Altering the behavior of a FreeNAS stock python script, what is the best practice?

[Arik Yavilevich]

Hi,

I am having some compatibility issues between FreeNAS and my setup with regard to VMWare snapshot coordination. I am looking to make a few small changes in an existing FreeNAS python script, for example, to exclude specific entries (VMs) from being processed.

I am looking for the best way to make change to a py file. The edit could be made manually or through some scheduled automatic command. The specific file I am looking at modifying is gui\tools\autosnap.py which seems to be at /usr/local/www/freenasUI/tools/ during run time.

Have this been done or tried before?
At what point such a change be overwritten?
How will it handle a reboot or version update?

I know this is not recommended. This is for experimentation and not for a production environment, so please don’t respond with just “you should not be doing this”. After all, FreeNAS is open source for a reason and I am taking full responsibility for the outcome.

Thanks,
Arik.

 

[m0nkey_]

I know you said it, but you shouldn't be making any changes to the root file system. ;) If you have found a bug or have a possible improvement to the core system, I encourage you to post it to https://bugs.freenas.org/projects/freenas. You can also get the source from https://github.com/freenas/freenas, modify it, then create a build with your modifications for testing.