Can we PLEASE warn the "General Public" here about the use of TrueCharts?

[MisterE2002]

So stop the app, mount the PVC, and back it up (tar -cvjSf /mnt/somewhere/app.tar.bz *). Once the app is reinstalled, reverse the procedure. Kind of tedious, but it's worked for me so far.

That is clear to us but not for newbees.

 

[danb35]

Yes, as I said up-thread, I agree the messaging could, and should, have been more clear on a number of points:

• You will need to delete and reinstall all of your applications (@truecharts seems to think that was clearly communicated in the announcements on their site; I disagree)
  • Therefore, you'll need to back up any data for those apps that isn't stored in host paths. And while I don't know that step-by-step directions would be necessary, at least something like "use heavyscript to mount the app-config PVC and make a copy of its contents" would have been good
• Which apps use PostgreSQL, and what to do with them
  • They've said they'll have a script to do something with this, but it's unclear what it will do, when it will be available, or how it should be used
• What to do with apps that are using a VPN connection
  • Perhaps I've missed them, but I don't see any docs or guides for the new-and-preferred (because all others are deprecated) Gluetun option
• What to do for TLS certificates for your apps, now that using a host cert is deprecated
  • I've seen, but now can't find to link to, a post here from @truecharts indicating that the host cert option isn't going away any time soon, which is encouraging

A possible, and more-or-less reasonable, response to all of this would be something like, "just wait, we're still rolling this out and will have the docs up by the end of the month." Particularly for existing installations, that's not unreasonable messaging. But for someone trying a new installation of qBitTorrent today, I don't see that there's any guidance at all for how to set up a VPN for that.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

Wow that's a rough upgrade path. I'd have expected it to at least have an automated warning and backup system. Are the devs from the stone age? This is 'mainframe' all over again.

 

[Robert Thomspon]

What's TrueScale?

haha

 

[Robert Thomspon]

Isn't Scrutiny a front-end GUI for S.M.A.R.T. (with logging and other self-contained features)? How does that result in petabytes of data loss? That should be "look, but don't touch" software (aside from building historical data for its own use).

I'm not [yet] using TrueCharts so am wondering what you're talking about as you've provided no links and search-engine results didn't indicate massive data loss. (I'm picturing corrupted TrueNAS pools based on the tone of your frantic

Isn't Scrutiny a front-end GUI for S.M.A.R.T. (with logging and other self-contained features)? How does that result in petabytes of data loss? That should be "look, but don't touch" software (aside from building historical data for its own use).

I'm not [yet] using TrueCharts so am wondering what you're talking about as you've provided no links and search-engine results didn't indicate massive data loss. (I'm picturing corrupted TrueNAS pools based on the tone of your frantic post.)

What exactly would you like me to link to? all of their information and back and forth about these things are on discord. there is no centralized system they use to track and appropriately record issues. You are forced into the discord ecosystem to event seek support. You want a link? discord.com i guess.

I dont understand your first comment. no one is talking about SMART or the hardware, most of that higher level stuff is iX based, not Charts based.

Loss of data has occured without any attempts to warn the public... lets see: when host path validation was implemented and then truecharts didnt warn people that changing your storage paths inside your apps will destroy data. or this latest f****p where updating will put you in a positition where you are locked out of your data and cant downgrade? During the switch over to Bluefin, they ceases all support for Angelfish basically overnight without any warning...

Im guessing you just dont pay attention to it?

 

[Robert Thomspon]

This is a very interesting point. But it's one that raises many questions as to what the future will hold. While TrueCharts, and it's implementation of Traefik is interesting I think it misses the point. While I have absolutely no idea what the devs at IX are planning for the future, let me present you with this:
The current implementation of Traefik in TrueCharts will paint IX into a corner if they tried to implement it in the official release. Think about the massive ramifications something as innocuous as hostpathvalidation caused. The amount of testing that would need to occur and problems the that would result in such a merger would be insane. And thats just talking about all of the weird things it may break on single node systems. Couple that with the goal for "SCALE" to SCALE OUT to multiple nodes, there may be dozens of design decisions that they may make now that looking back will have been REALLY FRIGGEN STUPID given that they were made for a single node.

The way I see it, TrueCharts is a playground. It was never meant to be enterprise stable. If you want enterprise stable, use Core and host your kubernetes stuff on external servers. That is the true status of the reality we live in right now. @WI_Hedgehog is right. If all you care about is stability, use your NAS as a NAS. If you want to play around with free and open source hyper converged software, you have to understand that there are going to be growing pains. I've said this before, and I will say it 1000 times more, my only criticism of SCALE is that I truly think it should be labeled as a BETA or as a Technology Preview, because it really is changing and growing so fast, and the way things are done now may be different as it grows up into the future.

To OP's point, I'm not really sure what else IX should have done. They literally make you manually add the repos for a reason. TrueCharts is not an officially supported entity. The only gripe I have with that is that they probably should have had community charts available as a concept sooner, so as to avoid all of this drama. But hindsight is 20/20.

100% agree and have been saying this for about a year now: TreuCharts is building itself out like Apple did. they're integrating themself intimately with TrueScale. Theyre doing so with little overall knowledge of what it is theyre actively doing. They have little to no grasp on the core system they are using, but excel at making shit easy and pretty. With Traefik, it was an absolute game changer with ingressing (honestly, if they just stopped there, and built that to stability enough to deploy in an enterprise grade area, they would have been heroes. But now, even their supposed ENTERPRISE train isnt even stable enough to deploy in a home lab (take cert-manager for example).

I dont know what else iX should do, im not their PR department, i dont even know most of the iX team. but this shit is cray and needs to be addressed publicly. because i can tell you, people are mad, VERY mad at TrueCharts for this, and that feeling CAN and does bleed over to iX and the True* team...

 

[Robert Thomspon]

Wow that's a rough upgrade path. I'd have expected it to at least have an automated warning and backup system. Are the devs from the stone age? This is 'mainframe' all over again.

This guy gets it.

 

[Robert Thomspon]

Nah, I don't think that's even true. I just think that Gen Z is here now and they want all of the features without understanding the risk :)


While that is theoretically true, if people like OP pressure IX into making insane changes that break how your configuration works, it doesn't matter that you were in control after you apply the latest OS update. ;) Again, see the hostpathvalidation situation.

This isnt a gen A B or Z issue. im not asking for bells and whistles. im asking for accountability. I dont use TrueCharts, i moved away from them and their bullshit when i got banned from their discord channel for questioning a mods decision to mute me out of the blue for 2 weeks.

i dont understand what you mean about pressuring iX into doing something and it would break their config. Im not asking iX to take any actions on the software, but maybe a sticky in the forums, highlight it in red.. make sure people are aware of the actual risks of involving yourself in the TrueCharts ecosystem.

 

[Robert Thomspon]

It was pretty easy to see this coming, I'm a windows guy and completely linux illiterate, and until this "kafuffle" was docker illiterate too.
I now have my 15 or so truecharts apps happily running on windows 11 VM. I moved everything off slowly over a month while I self taught myself docker compose. So yes, while truecharts currently is fairly broked, to be fair, there was a LOT of warning.

Also I now realise my setup is better for my needs, as I understand how it all works, and can add bits and pieces myself such as watchtower, cron etc etc.

Once the dust settles I will happily use truecharts again, if I can figure out a way around their dependence on forwarding ports.

this is (sort of) the way! Run your docker containers seperate from your NAS :)

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Again, what is "the TrueScale ecosystem"? There is no product named TrueScale so it is no quite clear what exactly you are referring to.

Products by iX are

TrueNAS SCALE
TrueNAS CORE
TrueNAS Enterprise
TrueCommand

If you want to start a constructive discussion don't force people to guess what you might actually mean.

 

[Robert Thomspon]

So stop the app, mount the PVC, and back it up (tar -cvjSf /mnt/somewhere/app.tar.bz *). Once the app is reinstalled, reverse the procedure. Kind of tedious, but it's worked for me so far.

yes ,YOU knew what to do. probably becasue youre familiar with how TrueNAS Scale works AND youre familiar with how kubernetes works. and you understand the interplay between the two. This was supposed to be a level of expectations for people using Scale. Unfortunately, TrueCharts came along, did all the work for everyone, hid all the instructions, released walkthrough videos of what to click on, and said "dont worry, you dont have to know how it works, were doing that for you" and then broke everything without warning everyone.

So, again, im glad you knew what you were doing. what about the thousands who dont have your knowledge?

 

[danb35]

Sorry i called one thing the wrong thing. Typing out a monitor splash worth of text, but you focus on me fucking up the names of things. cool.

If you want to be taken seriously, it helps to actually know the name of the product you're talking about. You don't appear to--there's no such thing as "TrueScale," no matter how many times you use that made-up word. So when you ask that "people are aware of the actual risks of involving yourself in the TrueScale ecosystem," it's word salad--a meaningless assortment of words tossed together.

 

[Robert Thomspon]

Wow that's a rough upgrade path. I'd have expected it to at least have an automated warning and backup system. Are the devs from the stone age? This is 'mainframe' all over again.

the devs are using the apple playbook

 

[Robert Thomspon]

I 1000% guarantee you, people understand what i mean when i say TrueScale. shit, i bet i could go as far as making up another word, TrueCore, and people would very easily translate that to mean TrueNAS Core, seeing as how were on a TrueNAS forum.

But yeah, all of what i said shouldnt be taken seriously because i call one thing the wrong thing.

Dont make me the villain in this, its not a good look for you. This isnt about a word i did or didnt use correctly or incorrectly. this is about the dumbster fire that is TrueScale is.

 

[danb35]

yes ,YOU knew what to do. probably becasue youre familiar with how truescale works AND youre familiar with how kubernetes works. and you understand the interplay between the two.

I have no idea how "truescale" works, because there is no such thing. I have zero familiarity with kubernetes. I've read enough of TrueCharts' documentation to know that app data is stored in a PVC, and that I can use one script or another to mount those. A tiny bit of Googling (I can never remember the tar syntax off the top of my head) tells me how to make a tarball of the contents.

This was supposed to be a level of expectations for people using Scale.

Bullpuckies. Apps were/are the new plugins, with the (hopeful) difference that they actually work. "Click and run" was the intent (it's been the intent, sadly unfulfilled, for plugins since the days of 8.x); there was never any stated expectation that users would know how kubernetes works as a prerequisite to using the apps in SCALE. What TrueCharts did was make hundreds of them (compared to the 15 available from iX), and make them better. It's probably too early to say which are the more robust.

So, again, im glad you knew what you were doing. what about the thousands who dont have your knowledge?

You seem to have overlooked the parts of my posts in this very thread where I've agreed that the TC folks haven't done a very clear job of communicating what's going on and how to deal with it.

 

[Robert Thomspon]

You seem to have overlooked the parts of my posts in this very thread where I've agreed that the TC folks haven't done a very clear job of communicating what's going on and how to deal with it.

Is it becasue youre more focused on my use of TrueScale vs TrueNAS Scale than on the original reasoning behind the post?

i misspelled the word 'because' earlier. you need me to fix that or do you think you can work around it knowing what i most likely meant?

 

[danb35]

I 1000% guarantee you, people understand what i mean when i say TrueScale.

Yeah, I can guess that you probably mean TrueNAS SCALE. But then that has you identifying problems with a third-party app provider as a "risk of using the TrueNAS SCALE ecosystem," which is just nonsensical. Or you can say what you mean, so we don't have to guess what you mean

Seriously, you sound hysterical. Take a nap, have a cookie. When you've calmed down, maybe you can be a bit clearer about your issues with TrueCharts, because right now you're all over the place. Now the issue is that they're too easy to use and work too well? That sounds like a weird criticism.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

What exactly would you like me to link to? all of their information and back and forth about these things are on discord. there is no centralized system they use to track and appropriately record issues. You are forced into the discord ecosystem to event seek support. You want a link? discord.com i guess.

I dont understand your first comment. no one is talking about SMART or the hardware, most of that higher level stuff is iX based, not Charts based.

Loss of data has occured without any attempts to warn the public... lets see: when host path validation was implemented and then truecharts didnt warn people that changing your storage paths inside your apps will destroy data. or this latest fuckup where updating will put you in a positition where you are locked out of your data and cant downgrade? During the switch over to Bluefin, they ceases all support for Angelfish basically overnight without any warning...

Im guessing you just dont pay attention to it?

As for what theyve built, i dont argue, its awesome. its helpful, its user friendly. Their problem is their insability to communicate effectively with the public, a locked ecosystem, lack of understanding by the devs how the systems they fucking with ACTUALLY work. Ornias is the only one over there who actually knows how this shit works, and hes a trash human who is best served slinging out code from his mommys basement and far from interacting with other human beings. but that just isnt how it is. And yes, i agree, in discord, they are relatively helpful and knowledgable (or at least patient) in discord. But their support system consists of roughly 3 people who are familiar with 1 side of the systems operations or the other (and almost always only the kubernetes side)

The Discord-Help explanation explains why I couldn't find what you were referencing. As you state, searching for information on Discord is..."non-traditional." I understand and respect Discord for what it is, and maybe it is the best platform for a rapidly changing project like TrueCharts.

If I remember, your original post referenced "Scrutiny" and I was trying to understand what you were getting at. Many posts later I was able to see that is simply one example in a larger ecosystem that collapsed upon itself. Whereas iXsystems is committed to stability and security with TrueNAS, TrueCharts is playing wild and loose which is going to be (was) a huge surprise to users when "everything is gone!" I now understand your frustration.

Perhaps TrueCharts is, as you allude, slung out of mom's basement. Is she hot??? In 80's movies she was always hot.

A lot of technology came out of basements and garages and cramped apartments, thankfully. The first Personal Computer comes to mind... Remember the TRASH-80, Commodore VIC-20, Bluetooth...wait, we're still using that. Anyway, when TrueCharts matures it'll probably only destabilize TrueNAS to acceptable levels.

---
Bluetooth: Named for the Dread Pirate Roberts, the Dread King Bluetooth of Scandinavia, whose real name was Harald Gormsson. We can thank Intel Engineer Jim Kardach for that crazy idea, though it's probably better than the pansexual jokes that would have stemmed from calling it Personal Area Network (PAN).

Another TRASH-80 discussion.

 

[MisterE2002]

I agree. Please Robert take a little break.

We (mostly) agree with you. But we also have to be realistic. The product is free and a user should verify what he is doing (aka: were is my data actually stored). Deleting a PVC is a choice made by iX.

Attack the product what you want, but you now attacking Ornias on a personal basis. Maybe he can improve communication, but he is actually contribute to the community.

@moderators: maybe close this thread?

 

[Samuel Tai]

Done.