Safe to upgrade to 9.3...

[SilverJS]

Hi gents,

So - I remember when I moved back a year ago, I had some problems that led me to upgrade from 8.3 or some such, at the time (I hadn't upgraded in a while...) to 9.2.1.9, as I recall. Immediately, I had scores of issues with CIFS (which is my main use for the FreeNAS box, as pretty much all of my PC's save one are Windows), and a bit of searching led me to understand that 9.2.0 was pretty much the last really solid, stable version for CIFS. I downgraded, and things have been working a charm since. (Thanks again to all who helped at that time on the forums!)

Now - I'm seeing 9.3, and although I have no real compelling reason to upgrade, I'm tempted to at least try to keep up so I don't find myself in a situation where I'm forced to upgrade and I don't have the time to sort out the inevitable bugs.

That being said, my question is simple : Is 9.3 a good, safe, solid update? I searched, and only found one poster with CIFS issues. I'd like to take advantage of the latest features, but would much rather avoid problems, as we really do tend to make fairly heavy use of this NAS box in this household.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Bidule0hm]

For me, yes it is. I haven't any big bug (except maybe the first drive S/N problem) ;)

However you need to be sure to meet the minimum requirements (look at the hardware recommendations thread, link is in my sig) or you won't like the result (from very poor performance to loss of a whole pool...).

Note that if you want to be able to go back to the 9.2 DON'T upgrade the pools, see here for more info ;)

 

[jgreco]

The 9.3 series has a bunch of relatively minor updates, a new way of doing things that some of us are a bit ambivalent about. It means there's no golden "9.3" except for the initial release, which is known to have a few modest bugs.

9.3 also marks the transition from UFS to ZFS for the system image, meaning you probably want to be very careful. Install 9.3 on a separate USB device and import your configuration for the best chance of success. I did do an in-place upgrade on an existing system and it worked amazingly well, but given the underlying shuffling that had to go on, I'm skeptical it is fully bug free.

If you install to new media and then import your configuration, you have the possibility to downgrade back to 9.2 if it turns out poorly.

 

[SilverJS]

If you install to new media and then import your configuration, you have the possibility to downgrade back to 9.2 if it turns out poorly.

You know what - that's a fantastic idea. Here's a really dumb question though : I usually save the config file on some of my Windows computers. That being said, I'm not sure why I do that, as I'm not too sure how I'd even get it to the FreeNAS box if I needed to. =)

I guess what I'm asking is : how do I import a config file to a new install...? =) Cheers!

 

[Bidule0hm]

Same place where you download it, just click on "Upload Config" instead of "Save Config" ;)

 

[SilverJS]

So I guess the fresh install will be able to "see" my Windows computers then?

 

[Bidule0hm]

Yes, the config contains pretty much everything ;)

 

[jgreco]

That's the idea, to save all that work you spent tinkering in the GUI. A NAS also has client side configuration (at least sometimes) so a way to cleanly propagate configs is an important feature.

 

[SilverJS]

Good points. OK, so I just went back in the web GUI, saved my config and totally know what you mean - Upload instead of Save. Got it.

Another dumb question : Right now, I have a jail for Transmission, and another jail with MySQL (for an XBMC database). What will the config preserve? I can't imagine that the plugins are saved in there, but maybe the instructions to create a jail...?

 

[SweetAndLow]

Jails live on your pool so they won't go anywhere. I would do a test update in a vm to make sure your jails work in 9.3.

 

[danb35]

If you install to new media and then import your configuration and don't upgrade your pool, you have the possibility to downgrade back to 9.2 if it turns out poorly.

Since 9.3 adds some feature flags, and warns you if the pool isn't the latest version, thought I should add the bit in bold above.

 

[SilverJS]

Hey Dan,

Yes, thanks for the emphasis. I wasn't planning to. =)

Jails live on your pool so they won't go anywhere. I would do a test update in a vm to make sure your jails work in 9.3.

OK, fantastic! Thanks for that. I should be good to go then. Confirm that, if I don't upgrade the pool, and I install 9.3 on a totally separate USB stick and import my current config, my jails will still be good to go if I decide to downgrade back to 9.2?

 

[Bidule0hm]

Yes ;)

Note that the 9.3 needs another USB stick for the install: one for the installer you don't need after and the one where you want to install it. Pretty much any USB drive you have laying around is good enough for the installer :) You can also use IPMI to mount the image if you have it and don't want to use the USB install.

 

[SilverJS]

This is true even if I use the ISO...? I just burnt it to a DVD but was going to watch the video later tonight.

 

[jgreco]

This is true even if I use the ISO...? I just burnt it to a DVD but was going to watch the video later tonight.

(aside) I have no idea what he's talking about either... it should be fine installing from a disc.

 

[danb35]

No, you don't need two USBs. You just need installation media that's separate from your system boot media. It's always been this way, so I'm not sure why people seem to think this is something new with 9.3. Burning the ISO to a CD or DVD is just fine.

 

[Bidule0hm]

I forgot the CD/DVD solution, sorry.

No, it wasn't like that before the 9.3, I burnt the ISO of the 9.2 right onto the USB drive and it was done. You can't do this with the 9.3: yes you burn an ISO but it's not the ISO of the OS, it's the ISO of the installer of the OS.

 

[Fraoch]

What are your system specs? FreeNAS 9.3 is quite sensitive to hardware. There are a lot of threads showing a hardware combination that ran fine before 9.3 but won't run 9.3 at all and it seems to be down to hardware.

It's still worth a try and if you have your configuration file you can always go back if it doesn't work out.

 

[Oko]

The 9.3 series has a bunch of relatively minor updates, a new way of doing things that some of us are a bit ambivalent about. It means there's no golden "9.3" except for the initial release, which is known to have a few modest bugs.

9.3 also marks the transition from UFS to ZFS for the system image, meaning you probably want to be very careful.

I needed to hear this from somebody else to check my own sanity. I had some problems doing remote ZFS replication of one FreeNAS 9.2.1.5 box to TrueOS 10.1.1 due to inadequate RAM (or maybe ZFS versions are not the same) on TrueOS 10.1.1 box. At this point I realized that the safest way for me to back up that FreeNAS box is to use rsync. Due to the fact that FreeNAS 9.2.1.5 had rsync interface bug I need to upgrade and for a split of the second I thought of 9.3 even though I have 9.2.1.9 box which runs lake a champ.
9.2.1.9 is the way to go for me!

I also agree with your assent of new interface. While many people complained about 9.2.xxx interface I am so used to it that that the new one is a bit annoying. I hate that start up script on 9.3 as well. However most importantly you bring the point that 9.3 uses ZFS for the root. While I have 3 TrueOS boxes which use ZFS for root upgrading from 9.2.1.9 (UFS) to 9.3 (ZFS) + new ZFS version doesn't sound something that should be taken casually.

 

[jgreco]

I forgot the CD/DVD solution, sorry.

No, it wasn't like that before the 9.3, I burnt the ISO of the 9.2 right onto the USB drive and it was done. You can't do this with the 9.3: yes you burn an ISO but it's not the ISO of the OS, it's the ISO of the installer of the OS.

Think you're a little confused. There used to be a USB image that could be written directly to flash. The ISO installer was always a bootable installer that would then write a USB image onto flash.

Because of the introduction of the new, "better" GRUB/ZFS based boot system, I believe the flash image has been done away with. This means that every FreeNAS install image is tailored for the device it is installed on, which means that theoretically more things could be stored on the boot device.

It has never been possible to burn an ISO onto a flash drive (or a CD, for that matter) and run FreeNAS off that, though.