Enterprise class services (DNS, DHCP server, LDAP etc)

[Normand Leclerc]

There are quite a few services for HTPC appliances. I would really like to see some server class services like DNS, DHCP and LDAP (all in the two flavors of master and slave) to be in the base system.

Now I know that the popular saying is that FreeNAS is not intended as an enterprise class server but for a small company, sometimes it make sense to use something like this to serve few employees.

 

[DrKK]

There are quite a few services for HTPC appliances. I would really like to see some server class services like DNS, DHCP and LDAP (all in the two flavors of master and slave) to be in the base system.

Now I know that the popular saying is that FreeNAS is not intended as an enterprise class server but for a small company, sometimes it make sense to use something like this to serve few employees.

Sir, perhaps I don't understand the question.

LDAP is part of FreeNAS.

You can run as much DNS and DHCP in jails as you would like (I do). In fact, my FreeNAS box provides all of the DNS to the entire house through one of its jails.

Am I misunderstanding something you're saying?

 

[DrKK]

Sir, perhaps I don't understand the question.

LDAP is part of FreeNAS.

You can run as much DNS and DHCP in jails as you would like (I do). In fact, my FreeNAS box provides all of the DNS to the entire house through one of its jails.

Am I misunderstanding something you're saying?

I think I get it now, you're saying, you don't want to have to run jails for this, and you should like them to be part of FreeNAS itself. I don't think they'll go for that.

 

[Normand Leclerc]

LDAP is part of it as client; for server you have to go full domain controller which I don't need. But yes, you understood, jails are starting late in the boot process hanging other services that depend on services in the jail.

Whether this feature request is accepted or not, I will at least have made my request. There is a need for small enterprise servers.

 

[depasseg]

FYI - This forum is only to discuss feature requests. If you want to actually make a feature request, you should file a BugReport (see Green link at the top of the forum).

 

[Normand Leclerc]

Oh.... touché..... Sorry; now I know.

 

[danb35]

IMO, you wouldn't be looking for a single appliance to serve DNS, DHCP, LDAP, and NAS in an enterprise environment, and to add those services would be pretty far out of scope for what FreeNAS is intended to be. Where you might want them is in a small-medium business environment. There are a number of Linux distros that do this (though AFAIK without ZFS)--I use SME Server 9.0 (www.contribs.org) at home, which does provide all those services as well as public-facing web and mail.

I guess nobody's vote really matters other than ixSystems', but I'd vote no on this as an out-of-the-box change.

 

[Normand Leclerc]

I hear you.

Our small business is build around three servers at the moment; each having its own purpose. I wouldn't want to have too many servers for our small network.

Right now, the gateway serves as primary DNS and DHCP; a QNAP appliance serves as backup. I'd use the FreeNAS as primary and QNAP as backup to take these services out of the gateway.

I do understand that FreeNAS is intended as a network attached storage; hence why secondary services are in a jail. I'm not saying to add these in the services tag (altough, my usage of services might have been misleading) but in the plugins.

 

[Mlovelace]

IMO, you wouldn't be looking for a single appliance to serve DNS, DHCP, LDAP, and NAS in an enterprise environment, and to add those services would be pretty far out of scope for what FreeNAS is intended to be. Where you might want them is in a small-medium business environment. There are a number of Linux distros that do this (though AFAIK without ZFS)--I use SME Server 9.0 (www.contribs.org) at home, which does provide all those services as well as public-facing web and mail.

I guess nobody's vote really matters other than ixSystems', but I'd vote no on this as an out-of-the-box change.

There are several distros that support ZFS on Linux (http://zfsonlinux.org/) and also provide all those services.

 

[L]

If you write a feature request for this, let us know and we will add. Like some others have said, it would be really nice to use the freenas for those enterprise features. It is all there, but just not available via the gui.

 

[jgreco]

The better way to handle this might be to consider an alternate (i.e. earlier-in-the-rc-process) point for starting jails which the system depends upon. Jails are probably a better technology for this, because there are so many different specific things people might want to implement. The obvious examples we have are things like "I want an LDAP server, but I need $particular-functionality-X" or "I want a DNS server, but I also want it to be authoritative for an internal zone".

The base system is always going to lack in flexibility because of its inherent nature as an appliance. It is easy to run many of these services as jails, but if the system is dependent on them to boot, then that is bad.

 

[Normand Leclerc]

The feature request has #9735.

The power to add dependencies to each services would be an approach but would require perfect knowledge of the bootup sequence. But if the system is aware of the secondary services, it can create the proper dependencies.

I didn't say it would be easy but it is not impossible either.

 

[jgreco]

The power to add dependencies to each services would be an approach but would require perfect knowledge of the bootup sequence. But if the system is aware of the secondary services, it can create the proper dependencies.

That seems like circular reasoning. How will the system create the proper dependencies?

 

[Normand Leclerc]

Have a list of services at boot to create the dependencies.

 

[jgreco]

That says nothing. You need to have some idea of what the dependencies are and how to resolve them. For example, it is handy to have DNS up and running prior to starting NTP, because it may be necessary to resolve the server names. On the flip side, you may need NTP started prior to other time-sensitive services (ironically this can include DNS) in order to avoid certain other catastrophes, such as zone expiry or TSIG signature validation. Sysadmins have been learning how to cope with complex interdependencies for many years, and it is unlikely that any baked-in strategy will be correct for all use cases.

 

[Normand Leclerc]

The hosts file is handy in this situation.
But I agree that not all configurations can be right for everyone; being able to adjust the priorities for special cases could be done also.

 

[DifferentStrokes]

Would the Netwait feature that is already built in help with this at all? It is found under Network->Global Configuration.

 

[Savage]

Uhh. https://www.pfsense.org

 

[jgreco]

Oh, look, someone else from up here in the frozen wastelands of Wisconsin.

 

[Savage]

Oh, look, someone else from up here in the frozen wastelands of Wisconsin.

You would think I would be used to it. . . these lovely 40 degree evenings out here by lake Michigan, using my computers as space heaters.