Important announcement regarding FreeNAS Corral

[John Rushford]

I recommend you make an account on there and comment to the ticket so that iXsystems gets the picture that they are hurting more than one person.

Thanks @jpringle03, I did as you suggested.

 

[nas_scooter]

Sadly they are not going to do that. They actually just closed the bug report I made about it: https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/23362

I agree completely with iXSystems on this issue, as a non-paying users we're not out of anything except the time we put in but there are no guarantees of service and support so that's a risk you take. Efforts are far better spent moving forward with plans to make a more stable and reliable system for all users, and them implementing the features we love from Corral but with the stability of the previous releases. I'm sure that there will be some very determined users out there who will create a method to migrate without the burden falling on iXSystems. I for one am extremely grateful for the work and effort put in by iXSystems to develop the best NAS systems for my needs and think they made the right decision to move forward with something that will work out best for everyone in the end.

 

[Ericloewe]

I must point out that VMs are easy to move over. There are even bug reports open to make it easier.

 

[NeedNAS]

You're right about Docker containers but, I'm more concerned with having to rebuild my VM's. I want to see a migration path that doesn't require me to rebuild them.

I was using iohyve vm's in 9.10 and really liked what I saw with FreeNAS 10 so I migrated and rebuilt all my vm's at that time. I am a bit pissed at the prospect of re-building them for a third time.

I down graded yesterday to the 9.10 nightly's (which turned into 11 nightly's). I had 2 test VMs on Corral. To make them work, all I needed to do was go into VMs on 9.10 nightly and reconfigure and point them to their zvol. Not difficult, but not a direct import either.

 

[joaorikard]

Hello,
I read a couple of pages, but I have not found a correct answer for some questions.

- I have the nightly version installed, will there be any updates?
- I'm not having any issues with the current version, should I downgrade when 9.10 has docker support?
- If I decide NOT to downgrade will there be any kind of support to the current Corral version, i.e., will it be considered 'obsolete'?
- I found that some Docker containers from FreeNAS user are broken, p.e., Sonarr. Will them be updated automatically?
- I also read something about FreeNAS 11, is this going to be released "soon" and will it be upgradable from Corral?


I'm sorry if some have already been answered, but this thread have a lot of pages.

 

[Ericloewe]

Corral is not getting any updates.
No automated Corral -> 9.10/11 migration is planned.
FreeNAS 11 is scheduled for 2017-05-01.

 

[joaorikard]

So I will have to start from scratch, oh well, I think that is the risk from using nightlies.
After a search I found that FreeNAS 11 is 9.10.3 renamed, basically renamed because of the FreeBSD update in the builds.

I'll wait for a full docker support before a fresh install, imo it is a better option, for the time I'll continue with Corral.

Thank you for the quick reply Ericloewe.

 

[Chuck Remes]

Like a few other people mentioned in this thread, I disappeared from the forums about 3 weeks ago. I went off to learn a new language (Crystal; it's really cool). I came back today and just spent the last 90m reading all 21 pages of this thread.

I was never a 9.x user. I came to FN with version 10 back in December. It's worked well for me in my use-case though it definitely had bugs.

My plan going forward will be to wait for a FN11.x release that supports dockers. All of my docker config is stored on my ZFS volumes so the hope will be that I can just point a new docker container to the existing docker config and get back up and running quickly. I didn't use any of the more sophisticated features (peering, replication, iSCSI, etc) so I think my transition will be fairly easy. I don't expect an automated update from FN10 -> FN11.x.

I do hope that FN11.x supports some kind of CLI going forward. While a solid GUI is nice, creating/recreating dockers by script is SO MUCH faster and less error-prone.

Anyway, I'm staying on my last FN10 nightly (from 2+ weeks ago) and will check back periodically to see how FN11 is progressing. FN10 works fine for me now so it doesn't hurt to wait for 6+ months to get a stable, feature-rich FN11.

 

[Kirill_v_b]

Hello,

I try to read this topic very carefully.

Ericloewe said : No automated Corral -> 9.10/11 migration is planned.

My questions is - should we consider FreeNas Coral as a " 100 % dead-end" ? I mean no updates anymore, no automated migration to 9.10/11/XXX in future and only one way for us is to install 9.10 or FN11 from scratch ?

I have FreeNas Coral 10.0.4 which is working flawless. If I need just wait 6-12 months to get a new stable version of FN11 or FN12 or Coral to which I can easily migrate/update in automatic mode - I will wait.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Your pool will always migrate so that is ok. Docker container will not migrate. Your share config could possibly migrate it's not guaranteed yet.

I think this is the current status.

Corral is dead with no more updates. I would down grade if it was me. But I can rebuild everything in a couple min so I don't really care.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Bolopez]

Your pool will always migrate so that is ok. Docker container will not migrate. Your share config could possibly migrate it's not guaranteed yet.

I really don't understand this (I mean the situation, not your answer, of course). Creating a Docker container is just a long code line. It's easy. I have a simple text file with the text to recreate my containers ready to go. Is it really so difficult to keep (to migrate) this in a new release? It will be for me because they are customized for FN10 syntax...

The problem is in 9p FS? Is that really a problem? Does any Container know how the docker host access its files? It shouldn't. Why not create a Docker host and migrate all containers? Config files are easy to find from the configuration, and the host does not really matter...

Somehow I feel like those of us who supported FN10 are being punished. And our fault was being faithful on IX Systems. And believe that the one in charge was leading things in one direction (right or wrong it was not our choice to make) so that if we wanted to use FreeNAS that was the only way to go.

Now it seems everything was wrong and it is our fault so we should change and lose all the (free, as free as FN has always been) work we've done.

I'm sorry, because FN has been my NAS software of choice for many years, but I don't feel confident enough to spend another lot of time testing and debugging and fine tuning the system just to find out that when everything changes again that is (once more) my fault. I'm going to search for other options.

Thanks for the good times I had making all this work and the good piece of software FN has always been. It did its job really well.

Regards.

 

[Ericloewe]

I really don't understand this (I mean the situation, not your answer, of course). Creating a Docker container is just a long code line. It's easy. I have a simple text file with the text to recreate my containers ready to go. Is it really so difficult to keep (to migrate) this in a new release? It will be for me because they are customized for FN10 syntax...

Make up your mind. If it's not trivial for you, it's not trivial for iX.

The problem is in 9p FS?

Nobody ever said that.

Somehow I feel like those of us who supported FN10 are being punished.

No, you jusy had bad luck.

I'm sorry, because FN has been my NAS software of choice for many years

If you've been using FreeNAS for years, just rollback to what you had before. You might not get Docker, but it clearly wasn't working reliably yet and it will be back.

I don't understand this doom and gloom. There was not a single statement that even hinted that you had to migrate to Corral any time soon. For all intents and purposes, it was a completely new and independent product. Yes, I'm sure it's frustrating to have wasted time on it, but that's a risk you take with any new product you try and Corral is no different.

 

[danb35]

t seems everything was wrong and it is our fault

I don't think "fault" enters into it. There's always a risk (with any software, free or otherwise) that the developer will abandon your software, in one way or another. Whose "fault" that is doesn't really matter much; there may be no fault at all. But it is unusual for it to be this drastic and this sudden, and I think it calls iXSystems' management into question--and I'm saying this as someone who never migrated to FN10, just had it on a test box. I think they've given good reasons for making the decision, but I haven't heard a good reason for having let it get to this point in the first place

 

[Howard Swope]

The whole reason I moved to FreeNAS10 was to get it working with FreeIPA which finally got fully supported in later versions FreeNAS10. I was incredibly happy and based my entire network setup around this. I am not sure what I am going to do now. Will this support be moved into 9.x?

 

[Bolopez]

Nobody ever said that.

Ok, Bhyve is going to be there and we could use some other Docker management software. Where's the problem then?

If you've been using FreeNAS for years, just rollback to what you had before. You might not get Docker, but it clearly wasn't working reliably yet and it will be back.

Rollback is not an option now. If it was I would have done it. I kept a USB drive with my 9.10 booting configuration for months, and sometimes (FN10 just didn't work on some updates) I used it. Now my jails don't work any more, they are gone and should be created from scrath.

I don't understand this doom and gloom. There was not a single statement that even hinted that you had to migrate to Corral any time soon. For all intents and purposes, it was a completely new and independent product. Yes, I'm sure it's frustrating to have wasted time on it, but that's a risk you take with any new product you try and Corral is no different.

Sorry, I cannot agree. There are a lot of messages spread all around stating the this (FN10) was the future. Even a lot of messages complaining about the lack of a real support for migrating. What you won't find is a single message talking about any chance of FN10 being cancelled.

It's true that no one urged anybody to change to FN10. 9.10 was going to be supported. But the "jails are dead" message is not new either. It's been discussed all along the forums a lot of times. And Docker and containers seem to be the future. Not only here, but anywhere else. I must confess I knew nothing about Docker until they appeared in FN10, but they looked like a great idea and were easy to deploy and maintain (with all their gltches and fallbacks, of course). I have a few FN containers an some others which are not FN-made. And they work fine. And they're easy to run and update.

I can understand it's not an easy move for IX. I've been there some times. I could understand IX going back to 9.10 and improving it. But not that "if you are using some features WE put in our late next release you are on your own" message. Remember, it was not me who went for FN10, but IX. I didn't know Jordan before FN10 and I'm quite sure I won't meet him again. As a matter of fact, he was not really Jordan, he was just "IX Manager".

Really, I'm sad about all this. I didn't complain when jails were to be abandoned and I wouldn't have done it if there was a reason to drop Docker, but I can't see it. All I can see is that that's my problem now. Ok, I'll have to solve it the better I can.

Regards.

Ps. And again, sorry for my English. I'm Spanish and I try to do my best.

 

[Ericloewe]

The whole reason I moved to freenas10 was to get it working with FreeIPA which finally got fully supported in later versions freenas10. I was incredibly happy and based my entire network setup around this. I am not sure what I am going to do now. Will this support be moved into 9.x?

Something of the sort is almost certainly planned. Details may be different and it is going to take at least a while, though.

 

[jclendineng]

have to agree, Corral was touted as "the future", I had just gotten it all set up to. Really hope I can migrate some docker configs when the time comes to switch. Here I was, on google trying to figure out where cloning/backup/replication of clones went when I stumble on a thread stating that my nas os is dead ;D quite a shock. I just can't be doing major upgrades every other week, rebuilding everything. I realize this was something they had to do, and best of luck. Anyone else in this predicament, put centos or some other linux on a server and run docker on it, so as not to rely so much on a nas system. Probably not a good idea to give a dedicated nas so much responsibility if its not reliable. Very much looking forward to fn11 :) Thank you all for your hard work, free software has no warrantee and can crash and burn. Point being, always have a backup plan, never rely on software you arent paying to be supported. FN dev team has pushed out basically 2 separate nas os'es and thats kind of amazing, Corral was awesome, minus the lack of backup features, good luck with FN11. Ok eulogy over ;)

RIP 10

 

[hugovsky]

I know a lot of people like the idea of hardware reuse/virtualize but, as I see it, FreeNAS is mainly a storage appliance and its primary function should be storage. All other features are nice to have but not mandatory. Compare Freenas to some centos or anything else is just not fair. FreeNAS is all about data security. Ok, it can be used to do some more things. And it's really a PITA to have lots of memory and everything else just to share files over the network. But that's what it does best. Instead of having a hammer with pliers and a knife and a philips screwdriver, you only have the hammer. But it's a hammer for life.

 

[gbooker]

I know a lot of people like the idea of hardware reuse/virtualize but, as I see it, FreeNAS is mainly a storage appliance and its primary function should be storage. All other features are nice to have but not mandatory.

It sounds like you are trying to say that FreeNAS is good at being a storage appliance and anything else is secondary. So should third-party application developers stop targetting FreeNAS because their work is only a secondary function? I can attest that supporting FreeNAS is a tremendous burden on these application developers so in your viewpoint should they cease their pain and dump the platform?

Speaking as a FreeNAS user, Linux can serve my purposes as a storage NAS quite well and in some areas much better than FN can. Then there's the third party applications without which FreeNAS would have never touched any computer in my possession. These may be secondary to enterprise users, but most others will see them as a primary feature of FN.

 

[danb35]

So should third-party application developers stop targetting FreeNAS because their work is only a secondary function?

What third-party application developers are targeting FreeNAS?