FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA1

[James]

I'm pleased to announce 8.0.1-BETA1, the first preview of the upcoming 8.0.1-Release for FreeNAS.

Since the release of FreeNAS 8.0 it has seen widespread use and testing. We've been hard at work fixing the issues users have encountered and reported, as well as continuing to add functionality to FreeNAS 8.

Release Notes for FreeNAS 8.0.1-BETA1

This is a Beta release of what will be in 8.0.1-Release, at this
point the system is for the most part feature complete and ready for wider testing.

The changes from 8.0-Release:

Upgraded software stack across the board. New version of django, dojo, istgt and many many other software upgrades.

The new version of istgt fixes issues people were having in a Hyper-V
environment.

Vastly improved remote replication, with much better error notification
as well as the ability to recover from failure situations.

Device names are no longer hard wired in the database. The system will keep track of drives as they shift device names, thus preventing drive reordering from confusing the GUI and allowing a drive that is already used to be shown as available.

Users can now be given an email address, making them more useful for use in cron jobs.

The ability to add cron jobs via the GUI is now present.

rsync jobs can now be created via the GUI. Additionally the system can act as an rsync server.

Shares are now done at the filesystem level instead of the volume level,
allowing more flexibility to CIFS as well as UFS based shares.

The ability to add ZFS zvols has been added, they are now eligible to share as device extents in iSCSI.

The ZFS volume importer handles existing volumes with datasets better than the volume importer in 8.0-R did.

A bug that prevented network interface graphs from being generated was fixed.

It is now possible to set the MTU of lagg and vlan interfaces in the GUI.

System -> System Information now shows the available RAM.

Translations are now hooked up. You can check the status of a translation at http://pootle.freenas.org The GUI will use translations when possible when the language is changed in System -> Settings -> Advanced

The GUI can show django tracebacks without the use of debugging tools such as firebug by selecting Show Tracebacks in case of fatal errors in
System -> Settings -> Advanced

The CLI menu on the console contains options to reset the GUI password as well as reset the system to factory defaults.

Active Directory now works properly with w2k8.

Errata:

It is believed that anonymous access via AFP is non-functional.

An issue with the iSCSI target software prevents initiators from seeing
multiple LUNs per target properly.

Usage of this Beta:

Depending on your use case, this Beta may fix critical bugs that were present in 8.0-Release making it unusable. For instance the drive renumbering issue or the ability to set an MTU on a VLAN may have rendered 8.0-R a non-option. In that case, this Beta is a good alternative. On the other hand, it has not undergone the testing that 8.0-R went through, nor has it seen much exposure to a wide variety of use cases, so in a situation where 8.0-R is working well it's advisable not to upgrade.

Upgrades from all public releases of 8.0-X are supported and should work, whether an 8.0 Beta release, RC or 8.0-Release. Upgrades from arbitrary SVN revisions built from the public repo may not work properly due to database migration issues.

The migration tool for FreeNAS 0.7 is not included in this Beta, although it will be included in 8.0.1 at some point.

Filename:
FreeNAS-8.0.1-BETA1-amd64-Full_Install.xz
SHA256 Hash:
07ffd2ba03011a0d11f1ea5908c1b33f73dabb2ed8e8ee345cb2f01862010906

Filename:
FreeNAS-8.0.1-BETA1-amd64-GUI_Upgrade.xz
SHA256 Hash:
4804550ec8462dd733653fe5a6855c923d9d3c78bae9605471c56fb28ee57b26

Filename:
FreeNAS-8.0.1-BETA1-amd64.iso
SHA256 Hash:
d973d30ff4d6fc2e5a88a787c663955f885a6999a0b36650702182d014896b33

Filename:
FreeNAS-8.0.1-BETA1-i386-Full_Install.xz
SHA256 Hash:
a9c1668a9e8e89f5e0a3ea518b84fc00a66e4aa5497b25bdcb17c090f705e192

Filename:
FreeNAS-8.0.1-BETA1-i386-GUI_Upgrade.xz
SHA256 Hash:
15cf0c2a6f93277b98a1b7e83ba2a48a66c09c7d839c58b49db9ae921d3be464

Filename:
FreeNAS-8.0.1-BETA1-i386.iso
SHA256 Hash:
a7a896772e1b7dacdd1f89c6b12e45cd2b16277d1c30a14815a8e153b0d5aca2

 

[headconnect]

Wow.. with release notes like that, I can't even begin to imagine what 8.1 might bring ;) Seems like a serious healthy step up from 8.0 in terms of functionality, should help bring some of our .7.x friends into the fold :)

 

[jafin]

Just a question, either in the readme or release notes, it would be worthwhile explaining "how" to upgrade. I had a look and couldn't find it, sorry if I missed it.

 

[HolyK]

Excelent! THX alot :)

 

[Tekkie]

I know that this is probably the wrong place to ask, but where exactly are 4KB drives on the schedule for FreeNAS 8.x? :)

 

[Milhouse]

Just tried to upgrade an HP N36L with LSI 9211-8i controller from 8.0-RELEASE to 8.0.1-BETA using the AMD64 GUI Upgrade.xz and it has completely hosed the system - lots of "Popen()ing: sysctl -b kern.geom.confxml" messages, followed by:

Code:

/dev/ufs/FreeNASs1a: FILE SYSTEM CLEAN; SKIPPING CHECKS
/dev/ufs/FreeNASs1a: clean, 65985 free (217 frags, 8221 blocks, 0.0% fragmentation)
/dev/ufs/FreeNASs4: NO WRITE ACCESS
/dev/ufs/FreeNASs4: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
/dev/ufs/FreeNASs3: FILE SYSTEM CLEAN; SKIPPING CHECKS
/dev/ufs/FreeNASs3: clean, 2829 free (21 frags, 351 blocks, 0.7% fragmentation)
THE FOLLOWING FILE SYSTEM HAD AN UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY:
      ufs: /dev/ufs/FreeNASs4 (/data)
Automatic file system check failed; help!
ERROR: ABORTING BOOT (sending SIGTERM to parent)!

This system with 8 disks (da0-da7) boots of a USB key (da8). CAMCONTROL reports all disks working correctly.

Rebooting a second time fails even more catastrophically, with error 19 being reported while mounting root from /dev/da0s1a (???) and then the display of a various Loader variables and Manual root file system specification.

For reference, I upgrade via the FreeNAS GUI - got the message I had upgraded the firmware, then waited a few minutes and rebooted (the upgrade process really needs to be improved btw - how about a message on what to do next?).

Reverting to 8.0-RELEASE.

 

[Milhouse]

Gave 8.0.1-Beta Full_Install a spin, dd'd the decompressed xz image to USB and booted the N36L, seemed OK, but obviously default config now. Went to the browser, uploaded my most recent 8.0-RELEASE config which it accepted, automatically rebooted (left the browser on the freenas/system/reboot page which is dangerous - though this had been fixed?).

When it booted, there were many messages "no such column" (cifs_srv_homdir, cifs_path, disk_identifier, bdsusr_email) and "no such table" (services_rsyncd, services_rsyncmod) suggesting the database hadn't been upgraded from 8.0 to 8.0.1. No browser GUI - Unhandled Exception.

Rebooted again, same missing columns/tables, same unhandled exception when accessing GUI via browser.

Skipping this 8.0.1-Beta... back to 8.0-RELEASE. Good luck.

 

[Milhouse]

WARNING: Having now gone back to 8.0-RELEASE and uploaded my 8.0-RELEASE config (taken immediately before updating to 8.0.1-BETA) I now get errors in the GUI when accessing my ZFS volumes - click to change permissions on a volume and get "Sorry, an error occurred". Click on "View All Volumes" and it shows "Error getting used space (Error)", "Error getting available space", "Error getting total space " for Used, Available and Size respectively.

All volumes are online however.

No CIFS shares either.

Bugger, faced with the choice of rebuilding the system from scratch using either 8.0-R or 8.0.1-BETA - that will teach me to think I could test an upgrade with only a most-recent config to save me... fat lot of good that was. :(

 

[Milhouse]

Also, no swap is being detected on any of the 8 disks (each have 2GB of swap partition), eg:

Code:

freenas# gpart show da0
=>        34  3907029101  da0  GPT  (1.8T)
          34          94       - free -  (47K)
         128     4194304    1  freebsd-swap  (2.0G)
     4194432  3902834703    2  freebsd-zfs  (1.8T)

freenas# swapinfo
Device          1K-blocks     Used    Avail Capacity
freenas# 

 

[William Grzybowski]

I know that this is probably the wrong place to ask, but where exactly are 4KB drives on the schedule for FreeNAS 8.x? :)

4k drives are already in -BETA

 

[Tekkie]

4k drives are already in -BETA

They are? browsing the source tree and checking the resolved issues I don't see any reference to 4K drives in the BETA, can you perhaps point me in the right direction?

 

[druid01]

following this forum eagarly, recently tried 8.0 and liked what i saw to date, , it was with sadness i had to downgrade back to a 7 version as my cifs shares only worked in windows but failed to be shown in both my media streamers and the services tab erroring out constantly in the gui were a killer for me.

However it has a great future and look forward to following its development for along time.



Keep up the good work :)

 

[William Grzybowski]

They are? browsing the source tree and checking the resolved issues I don't see any reference to 4K drives in the BETA, can you perhaps point me in the right direction?

Simply choose 4k sector size while creating a volume with zfs

 

[esamett]

I did xz update from GUI. No problem after reboot.

 

[Milhouse]

I did xz update from GUI. No problem after reboot.

AMD64 or i386? How long did you wait before rebooting? Can't understand how I had such a catastrophic failure unless the USB key was only partially written. Did you get the missing tables/columns error during boot?

 

[joeschmuck]

AMD64 or i386? How long did you wait before rebooting? Can't understand how I had such a catastrophic failure unless the USB key was only partially written. Did you get the missing tables/columns error during boot?

I have had issues with the flash drive being loaded. Some times it loads quickly (too quickly) and that means it didn't get loaded correctly so a second pass is required. Of course this is only loading from the ISO, I have had bad luck upgrading from the xz images.

 

[Milhouse]

Hopefully the developers are taking note of these problems, as upgrading should be foolproof and should never leave the user with a corrupted system. Even reverting back to RELEASE and applying a valid RELEASE config resulted in a unusable system which should never be allowed to happen. Before anything else - before adding any more functionality - these basic upgrade/recovery issues should be resolved.

 

[joeschmuck]

I'm sure they are paying attention to these issues. I'm not using FreeNAS 8.x for anything other than testing. I know this thing is not ready for prime-time.

 

[Milhouse]

I'm not using FreeNAS 8.x for anything other than testing. I know this thing is not ready for prime-time.

I agree, however fixing basic "stability" issues like this sooner than later will help get it ready sooner - if users don't have the confidence in the upgrade/downgrade and config backup/restore functionality they'll be less likely to help test future versions. I think it's really bad that it was not possible to revert back to 8.0-RELEASE using an 8.0-RELEASE config.

And while I know that upgrading a running system with BETA software isn't advisable, the upgrade mechanism has to be tested eventually and it needs to be rock solid. It clearly isn't in 8.0-RELEASE, hopefully this is being addressed in 8.0.1.

For anyone planning on testing BETA1... do yourself a favour and use dd to create a full image backup of your current boot disk before proceeding with any 8.0.1 upgrade! :)

 

[jafin]

Code:

/dev/ufs/FreeNASs4: NO WRITE ACCESS
/dev/ufs/FreeNASs4: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
/dev/ufs/FreeNASs3: FILE SYSTEM CLEAN; SKIPPING CHECKS
/dev/ufs/FreeNASs3: clean, 2829 free (21 frags, 351 blocks, 0.7% fragmentation)
THE FOLLOWING FILE SYSTEM HAD AN UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY:
      ufs: /dev/ufs/FreeNASs4 (/data)
Automatic file system check failed; help!
ERROR: ABORTING BOOT (sending SIGTERM to parent)!

I received similar errors as milhouse, relating to the /dev/ufs/FreeNASs4 having no write access and having unexpected consistencies. (Running off a 2gb USB stick)
I reverted to a 8.0 build and restored config and it was ok.

Attempted again and got exactly the same error, on a different usb stick, in the end, I just exported the pool, fired up 8.0.1 as a new install and imported the pool....