The future of FreeNAS 9

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William Grzybowski

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Does this mean FN9 could do docker images eventually?

Well with VM support (which is already in nightlies for testing and will be released in 9.10.3) in theory you could already install RancherOS and install any docker image you want.
Bundled directly in FN9? There are not plans yet.
 

diskdiddler

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Well with VM support (which is already in nightlies for testing and will be released in 9.10.3) in theory you could already install RancherOS and install any docker image you want.
Bundled directly in FN9? There are not plans yet.

Would it be possible to just import a FreeNAS10 linux docker host? Some kind of barebones thing?
I'm just thinking aloud here, how to make the transition from FN9 to FN10 even easier in the long run. (I don't intend to at this point for 3 or 4 months, at least)
 

m0nkey_

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Does this mean FN9 could do docker images eventually?
Just as long as it doesn't run in a VM. If Docker could run natively, then I wouldn't mind it included (I still wouldn't use it however :D). With the introduction of iocage, hopefully it'll make creating plugins easy.
 

Brandon Schneider

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Just as long as it doesn't run in a VM. If Docker could run natively, then I wouldn't mind it included (I still wouldn't use it however :D). With the introduction of iocage, hopefully it'll make creating plugins easy.
They are! Indeed I made it so simple even a monkey could do it (ty, ty).

https://github.com/iXsystems/iocage-ix-plugins Is where they live. We haven't had time to go back and polish it all up as we aren't nearing GUI inclusion quite yet. But they function and are simple to create.
 

diskdiddler

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I'm actually quite excited about 9.10.3 ;)
But this makes the entire development of FreeNAS feel lost and disjointed.

Wasn't 8 kind of just 'let go' at some point?

I understand ongoing bug fixes, security, maybe performance stuff for 9 but this seems like a waste of time, what's the actual point of this?
Also JKH posted in another thread about the developers considering redoing the UI for 10.

What is going on? I feel like I just need to sit on 9.10 safely and quietly and disable updates for a year until someone has some vision.
 

leonroy

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What is going on? I feel like I just need to sit on 9.10 safely and quietly and disable updates for a year until someone has some vision.

This. Obviously iXsystems don't have unlimited resources and bandwidth - I'm a little troubled by the many detours the GUI team are making. Dojo -> React -> Montage -> Angular? There are many great UIs out there built using these frameworks - I really don't see how the choice of JS toolkit could be the limiting factor.
 

darkwarrior

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But this makes the entire development of FreeNAS feel lost and disjointed.

From my point of view it makes completely sense to continue developing 9.10 and port back all the new features. keeps it fresh.
Because, at the end of the day this is what is being used in TrueNAS and with support contracts running sometimes for 3 years it makes quite some sense.

Personally, I interpreted Corral as the new Firmware/Appliance architecture backbone (New UI+CLI -- which actually also explains the loss of a version number ) that will be the base for the future versions.
I actually hope that the UI rewrite will allow @Randy Barnett to enjoy the software as well by being more accessible to visually impaired ZFS enthusiasts... :)

Edit: Typos
 

anodos

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Folks,

Over the past week I’ve been asked by many of you (some on the forums, some through other means) what our intentions at iXsystems are around the existing FreeNAS product. We did have language in our initial Corral press release around this, but I wanted to take a moment to dispel any concerns and clarify what the plan is going forward. We’ve recently updated our FAQ to address this concern.

For those who are running Corral and loving it, rock-on! But for those who are die-hard 9.10 fans we want to re-iterate that FreeNAS isn’t going away. To the contrary, we already have planned updates in the works for 9.10.3 and 9.10.4 which will bring some exciting new changes. Some of the notable ones in development include:

  • Support for Minio S3 Buckets: Host your own S3 compatible instance locally.

  • Enhanced reporting service support: As part of our longer-term strategy of integrating Consul, Nomad, and others we’ve added initial support for consul-alerts for UI notifications. This allows you to get notifications via Slack, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, and a variety of other platforms.

  • VM support with Bhyve: Recently merged into the nightlies in time for 9.10.3 is support for running vms via the UI. This will replace the legacy VirtualBox plugin with a “native” solution, suitable for running Windows, Linux, and more.

  • Replacing legacy Warden backed jails/plugins with iocage: While jails are one of the coolest things of 9.x, we know they can be difficult to create and maintain. Part of this effort is to standardize on the well-supported iocage jail management system, which also includes a much improved method of creating plugins.

  • A revamped UI based upon Angular: The UI of FreeNAS is a tad aged and work has already begun to replace it with a snazzy new Angular-based UI. Another UI you may say? Well, no worries. It is being developed alongside the existing UI, meaning you can choose to log into the new or old UI with just a click. You can demo the early PoC of this UI in the nightlies today.

I’ll try to keep you posted about these enhancements as they land in the nightlies and release. In the meantime, you can follow along on the bug tracker or GitHub repos. Thanks again and we at iX appreciate your continued usage of FreeNAS and the new FreeNAS Corral.

Will FN9.x continue to use mainline Samba with current backend or will it be moving more toward where Corral is (i.e. corral-samba, middleware, etc)? I'd rather not have a 9.10.3 upgrade muck up my AD idmap ranges, group mappings, and overall cause me lots of grief.
 

William Grzybowski

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Will FN9.x continue to use mainline Samba with current passdb backend or will it be moving more toward where Corral is (i.e. corral-samba, middleware, etc)? I'd rather not have a 9.10.3 upgrade muck up my AD idmap ranges, group mappings, and overall cause me lots of grief.

it will continue using the same backend it currently is, with config file generation. Nothing crazy.
 

fracai

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For the plugins we will probably leave them functioning under the old system as a transition point since its going to be a whole new and different framework.
Plugins and jails? That would be perfect for me.

Now for iohyve I can't promise anything, we need to figure out how many people have been using it and if it is worth investigate a migration path, although manually moving to the GUI VMs should be straightforward.

But again, nothing is decided yet, we will ask the users what they think and then decided what the best course of action is.
My VM is very simple (just Crashplan and Dropbox) and I personally wouldn't mind if that's all that was lost.

It's the downtime from losing those jails that would hurt me.
It's one of the big reasons I'm holding off on upgrading to Corral. If 9.10.3 offered a stepping stone where I could gradually migrate from old jails to new jails and then Corral.x gains new jail support I'd have a clear upgrade path. Count me in for as big a vote as I can manage on that one.
 

rungekutta

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Although somewhat confusing at first glance, this move looks similar to RedHat's strategy with its paid-for RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and community driven Fedora. With Fedora being closer to leading edge and experimenting with new technologies (like switching GUI frameworks...), RHEL the more conservative distribution which picks the best bits out of Fedora at a less frequent release schedule.

Or reading too much into it?
 

rungekutta

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PS if true, I'll be staying with FreeNAS for a while... no urge to experiment with latest tech on the NAS, it's an appliance and I just need it to be fast and stable; not even running any jails or VMs or plugins (I've got a separate ESXi box for that).
 

abcslayer

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Well, with the leaving of the CTO and the re-vamping of 9.10. I really think that there are conflicts between what iXSystem aims to and the market demand.
Final destination of Corral (FreeNAS 10) is hyper convergence which is one of the top buzz words now. Market demand is simpler: high performance NAS/SAN with HA, and some simple backup solution + extra things for home/small office usecases.
I remember long time ago when I read about plan for FreeNAS 10 leaving jail to switch to Docker, Docker on FreeBSD 11 is using a special Linux ABI compatibility layer not virtualization. But from the conversation here, Docker on Corral is using virtualization? that will have more overhead than jail?
Currently I have AIO system which FreeNAS Corral run under ESXi to provide the iSCSI target to everything else which is a kind of "hyper convergence". The major reasons for me to move to FreeNAS Corral:
  • Higher performance from FreeBSD 11 update (ZFS + iSCSI target)
  • I started to move in the last month before official release of Corral on my production server, it is what I can contribute back to this project => testing & bug report with real life situation.
  • Check if it can be a final AIO for home/small business and leaving ESXi behind (within about 2 years).
Now with all of the news, I dont know if Corral will survive till end of this year (or next year) and if the moving to FreeNAS Corral is right (it is consuming more DRAM on my VM now and give less space to ZFS ARC than 9.10.2-U2 even I do not start any docker or VM)
 

William Grzybowski

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Well, with the leaving of the CTO and the re-vamping of 9.10. I really think that there are conflicts between what iXSystem aims to and the market demand.
Final destination of Corral (FreeNAS 10) is hyper convergence which is one of the top buzz words now. Market demand is simpler: high performance NAS/SAN with HA, and some simple backup solution + extra things for home/small office usecases.
I remember long time ago when I read about plan for FreeNAS 10 leaving jail to switch to Docker, Docker on FreeBSD 11 is using a special Linux ABI compatibility layer not virtualization. But from the conversation here, Docker on Corral is using virtualization? that will have more overhead than jail?
Currently I have AIO system which FreeNAS Corral run under ESXi to provide the iSCSI target to everything else which is a kind of "hyper convergence". The major reasons for me to move to FreeNAS Corral:
  • Higher performance from FreeBSD 11 update (ZFS + iSCSI target)
  • I started to move in the last month before official release of Corral on my production server, it is what I can contribute back to this project => testing & bug report with real life situation.
  • Check if it can be a final AIO for home/small business and leaving ESXi behind (within about 2 years).
Now with all of the news, I dont know if Corral will survive till end of this year (or next year) and if the moving to FreeNAS Corral is right (it is consuming more DRAM on my VM now and give less space to ZFS ARC than 9.10.2-U2 even I do not start any docker or VM)

Given the planned features for 9.10 series does not seem like you would have any reasons to move to Corral just yet, apart from testing new tech.
9.10.3 will bring FreeBSD 11 and you will have VMs to move away whatever you have on ESXi (if that meet your needs). Also you still get jails.
 
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