Move Jails to a new machine

[LeoSum]

Hi there, I am currently running freenas 9.3 on a hp n54l microserver system.
I am planning to change the hardware (to a Dell T20) and would like to do so with as little effort as possible.

How can I migrate the setup including jails to the new system?
Is it as easy as:
- set up freenas 9.10 on a new thumb drive
- import old setup .db
- hook up old disks
- mount pools
- jails appear automatically
- start jails

Or are there additional steps required?
This doesn't seem to be documented anywhere, or is it?

Thanks for any help!

 

[m0nkey_]

If your existing pool is attached and you restore your config, your jails will also become available.

 

[LeoSum]

Thanks for the quick reply!
So importing the 9.3 config in 9.10 won't be an issue?

Or should I perform the update to 9.10 on the old system first?

 

[m0nkey_]

From what I recall, the config from 9.3 is compatible with 9.10. Only change was the base OS was upgraded from FreeBSD 9.3 to 10.3.

 

[LeoSum]

Ah I See. And the base OS upgrade does not affect jails?

 

[m0nkey_]

Have a read of the release notes before you continue: http://download.freenas.org/9.10/latest/ReleaseNotes

 

[LeoSum]

Thanks for the hint!

Jails: FreeBSD Jails now default to a FreeBSD 10.3-RC2 based template. Old jails, or systems on which jails have been installed, will still default to the previous FreeBSD 9.3 based template. Only those machines using jails for the first time (or deleting and recreating their jails dataset) will use the new template.

So after I import the config, all current and future jails should be 9.3. I can live with that!

Just for my understanding:
As you stated earlier, the jails should become available after I imported the config. So the information on what jails are available seems to be buried somewhere in that config.
Would there be a way to import jails to a new system at a later point without the rest of the config?
e.g. when FreeNAS 10 becomes stable and I would like to start fresh but skip setting up one or two jails from skratch?

 

[m0nkey_]

Would there be a way to import jails to a new system at a later point without the rest of the config?

You could try the warden command to export/import Jails.

when FreeNAS 10 becomes stable and I would like to start fresh but skip setting up one or two jails from skratch?

Jails are being replaced by Docker and Bhyve in FreeNAS 10.

 

[LeoSum]

Just wanted to report back after having completed the mission:
All worked fine without any hiccups.

I did a fresh install to a new stick in the new machine and imported the config after the first boot.
I then attached all drives and my volumes showed up on the webinterface. What first startled me however, was that I wasn't able to unlock the encrypted volumes.
I had to first remove them manually (unselect the option to remove any shares so they will be available after the following re-import) via the webinterface and then use the "import volume" function (make sure you have the geli keys available when you try the same thing as me!).
After that I could unlock them and also start all my jails.
The new machine now acts exactly like my old one and the time effort was really reasonable.

Thank you @m0nkey_ for clearing out my doubts in advance!

Regarding FreeNAS 10:
So jails are not going to be available besides the new bhyve and docker options? I had the understanding that jails will still remain available, as they introduce the minimum overhead.

 

[m0nkey_]

Regarding FreeNAS 10:
So jails are not going to be available besides the new bhyve and docker options? I had the understanding that jails will still remain available, as they introduce the minimum overhead.

Best guess, if an upgrade path is available for jails, they will likely be converted to VMs using fs9p as the rootfs.