9.3 download for legacy recovery (I know, I know!)

[bajaking]

I see that the oldest FreeNAS I can download - for good reason - is v11, as confirmed in the only relevant thread I could find (https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/version-freenas-9-3-stable-201501162230.41587)

I just re-inherited a 9.3 system that hasn't been touched in years, and its (single) OS SATADOM won't boot back up after a recent shutdown. All the HDDs are known to be healthy. I assume my best course of action is:
* Remove the SATADOM and give it to someone who knows what they're doing to attempt recovery & replication of the OS.

Since that's unlikely to work (because 'someone' is usually me, where I work), I'm planning to:
* Install 9.3 on a usb drive, since that's what the system had last.
* Attempt to boot from that.
* Hope FreeNAS has a way to magically recognize and mount the zpools that are on the HDDs.
* Copy off the data and then attempt an upgrade path to TrueNAS, or change careers.

Obviously an ignorant and desperate plan. And of course we don't have backups of whatever configs would probably be useful. The person that inherited the box from me years ago swore he'd tear it down and go debian but didn't and then left, and now I'm stuck with recovering the data.

So is there really no place on the internet to find a 9.3 iso? Or is my plan equally likely to succeed with 11?

 

[jgreco]

No promises here except that downloads will not be zippy.

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 399992832 Dec 8 2014 FreeNAS-9.3-RELEASE.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 jgreco wheel 401104896 Jan 26 2015 FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201501241715.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 jgreco wheel 450279424 Aug 13 2015 FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201506292332.iso

are available at https://extranet.www.sol.net/files/freenas/iso/ plus the desired filename.

 

[bajaking]

Promises or not, much appreciated jgreco!

 

[cobrakiller58]

this also has some older versions http://archive.freenas.org/

 

[anodos]

Pool should be importable in latest truenas version, but go ahead and try 9.3 to start with.

The main problem you're going to encounter is that configuration details were stored in the satadom that failed. Some users at various times used automated scripts to back up the configuration file to the data pool. You may want to search through the data pool to see if there's a backup. If there is, then copy it off and inspect it carefully to see whether it represents a recent version of server config (can tell by mtime probably for the file "stat -x <filename>"). The config file (freenas-v1.db) is an sqlite database and so normal SQL queries should be able to give you an idea of what was configured.

 

[bajaking]

I was afraid someone would say that. I'm quite confident no config backups were performed. I have a few old screenshots from the webgui which is about all I'll have to work with. I haven't checked the docs yet for recovery methods, but hoping there is a non-destructive approach to attempting to reassemble the pools. 16 HDDs, I know there were 2 pools...how many combinations can there really be...please, math people, don't humor me!

 

[jgreco]

"Reassemble the pools"? That's not a problem. Just tell it to import the pools.

 

[artlessknave]

do you actually need anything from the old config? if all you want is the data on the pools, they should import into just about any webUI version.
just import them as you would any other pool. they'll be older ZFS versions but ZFS is designed to handle that.
trying to get the config to a modern version would probably take upgrading like 4 times.

 

[bajaking]

Woohoo! I hate to use the word "automagically", but indeed, I didn't even have to ask: on first loading of the webgui, after setting a root pwd (I opted not to during the OS install), the wizard indeed identified my two zpools and let me import them in seconds. I've been able to access all the files and start backing up the items that weren't. Honestly I did not believe it would be that simple. All hail ye FreeNAS makers!

I have 1 caveat for future readers of this thread, and a question for the gurus if you want to continue humoring me.

Caveat: I had to burn the installer .iso to a disc. Could not get the NAS server nor 2 other linux servers I tried (varied bios vendors & configs) to boot from a USB stick. Took a few hours of trial and error and reading other threads to arrive at this conclusion, but +1 to others that found a cd/dvd burn necessary as well. Installing OS to USB was simple once that was solved, and the NAS server booted from the USB without a hiccup (after shuffling bios boot order, of course).

Question: should I bother with scrub+smart, config'ing networking and a couple key users, troubleshooting driver/firmware mismatches, etc. on this 9.3, while we offload data, which will take a while (~20TB not already backed up elsewhere), or should I attempt to upgrade to TrueNAS straight away? Getting my zpools "back" was so easy with the 9.3 that I'm tempted to think I could just make a current TrueNAS USB and it will also magically import my old 9.3 zpools...

 

[artlessknave]

I could just make a current TrueNAS USB and it will also magically import my old 9.3 zpools.

I would try current. it should be just as easy.
upgrading from 9.3 to 12 will take awhile, usually you want to go by main release at a time, which would be 4 upgrades ish? while 12 should just read the zpool the same, and you would start there.

Caveat: I had to burn the installer .iso to a disc.

I dont even have optical drives in my servers, so this definitely shouldnt be required. sounds like a problem with the hardware, but I dont see a listing of what that hardware is, so it's difficult to speculate.

 

[bajaking]

Thanks, AK. I guess upgrading sequentially from 9->12 is only necessary if I have an existing config from 9.3. But since I don't, I can just jump to 12 with my existing zpools and start a fresh config from there. Is that right?

The NAS is running on a Supermicro X9DRL-3F/iF (2 Xeon quad-cores) with 32G and 16x8T hdds. No optical drive.
I have an old Dell PowerEdge SC1435 with an optical drive that also wouldn't boot a thumb drive iso (tried a couple different drives+burns), but it booted a DVD iso just fine. I've done numerous other linux distro installs via thumb drive over the last few years -- had to write over a CentOS 6 iso DVD, so that should give you an idea of my last optical drive use! -- so it feels like just something about the 9.3 iso wasn't right. Saw a couple other forum threads with the same outcome.

I'll report back if the USB iso results are different with Core 12.

 

[artlessknave]

9.3 iso wasn't right

mmm, ya, it was forever ago. around the time of THE_RELEASE_THAT_SHALL_NOT_BE_NAMED, and booting from optical wasn't as obsoleted yet.