As a noob, I am a bit concerned about migrating to Scale, can someone calm my nerves?

[newfreenas]

I have skimmed the following link:

/scale/gettingstarted/migrate/

I am running TrueNAS-12.0-U8.1

I see some success stories in threads and some struggles that I can tell by what was being troubleshot I would not be able to solve.

can someone recommend the safest way to migrate from core to scale? I have deleted all of my jails in favor of VMs.

I have 6 VMs I would like to maintain and approx 2TB of used storage

some additional links I have skimmed:

How to Migrate From CORE to SCALE On The TrueNAS Mini

Seamless TrueNAS CORE to TrueNAS SCALE migration guide for the Mini. Preserve data & configs with ease.

www.truenas.com

essentially I am hoping someone has some additional guides/blogs/youtubes even of successful migrations I can peruse prior to commiting to the upgrade so I can do so with confidence of not losing anything or at least minimizing loss.

 

[Whattteva]

Do you even have a need to migrate? It sounds like all your needs are already met by jails/VM's currently.

I've been seeing an influx of SCALE problem posts like this one among them. I myself am seeing CPU constantly hovering at 10% even though it's just an experimental setup with no clients and no real data on it??? Some other people on Reddit also confirmed it. For reference, my TrueNAS CORE machine, which actually has real production data idles at under 1%...

Personally, I don't think I'll ever migrate to SCALE because my NAS is the. mission-critical part of my homelab. I've been running FreeNAS/TrueNAS on FreeBSD base since 2013 (see my join date) and it's been nothing but rock solid and reliable.

The less critical stuff (like apps) are hosted on dedicated vanilla FreeBSD and Debian VM's on a proper hypervisor, which are much better-suited for the task than TrueNAS IMO.

 

[MisterE2002]

Also missing the "why".
I run SCALE myself. It is somewhat rough at the edges. Especially with containers. But i trust my data with it.

Migration to VM's will cause a lot of overhead (extra memory). Jails are nice in CORE (not the apps). And unfortunately SCALE does not really has official Jails/LXC support yet.

Personally i transformed my jails to containers. Both are using the same technical underpinnings but does have different "goals". So it is somewhat hacky and knowledge is necessary.

If you do not have a direct need i would just use CORE.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

TN CORE 13 runs great. No reason to switch if you do not have a specific use case.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

I'm a SCALE fan as I have a bias against FreeBSD for various valid reasons. However, I hear from the experts here CORE is more stable (which I believe), so if you are on CORE you probably have great reason to stay on CORE unless there's a definite need to migrate to SCALE.

As a note, I keep my SCALE setup as clean and basic as practical and do not VMs on the TrueNAS storage server. Hardware is only what the members here (and the guides they've created) suggest. The system runs on a rack UPS, and all equipment is server-grade (not consumer grade). The hardware underwent rigorous burn-in, SCALE is also being tested for stability in the proposed environment. Which is all to say I love SCALE and it works great, but I avoid unnecessary risks. In fact I'm ecstatic about SCALE and this support community, but would not encourage others to migrate from CORE to SCALE unless there was a definite need CORE was unable to meet.

 

[Inxsible]

I thought about migrating to SCALE as well especially after Bluefin was released. The only reason is that I am more comfortable in Linux than in *BSD. So I thought that the administration would become easier if I had to dive into the CLI.

All my services run on my Proxmox server and TrueNAS only hosts my data and runs Emby in a jail. So other than the above, I truly have no reason switching over. I am keeping CORE for the moment. If CORE support wanes over time, then maybe I will perform a clean install of SCALE but that could be years in the making.

And given that i only have 32GB of RAM on my server, the issues do seem to concern me as not much will be left for the VMs etc if I do choose to create a VM on that SCALE install.

 

[winnielinnie]

I'm a SCALE fan as I have a bias against FreeBSD for various valid reasons.

All I read was:
"I kick puppies in front of kids at my local orphanage, moments before approving the demolition job to turn their building into rubble."

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

All I read was:
"I kick puppies in front of kids at my local orphanage, moments before approving the demolition job to turn their building into rubble."

All right, you found my soft-side, I get the kids out of the orphanage before destroying it....

FreeBSD is indeed stable and secure, at least out of the box. But man, it's a pain. It's kind of like writing programs for Windows, "stuff just doesn't work right until you hack in a 'solution.'" Same with the CLI, too many things resulting in, "Oh COME ON!!!" Which is in total probably why there are so few software packages for it. FreeBSD is the hemorrhoid of the UN*X world.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Yeah, totally no software for FreeBSD but the measly >50.000 open source products ported and readily available in the ports collection. Shame.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

Yeah, totally no software for FreeBSD but the measly >50.000 open source products ported and readily available in the ports collection. Shame.

We should probably have a few links in here for others rather than just opinions...of course your standpoint is valid and I respect it. On a few super-secure super-fast installs I use FreeBSD because it is the better tool, so it's not as if I'm a Linux zealot.

Quick overview:

Difference between Linux and FreeBSD - GeeksforGeeks

Your All-in-One Learning Portal: GeeksforGeeks is a comprehensive educational platform that empowers learners across domains-spanning computer science and programming, school education, upskilling, commerce, software tools, competitive exams, and more.

www.geeksforgeeks.org

Here's a FreeBSD-biased article on FreeBSD strengths (which I agree with):

FreeBSD vs. Linux – 5 Factors When Considering FreeBSD vs Linux - Package Management - Klara Systems

Explore FreeBSD vs Linux package management in this article. Learn key differences and considerations in software lifecycle management.

klarasystems.com

These are pretty balanced:

FreeBSD vs Linux: Which Open Source OS is Superior? - A-Team Systems

If you're looking for the best FreeBSD versus Linux alternative for your next Unix system, stick with A Team Systems throughout this helpful guide.

www.ateamsystems.com

FreeBSD vs. Linux: 20 Things to Know About the Systems

Learn about FreeBSD and Linux and how they compare. Get insights into their features and performance to choose the best system for your needs.

www.ubuntupit.com

The articles leave out that Linux support for Symmetric Multi-Processing has a definite advantage over FreeBSD, though SMP and the following points are related to the discussion of Linux having better hardware support. Like SMP, getting Linux running well on Dell, HP, and IBM servers is "easier" in the sense FreeBSD might not work well, or at all, depending. Scale-wise Linux can run on an embedded ARM or IoT device up to supercomputers, whereas FreeBSD is found in networking devices, Playstation, and macOS/iOS...which suggests neither is "better," rather each is better at specific use cases.

Packages...FreeBSD does have about 58,000 currently (noted in previous articles), Ubuntu about 24,000, Gentoo 19,000 (though I've never failed to find a package I wanted in Ubunto or Gentoo), so "number of packages" does depend on the Linux distribution. Why is it then FreeBSD is dogged with "not having packages?" I think a large part of it has to do with the BSD license which is incompatible with some very popular applications, that and users simply not finding the package they want to install. (Though with Linux the problem is often too many choices, each better than the next.) It's curious, because even in researching this I find lots of articles trying to justify why FreeBSD is better than Linux (which are accurate), whereas Linux users don't have to justify squat because they have this enormous installation base that proves otherwise. And maybe the FreeBSD package count is inflated because FreeBSD found ways of shoehorning Linux package compatibility into the system (like running WINE, or a Linux compatibility bridge), which FreeBSD wouldn't have to do if FreeBSD had the packages people wanted. Even in the TrueNAS community people are happy for SCALE because even though SCALE is new the package count has bypassed CORE (from what others are saying; I stick to a bare TrueNAS install because I value simplicity which often promotes reliability and ease of administration so have no real experience regarding packages in this environment).

Because almost nobody mentions this I'll argue a hand-tuned Gentoo system is going to far outstrip a BSD system and leave BSD wondering what the heck just happened. Because a Gentoo system is compiled on your own machine from source code it can be made incredibly small, secure, run in almost no memory and be tuned for almost any hardware including embedded. A few tweaks and it's re-tuned for different hardware and is again blazingly fast, even if the hardware is grossly "outdated." HOWEVER, doing so requires a lot of investment. Still, for any situation Linux is "an answer," and if it's the only answer than it is by default "the best answer." And I think that's why Linux is more popular, because you can always run a mostly familiar Linux install, even if it's not the best choice. However in TrueNAS, due to the U.I. that shouldn't be of so much concern.

In the end, I suggest people use the right tool for the job. Sometimes that's the tool a person is familiar with and can have running quickly without having to learn a new system, though with the TrueNAS UI does that matter?

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Thanks for the links, @WI_Hedgehog - that's a good start. I guess one problem with FreeBSD is that people are frequently not aware that they are not running Linux. So thy google "how to install Grafana" and find a blog article by someone running Debian or Ubuntu telling them to use apt install grafana9 or some such - or even worse "paste this piece of YAML" and run docker-compose up.

None of this would even work on SCALE.

And then the result is "command not found", so FreeBSD must be crap, because "nothing works".

So let me add: the first place to look when trying to find out if a certain piece of software is available on FreeBSD is Freshports.

FreshPorts -- The Place For Ports - Most recent commits

Most recent commits

www.freshports.org

Enter "grafana" and you will find that Grafana 8 and Grafana 9 are available and perfectly well supported and that you can install them with pkg install grafana8 or pkg install grafana9, respectively.

Then we have things like Nextcloud. Again our friendly blogosphere tries to be helpful with things like su -m www-data -c "/usr/bin/php /var/www/nextcloud/occ files:scan ...". Well, true if you happen to run the exact same flavour of Linux and Nextcloud as the blog author.

In reality that command is su -m <writeable-www-directory-owner> -c "<path-to-php-on-your-system> <path-to-occ-on-your-system> files:scan ..."

And on FreeBSD that happens to be su -m www -c "/usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/www/nextcloud/occ files:scan ...".

Not being aware of that one might again come to the conclusion that on FreeBSD "nothing works".

Kind regards,
Patrick

P.S. The irony is that in fact it is Linux that is different from all other established flavours of Unix in terms of command names and file locations. Any seasoned SunOS or Solaris admin will finde themselves around FreeBSD in no time.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Even in the TrueNAS community people are happy for SCALE because even though SCALE is new the package count has bypassed CORE

You are referring to apps and plugins, right? OK, I practically run neither. How do I run e.g. Observium on my TrueNAS CORE?

1. Create empty jail named "observium".
2. Configure basic networking, root login and SSH.
3. Start jail.
4. Log in.
5. pkg install observium
6. Refer to the Observium documentation on how to set it up for operation.

I currently run these applications in jails, each in a separate one - absolutely no pain whatsoever:

• Nextcloud
• Gitea
• Grafana
• Mineos
• Observium
• Guacamole

Vaultwarden to follow in the next couple of days. OnlyOffice is in fact the only SCALE app I currently use. But it's dead easy to run it in a Ubuntu VM with docker-compose if I did not have a separate SCALE host available.

How do I update these?

1. Log in to jail.
2. pkg update; pkg upgrade; pkg autoremove
3. Log out, log in to NAS host system
4. iocage restart <jailname>

Hope this also gives at least someone some pointers.

Kind regards,
Patrick

 

[danb35]

I have a bias against FreeBSD for various valid reasons.

None of the reasons you've posted seem to have much applicability to an appliance OS like TrueNAS.

 

[Whattteva]

All right, you found my soft-side, I get the kids out of the orphanage before destroying it....

FreeBSD is indeed stable and secure, at least out of the box. But man, it's a pain. It's kind of like writing programs for Windows, "stuff just doesn't work right until you hack in a 'solution.'" Same with the CLI, too many things resulting in, "Oh COME ON!!!" Which is in total probably why there are so few software packages for it. FreeBSD is the hemorrhoid of the UN*X world.

Not sure what you find "not working". If anything, that's how Linux appears to me all the time. The problems range from people assuming whatever it is they're using as their default shell in their scripts instead of just sh to things like systemd changing something as simple as configuring your DNS servers in resolv.conf, removing arp, replacing ifconfig with ip, etc... It's like their MO is to break stuff. Often, things that have worked for years all the sudden no longer works cause they just decide to rewrite/change it with whatever they feel like rewriting that particular decade.

As far as software packages, I will concede to you that it could sometimes be missing desktop packages like proprietary chats (ie. Slack), etc. But I have never had problems with server packages, which is primarily what I use FreeBSD for.

If anything, Linux is the hemorrhoid of the UNIX world cause, often standard UNIX tools either don't work the expected way (Linuxisms/Bashisms) or just plain missing.

 

[Tiggy]

Hello,
I've been using FreeNAS/TrueNAS for the last three years and I am very happy with it. My setups were various, from a HP Microserver G7, over IBM X3650 M3 server, to the present, veeery moderate HW - an HP ThinClient T610 Plus with 16GB RAM/ one 2.5" 4TB HDD. It's basically used as an Emby Media Server and a Pi-Hole DNS blocker. Last year I installed TN-Core version 12, in the meantime it was upgraded to 13. The main reason for using the T610 is its very low power consumption.
Since I wasn't able to implement a FreeBSD equivalent for Pi-Hole in a Jail, Pi-Hole was running as an Ubuntu-VM with one CPU and 2GB of RAM. The system was running very stable, the last thing I remember, it was running steady for about 6 months, before a Telecom technician accidentally pulled the plug while repairing the DSL-line.

This week I decided to switch to Scale Blufin, and the upgrade went very smoothly, in the UI, under updates, I chose Scale Bluefin, and after a few restarts, the system was up and running. Before that, I deleted the Emby Jail and the Pi-Hole VM, so the system was pretty clean.
The reason for migration was to run these two apps as Docker containers, and free some CPU and RAM for other purposes - Wireguard or OpenVPN Server. Running Emby in a Docker container would allow it to use the GPU acceleration, because CPU really can't handle some of the media I have (yes, I actually fitted an older Nvidia Quadro card in the T610 as well ). Configuring Truecharts Catalog in Apps was pretty straightforward, and Emby and Pihole were up and running in no time.
The first problem I have, is that there are no drivers for my Quadro 2000 in BlueFin, because the card is now considered legacy. The drivers for it should be present in the AngleFish, so could try to install AngleFish from scratch, my data is backed up anyway. Other solution would be to buy a newer, supported card and leave the system as it is now.

The other problem is that I am really disappointed with the system's idle CPU usage. On the CPU-graph, it is obvious that after the upgrade the system runs with roughly 25-30% CPU usage at idle, while TN-Core (left from the the spike) was running with about 15% at idle.

I know that my system is just for home/test use and doesn't comply with HW recommendations, but these are my 2 cents.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

I think there's probably a minimum amount of power needed to cover the overhead of any system. A low-power system that runs slower just takes longer to do the work, and therefore shows more CPU usage. The way around this is with a new system with dynamic clock speeds and instructions that make use of low- power states.

Personally, it seems SCALE on Linux is more robust though less stable and less of a power miser than CORE on BSD that's designed "tighter." With that said, rolling a tight Linux Gentoo system is the best of both, but a lot of work.

My server at idle probably burns more power than yours at full-tilt, BUT it's near impossible to get mine over 15% CPU usage and 10% additional power usage which is ideal for sustained heavy loads, not home use.

 

[Whattteva]

The other problem is that I am really disappointed with the system's idle CPU usage. On the CPU-graph, it is obvious that after the upgrade the system runs with roughly 25-30% CPU usage at idle, while TN-Core (left from the the spike) was running with about 15% at idle.
View attachment 65109

I know that my system is just for home/test use and doesn't comply with HW recommendations, but these are my 2 cents.

I wrote this in the beginning of the thread:

I've been seeing an influx of SCALE problem posts like this one among them. I myself am seeing CPU constantly hovering at 10% even though it's just an experimental setup with no clients and no real data on it??? Some other people on Reddit also confirmed it. For reference, my TrueNAS CORE machine, which actually has real production data idles at under 1%...

Yep, this is why I will never migrate to SCALE. That CPU usage btw, likely comes from the k3s process that hosts the apps.

 

[William Bravin]

Hello all

Although I would like to be more savvy in this subject to contribute something constructive.

I am storing earth shattering files (not) on this system

I can only give my opinion based upon my experience

First I'm a non it pensioner and i am learning as I build and update/upgrade my environment.

I have been running freenas since ver 10 on a server that i built. all is working fine thanks to the help i received from this forum.

And i'm using for media and personal documents (9 TB). They are important to me so I also have a second server for my backups

Do i truly need this complexite in nall all honesty NO. However i soldier on

During my learning curve I learned about virtualisation and i built on a dell r720n a proxmox environment.

At the time I found many videos, blogs and forum treads and most of them dealt with the installing trunas scale in proxmox. So I did.

It worked fine.

I found this another learning curve that i had to follow

I like the look and feel of scale and i found (mostly due to my ignorance) more complex and at the same time not as refined as core
Jails were more complex not all worked correctly and other small items that were either more complex or just annoying (because o the learning curve)

IMHO i did not see the benefit for scale for individuals like myself (not yet at least) to MOVE from core to scale.

However i would suggest that, if i had to do this all over again today I would have started with scale

My next project is redundancy and high availability for my solution.

I guess I have too much time on my hands.

Be all well

 

[sfatula]

I wrote this in the beginning of the thread:


Yep, this is why I will never migrate to SCALE. That CPU usage btw, likely comes from the k3s process that hosts the apps.

I guess I'll reply to this as a year long Scale user. My CPU usage rarely tops 2%. That someone else has a bug or configuration or other issue does not mean Scale has a problem at all! It should be noted that I run 4 VMs including home assistant, 15 apps such as Emby, and, a lot of background stuff too.

But I have nothing against Core either. It's a great system. I simply want some to see based on other posts that it is not normal. This week graphs is from my Scale system.

 

[Whattteva]

I guess I'll reply to this as a year long Scale user. My CPU usage rarely tops 2%. That someone else has a bug or configuration or other issue does not mean Scale has a problem at all! It should be noted that I run 4 VMs including home assistant, 15 apps such as Emby, and, a lot of background stuff too.

I'm in no way saying that everyone would experience it. But this is absolutely a problem specific to SCALE, because k3s process does not exist in CORE. YOU personally may not experience it, but I can point to a bunch of threads of people experiencing this problem, even on the project's own GitHub (and that is just one of many threads I saw there), which they refuse to fix. This person even wrote a blog post about it.

I'm happy for you that you don't experience it, but saying that your experience somehow means that this is not a problem is just factually not true and YMMV from person to person. On the contrary, CORE will NEVER suffer this problem because it does NOT (and probably never will) have k3s process.