LongTimeSafety with a parallel Ubuntu Server

[Oekel]

Hi,
obviously I am very new to this NAS, but I decided to understand the Basics first and than creating my Solution for a 40TB encrypted HomeSystem.

A have listened to some nice Videos to the ZFS topic and I am sure that this will be my choice.
But I have not finished reading the whole FreeNAS handbook (sorry for this, hope you will helf me anyhow).

( 1/2)First of all I have to understand a generall thing. Where does the Encryption start, if I decide to use a zpool? Do I have to encrypt a device and add it to the overlying pool? Or do I put an encryption on one of the FS I create on top of the pool? Which encryters are available? (not the Bits, just the develover packages used for FreeNAS)

(2/2) Second thing is about the compatibility of FreeNAS (BSD) to other Linux Systems. Is there a possible configuration of the pool (with or without encrytion) allowing me to boot a separate OS (Like Ubuntu 14 Desktop with ZFS-on-Linux) and accessing the (encrypted) "Raid" Data with some read/write actions?

Other way round: Can I configure a Linux System with ZFS and boot FreeNAS afterwards to use the WebInterface and all great Shares of the System over the existing Datas?

If not, why should I use FreeNAS instead of a simple Linux ( without the great GUI).

Thanks a lot
Oekel

 

[danb35]

If you use FreeNAS 9.3, you will use a zpool; there is no decision to be made about that. If you use encryption (which is discouraged unless you have a legal or regulatory need for full-disk encryption), the entire pool will be encrypted. The process works something like this:

• The disk is partitioned, 2 GB (by default) for swap, and the remainder for ZFS
• The "remainder for ZFS" is encrypted using GELI
• The encrypted partition is then added to the pool in whatever way you've specified (stripe, RAIDZ, mirror, etc.)

You should not expect to be able to access the encrypted pool with any OS other than FreeBSD.

Although you may be able to create a pool using ZFS on some other OS, add data to that pool, and then import the pool into FreeNAS, this isn't recommended. FreeNAS does some unique things with disk layout that wouldn't likely be done elsewhere, so the recommendation is to create your pool in FreeNAS and use it only there. Why do you want to do this?

Note that encryption has some pitfalls, and if anything fails, it's designed to fail in such a way that the data is gone forever.

 

[Ericloewe]

Swap partitions are also separately encrypted, for safety.

 

[Oekel]

FreeNAS does some unique things with disk layout that wouldn't likely be done elsewhere, so the recommendation is to create your pool in FreeNAS and use it only there. Why do you want to do this?

Course I need a HUGE NAS now and I am not sure if I want any other PlugIns like StreamingServer that maybee do not fit in FreeNAS later.
Can you give me examples of some unique things? And maybee an explanation why FreeNAS did it?

Greatings Oekel