreeNAS 0.7.2.5462 Sabanda Released!

FreeNAS 8 alpha: How to use it

iXsystems' FreeNAS snapshot

BSDay 2010 (Nantes,France)

Solutions Linux / Open Source 2010 (Paris)

FreeNAS ready for the next step !

Community Choice Awards 2009 - Your vote is needed

Sourceforge CCA 09: Vote for FreeNAS!

Misc articles about FreeNAS

FreeNAS book available

AMD64 build for 0.7 available

Actual state of FreeNAS development

Actual state of FreeNAS 0.7

Begin to port FreeNAS on FreeBSD 7.0

FreeNAS on "c't special Netzwerke" CD

New FreeNAS article in german PC magazin

Nightly builds

Using more the WIKI on the website

FreeNAS video workshop in german PC magazin

FreeNAS 0.685b released

Convertion to sysvinit nearly completed

IPv6

SF.net 2007 Community Choice Awards

BarCamp at Nantes (FR)

Refactor services code and integrate sysvinit

New experimental installation mode

Samba/CIFS performance initiative

Last day in Ottawa for BSDCan 2007

Preparing BSDCan2007

Loader bootmenu

Under the hood

LCDProc

NTFS

Nightly builds

Current state

At Last: FreeNAS 0.684b is out

File permission problem

0.684b is very close

Add recovery tools and improve performance under VM

Using USB stick to save configuration.

Playing with /dev/speaker

Limiting UFS File system creation choice

Guide for Installing FreeBSD with QEMU under Windows XP

Disable openssh-portable

LDAP will not be working for the 0.684b

Install problem fixed

Can't no more install FreeNAS