Suggested Upgrade Path

[NASbox]

Hi All

First off thanks to the awesome development team for putting together such a great piece of S/W and the helpful people who hang out on the forum offering assistance. :)

I'm hoping someone can give me some guidance regarding upgrading. My goal is stability over latest and greatest. Safety of the file system is of top priority-- restoring about 10/11GB of data from a collection of USB backup drives is a too much work to risk for the sake of rushing into an upgrade that isn't stable!

Current Config: FreeNAS-8.3.1-RELEASE-x64 (r13452) - G620 / 16GB RAM / 4x3TB ZPOOL2, 2x4TB ZPOOL - behind 2 stateful NAT firewall routers (no direct internet connectivity). The box serves files to 3 windows boxes, a couple of nix boxes and a nix based media player over CIFS. I also login and periodically run a batch file to pull down an rsync backup over SSH from a shared hosting site. (Outgoing connections only.)

• Should I upgrade to 9.2.1.6 (or .7 etc if I see similar activity in the bug reports) or wait for a stable 9.2.x (which reading between the lines, I would assume is at least 6 months away)?
• How can I upgrade so that I have a simple way to roll back to 8.3.1 if I have problems? (I'm fine with waiting to upgrade ZPOOLS--If I read things correctly that is possible.) Manual doesn't really talk about downgrading.
• Have I interpreted what I have been reading in the forum/bug reports correctly:
  • the 9.2.1.x branch is a good balance of stability, being "up to date" and "will be ready soon".
  • getting 9.2.1.x stable has been a bit of an challenge.
  • The mention of a 9.2.1.6 in the bug means there will be a 9.2.1.6 in a few weeks.
    (Any guess on ETA?)

I want to upgrade often enough that I don't get left behind and loose an easy upgrade path. (Being able to run the current generation of plugins would also be a big plus as well, but I'm not willing to take much risk--I'll wait as long as it takes to get something that is quite stable.)

I am "OK" on the command line with frequent reading of the man pages, but troubleshooting a pooched FreeBSD box is not something I can do on my own, and I can't afford to have the FreeNAS box down for several days (or worse)!

 

[Scareh]

I think your best bet atm is upgrading to 9.2.1 and staying there or a while. If/when all bugs are ironed out in the last version of the 9.2.1.x branch, they'll announce it in the forums. After that version they start working on 9.2.2
Don't forget to take a back up of your config file, don't upgrade the pool, and you should be fine.
I'd just make a 2Nd usb drive with 9.2.1 on it, and boot from it, if you don't like it, just shut down and reboot again from your "old" 8.3.1

 

[NASbox]

Thanks for the speedy reply Scareh

Quick follow up question RE: 'make a 2Nd usb drive with 9.2.1 on it'

Just want to check the procedure for that. Will this work:

1. Back up the config to my desktop
2. Power down FreeNAS and swap the USB for a new one
3. Do a fresh install on a the USB
4. Reboot the system up and restore the config

In fact this seems like the smartest way to upgrade, USB drives are so cheap that the $10 (or less that it costs for a 4GB drive) is real cheap insurance.
(Am I right or am I missing something?)

BTW: I know that there isn't a release date announced for 9.2.2, but does anyone have any idea what general time frame for release is? (3Mo, 6Mo, 9Mo, 1Yr?)

 

[cyberjock]

Not a clue... but rumors have been not until late 2014 in the best case, with early 2015 more likely.

 

[NASbox]

Not a clue... but rumors have been not until late 2014 in the best case, with early 2015 more likely.

Thanks cyberjock... that's the type of answer I was looking for... just a best guestimate...

 

[solarisguy]

There is one question you want to answer yourself. Which zpool will have .system dataset... Once you have answered it, I would recommend more steps:

1. Copy (by hand and by saving smb.conf file) your Samba 3.x configuration from the current FreeNAS. Stop CIFS. Remove CIFS.
2. Detach (Export) volumes using GUI (with the data intact).
3. Back up the config to my desktop.
4. Power down FreeNAS and swap the USB for a new one.
5. Do a fresh install on a the USB.
6. Restore the config (no reboot required before that point, FreeNAS will reboot twice by itself now).
7. Some options could have changed. Go through the GUI, adjust as desired and save again if required.
8. At first, Auto Import the volume designated to store .system dataset.
9. Now Auto Import the second volume.
10. Start and configure Samba 4.x (there are differences with 3.x, so entering options by hand gives us at least piece of mind, if not more control).
11. Save the configuration.

 

[NASbox]

Hi solarisguy

Thanks for the reply.... Follow up to: ''Which zpool will have .system dataset...'' How do I find it?

I've looked at the root of both ZPools and [find / -name '.system']

There is a .freenas folder at the root of one of my ZPOOLS, but the folder is empty!

I assume ./etc/local/smb.conf is the samba configuration file.

Thanks Again....

 

[solarisguy]

Yes, /etc/local/smb.conf is the file.

Your FreeNAS 8.3.1 does not have .system dataset. Current FreeNAS versions have it. Let me quote from the documentation
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Settings
“by default, the .system dataset is automatically created in the first ZFS volume in order to store persistent Samba permissions, collecting core files, and storing system log files”, and let me add that starting with 9.2.1.6 it will also keep information used to display reporting graphs.

Samba 4.x requirements were the main reason for introducing .system

It might not matter to you, where .system resides, but at least you can make your choice beforehand. Although you can move it between the pools, a reboot is required to complete the process.

P.S. Original PDF documentation for 9.2.1 did not include information about .system