IOCAGE Preparation Recommendations

[House Of Cards]

Good day,

I've been looking around a bit, and can't really find good general information for those of us who update cautiously. With IOCAGE migration officially coming in a couple months, I'm looking toward how to prepare my transition. I'm waiting for the official release of the new GUI, and going to manage my Jails using the interface and officially supported migration scripts before upgrading my WARDEN jails to IOCAGE.

I try to maintain order within my ZFS Pool, and currently have one big pool encompassing all of my storage. I did a test install of a Jail using the beta GUI (11.1-RELEASE), and noticed IOCAGE just makes a mockery of your dataset structure and does what it wants. It creates its "iocage" home right in with your other datasets, and has all sorts of other sub-datasets within it. It's fine that it needs that, but a couple questions/observations come to mind... I'm sure others will be pondering this basic stuff too...

1. Is the default created "iocage" a dataset or ZVOL? Documentation is a little vague in that it says it activates within the current ZPOOL...

2. With WARDEN, you just told it what dataset to use, and it put its stuff in there. I already have a dataset for Jails with things in it. Will we be able to specify the same dataset from the official 11.2 GUI, or is it making its own ZVOL (see question 1)...

3. My current structure is like..
/POOL
/POOL/ZVOL
/POOL/ZVOL/DATASET1
/POOL/ZVOL/DATASET2, etc...
Can I create a ZVOL on the same level as my datasets for the default IOCAGE? Like...
/POOL/ZVOL/IOCAGE_ZVOL/IOCAGE_DATASETS
If I do it that way, will there be any issues sharing my other datasets within IOCAGE Jails, like Plex? From one ZVOL to another?

4. Is there any information about the migration script and how it will function available in advance? I'd like to see what the choices or options will be during the migration...

Perhaps if we can get a clear and concise thread on good practices in advance of the official migration tool, it will prevent a lot of headaches/questions/mistakes for the "non-pros" who do this at home...

Thanks!

 

[kdragon75]

If you want to be cautious,wait until 11.2 U1 is out. By then there should be migration fully "supported" and "tested".

Stick with warden until then and hope the migration tool is not jacked. Once the new version is out still do a full recursive snap and backup your config/install media. Keep your snap and backups for at least 3 months.

 

[House Of Cards]

If you want to be cautious,wait until 11.2 U1 is out. By then there should be migration fully "supported" and "tested".

Stick with warden until then and hope the migration tool is not jacked. Once the new version is out still do a full recursive snap and backup your config/install media. Keep your snap and backups for at least 3 months.

For transitioning existing Jails, I will likely wait a couple updates out... Right now I'm looking to set up a new IOCAGE jail for Home Assistant. The Home Assistant setup is jacked up in WARDEN, so I am putting off the new jail for that until 11.2. I just want to get the framework in place...

 

[kdragon75]

Considering iocage latest release seems to be 0.9.9.2 and FreeNAS is FreeNAS, I would wait. It could all change from now to then.

1. Is the default created "iocage" a dataset or ZVOL? Documentation is a little vague in that it says it activates within the current ZPOOL...

Unless their formatting the zvol with a file system and mounting that I would have to assume its a dataset.

2. With WARDEN, you just told it what dataset to use, and it put its stuff in there. I already have a dataset for Jails with things in it. Will we be able to specify the same dataset from the official 11.2 GUI, or is it making its own ZVOL (see question 1)...

It's FreeNAS. The could completely change their minds at any time. Until they call it supported, don't count on it not changing. Even then it might.

I could be way off but this new UI could just be another coral.

 

[House Of Cards]

Considering iocage latest release seems to be 0.9.9.2 and FreeNAS is FreeNAS, I would wait. It could all change from now to then.
Unless their formatting the zvol with a file system and mounting that I would have to assume its a dataset.

It's FreeNAS. The could completely change their minds at any time. Until they call it supported, don't count on it not changing. Even then it might.

I could be way off but this new UI could just be another coral.

Scary, but I installed my FreeNAS at the exact same time they announced Corral was abandoned. I actually purchased all the equipment with the intent on installing Corral, and dodged the bullet by like a day. When I went to download it, the link had been removed the day before.

Having said that, and learning a lot from reading since that Corral misstep, FreeNAS has been rock solid for me. No complaints. I am by no means a *NIX expert, but sticking with the GUI everything has worked as expected. The forums have been very welcoming, and extremely helpful. I'm cautious because of what I don't know. I think many issues I read come down to avoidable things, which is why I'm looking to know before I dive into the transition willy-nilly.

 

[kdragon75]

Scary, but I installed my FreeNAS at the exact same time they announced Corral was abandoned. I actually purchased all the equipment with the intent on installing Corral, and dodged the bullet by like a day. When I went to download it, the link had been removed the day before.

Having said that, and learning a lot from reading since that Corral misstep, FreeNAS has been rock solid for me. No complaints. I am by no means a *NIX expert, but sticking with the GUI everything has worked as expected. The forums have been very welcoming, and extremely helpful. I'm cautious because of what I don't know. I think many issues I read come down to avoidable things, which is why I'm looking to know before I dive into the transition willy-nilly.

I'm glad you have had a good experience here. The forums have gotten much more welcoming. Yeah don't get me wrong, I think once they nail down how everything will work going forward it will be a fantastic and stable (FreeBSD FTW) system. The project just seems to be in flux since corral. Again don't get me wrong, I'm glad they ditched correl and stuck with the established code base but they have a bunch of things that are slowly coming together. Personally, I won't use bhyve, the new GUI, or iocage anytime soon. Its all new and FreeNAS is the beta for the paid TrueNAS product. Nothing like "supported" "production ready" beta... Hmm sounds like another company/product Micro something 10...