FreeNAS 8.3.1-BETA2 is available

[jpaetzel]

I uploaded the FreeNAS 8.3.1-BETA2 images to sourceforge yesterday morning without much fanfare.

Things went fairly well in the first beta and I'm shooting for 8.3.1-R by the end of the month, so here's another BETA to give things a spin.

At this point things are looking to be in good shape, I'm calling this a BETA because I'm very conservative, and because encryption can go wrong in such grand fashion. I'd rather this image wasn't used for critical or production use. Make sure to have backups!

That being said we have no reports of anyone losing data because of bugs in the encryption code, nor have we had any issues with it in our internal testing. (4 months give or take)

Images can be downloaded here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files/FreeNAS-8.3.1/BETA2/

Release notes are at:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files/FreeNAS-8.3.1/BETA2/README/download

Enhancements
========================

1. Add a feature to initialize disks with random data.

2. Add the iconv option to rsync.

Bugfixes
========================

1. Fix a bug that was preventing multiple destination address for
SMART from working.

2. Create an empty /var/db/pkg to silence warnings from the SNMP
service.

3. Fix a bug that was preventing the default scrubs from running.
ZFS scrubs are very I/O intensive, and this update will fix many instances
where the default monthly scrub wasn't running. It's recommended to check
the scrub schedule and be aware of it's impact on FreeNAS.

4. Disable the ZFS encryption option when extending a volume. The system will
automatically match the encrrption state of the existing pool.

5. Commit changes to ataidle immediately rather than requiring a reboot.

6. Fix a bug that prevented creation of RAIDZ volumes.

7. Fix a bug that prevented stopping the CIFS service.

 

[Sir.Robin]

Sweet :) Nice work!!

 

[Wolfeman0101]

I'm downloading FreeNAS-8.3.1-BETA2-x64.GUI_Upgrade.txz to upgrade from FreeNAS-8.3.0-RELEASE-p1-x64 but I don't see a sha265 file for the .txz file. Should I upgrade with a different file?

 

[warri]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fre...BETA2-x64.GUI_Upgrade.txz.sha256.txt/download

 

[Gnome]

I know this is BETA and therefore you say data loss may be possible.

Keeping that in mind: For the final release (when it happens), would it be safe to say that even if encryption is not used and there is a bug, would it have any kind of influence on users who do not use encryption?

eg. I don't use encryption, is there a risk of losing data that was not present before.

I am not asking for this release specifically, I am asking in general! I realize this is a BETA but from what you say the implementation will not change greatly.

 

[cyberjock]

I think that what was trying to be explained was that encryption is very new for FreeNAS. It may have issues with how it is implemented and something could go wrong that will make your data unrecoverable. If you aren't using encryption then you don't have to deal with the extra layer of complexity and "stuff that can go wrong". Of course, just like anything else, running this beta could still cause data loss for people that aren't using encryption.

 

[Gnome]

I think that what was trying to be explained was that encryption is very new for FreeNAS. It may have issues with how it is implemented and something could go wrong that will make your data unrecoverable. If you aren't using encryption then you don't have to deal with the extra layer of complexity and "stuff that can go wrong". Of course, just like anything else, running this beta could still cause data loss for people that aren't using encryption.

Understood, however take the previous BETA's warning:

This image is a BETA, it is not suitable for production use, it is not suitable to put data on that you care about even if you are NOT using the encryption functions.

I'm trying to understand if that was said just as a blanket be careful or if it was said with specific knowledge of something that might have in influence.

 

[emk2203]

Can we get the plugins updated? Especially Transmission is outdated and bug-ridden.

 

[cyberjock]

Can we get the plugins updated? Especially Transmission is outdated and bug-ridden.

This isn't the right thread to post this. This thread only annouces the release of 8.3.1 Beta2 and has no bearing on plugins.

FreeNAS only maintains the jail, the plugins aren't maintained by FreeNAS or iXsystems(AFAIK).

AFAIK the Transmission plugin is maintained by someone in the community. My advice would be to seek out that person(or thread where they announce it) and ask if they can update it(in forum and not PM).

 

[William Grzybowski]

Actually, transmission, minidlna and firefly are officially maintained.

 

[Dusan]

Encrypted Swap

It seems that even if I do not enable encryption, the swap partitions are still encrypted:

Code:

[root@freenas ~]# swapinfo                                                      
Device          512-blocks     Used    Avail Capacity                           
/dev/da1p1.eli     4194304        0  4194304     0%                             
/dev/da2p1.eli     4194304        0  4194304     0%                             
/dev/da3p1.eli     4194304        0  4194304     0%                             
Total             12582912        0 12582912     0%                             
[root@freenas ~]# geli status                                                   
     Name  Status  Components                                                   
da1p1.eli  ACTIVE  da1p1                                                        
da2p1.eli  ACTIVE  da2p1                                                        
da3p1.eli  ACTIVE  da3p1

Is this intended? Is it possible to switch off swap encryption?

 

[William Grzybowski]

Yes, it is intended, and no, currently not possible to switch off.

 

[joeschmuck]

Is there any processing overhead or extra memory usage attributed to the encryption software running to support the encrypted swap partitions when encryption is not enabled in the GUI? If there is, this could be a factor for people running minimum RAM or slow CPUs.