What is the future of TrueNAS CORE?

[victort]

Given the fact that TrueNAS SCALE has been widely adopted by many people, it is starting to look like TrueNAS CORE is on it's way out. I (and others I'm sure) am looking for a simple answer to a simple question? "Thread Title"

There have been indirect answers and replies to similar questions in the forums here and elsewhere, but I think we need an official response from IX Systems.

FreeBSD is awesome. It is advancing. It is at 15 already, while we as CORE users are stuck on 13. I understand the need to have a stable OS. But, with the 13.1-RELEASE being EOL already, it is only a matter of time before 13.2 follows suit. What do we do then?

Is TrueNAS CORE going to be abandoned on 13, or will we see a 14 and even 15 release. Personally I have already started experimenting with FreeBSD 14, OmniOS, etc, but I love the TrueNAS GUI for managing and maintaining my servers.

All I ask is a simple answer to whether we are staying on 13, or moving on to 14 and even 15 in the future?
By having this question answered, users will be able to make preparation to leave TrueNAS for good (FreeBSD lovers) or migrate all there servers to SCALE.

Again, I absolutely love TrueNAS CORE, but cannot stay if it is not going to get updated once 13.2-RELEASE goes EOL.

 

[winnielinnie]

Whether or not iXsystems will admit it, TrueNAS Core is a dead end, in my opinion. It will stagnate until a slow, uneventful abandonment.

Look at how bug reports (submitted by Core users) are treated.

This bug ticket for Core gets fixed for SCALE, but not Core. Then they leave you with this message:

Thank you for reporting this issue!
This bug has been resolved in TrueNAS SCALE and is not planned to be back-ported to CORE. If this is a critical workflow issue for you, we would strongly advise promptly upgrading to TrueNAS SCALE.

This is a clear indication of Core's future. Further evidence is in the Reddit thread about FreeBSD 14 on TrueNAS Core.

They really, really, really want people to just "upgrade" to SCALE and be done with it.

 

[danb35]

Whether or not iXsystems will admit it

...and here, really, is the problem. iX' public statements on this question have been wildly inconsistent (particularly between what they say here and what they say elsewhere). I've gotten my knuckles rapped more than once for suggesting that iX is leaving CORE to die on the vine. But when @Kris Moore says:

Right now the plan for CORE is to release a 13.1 update in Q1 of 2024. This will be a maintenance-only type update which includes an update to the FreeBSD base, OpenZFS and Samba. No new features expected. We have no plans for a FreeBSD 14-based TrueNAS at this time, and the 13.1 release will be a longer-lived maintenance train for those who want to continue running on the BSD product before migrating to SCALE later at some later date.

On the SCALE side, it is where the future of TrueNAS is going, all new features and development activities take place there now.

and:

I am giving the soft warning that the data is showing us that CORE will become non-viable at some point in the future.

...I think "leaving CORE to die on the vine" is a perfectly accurate characterization. It's an express statement confirming what they strenuously denied* when they announced SCALE: TrueNAS on FreeBSD is dead (or dying--and if you've publicly stated, as you have, that the next minor release, due within the next two months, will be the last, that's a clear statement that it's terminal), they have no interest in doing anything further with it (and I'm more than a little skeptical, based on recent history, that it will even see much in the way of bug fixes), and the way ahead as they see it is TrueNAS on Linux.

* e.g., here:

It’s important to note that the SCALE project doesn’t change the plans for the continued support and development of TrueNAS CORE and TrueNAS Enterprise on FreeBSD. The full suite of software will be very complementary to each other.

and here:

This isn't so much about reducing support for anything, rather we've just added new options for our users to have choices as to what best fits into their environment.

@Kris Moore, @morganL, you're burning your users' trust. Very quickly.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

They will release a new update early this year so at least we get an up to date FreeBSD 13 foundation. MorganL also said something about "extended maintenance mode" and no plans to ever go to FreeBSD 14.

That means I can tell you when exactly TN CORE will be dead.

FreeBSD 13 is planned EOL in January 2026. By April 2026 the quarterly ports tree will roll over and there will be no packages for FreeBSD 13 at all.

That's when.

2 years to fork the project, undo the iX changes to FreeBSD src and ports and try to get a clean build of middleware and UI on a stock FreeBSD regardless of the version. Doable I reckon.

 

[winnielinnie]

I don't want to dogpile, but reading iXsystems' statements from as recently as two years ago on the website, the forums, and Reddit show they either "miscommunicated" or obfuscated their future goals as to not frighten the Core userbase. (I'm being nice, by the way.)

Even some Core users at the time made bold statements in defense of iX, such as "Core is not going anywhere!"

It brings up the cliché that these statements and comments "aged like milk".

Yes, I'm biased. I like Core. A lot. I think FreeBSD is a fantastic, stable, memory efficient operating system to base a NAS. I think jails solve a problem with a very "lean" solution.

The issue is not only will TrueNAS Core essentially be running on EOL software, but there are GUI improvements and bugfixes that are also being neglected. (The reason SCALE has a cleaner, sleeker, and "more complete" GUI has nothing to do with the underlying OS. The developers just don't want to bother with porting the GUI improvements to Core. There's nothing innate to FreeBSD that prevents Core from getting similar GUI and middleware bugfixes and improvements.)

 

[danb35]

they either "miscommunicated" or obfuscated their future goals as to not frighten the Core userbase.

...or changed their mind. And while I'm not a big fan of this as a possibility, it strikes me as plausible*, and also as the least-bad explanation for the difference between what they said then and what they're saying now.

The developers just don't want to bother with porting the GUI improvements to Core.

Of course not. Why polish the brass on the Titanic?

* Well, mostly plausible. It doesn't really explain why, two+ years ago, they were closing tickets against CORE with "fixed in SCALE."

 

[victort]

I do understand everyone’s concerns. But right now I‘m simply looking for a simple answer…

 

[Jailer]

I called this as soon as they announced the Scale project. There would be no other reason for adopting Linux unless they planned to end their association with FreeBSD. None. It's a shame too, I love FreeBSD and have really enjoyed my TruNAS Core server for a number of years now.

I've been playing around with alternative solutions that don't involve docker for the services I currently have running in jails. Proxmox plus LXC sows some promise but I have a feeling I'm going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Docker universe at some point.

 

[Jailer]

I do understand everyone’s concerns. But right now I‘m simply looking for a simple answer…

I think @Patrick M. Hausen summed it up pretty succinctly. If you're expecting a straight answer from iX don't hold your breath. That's not how the corporate world operates.

 

[victort]

A

I called this as soon as they announced the Scale project. There would be no other reason for adopting Linux unless they planned to end their association with FreeBSD. None. It's a shame too, I love FreeBSD and have really enjoyed my TruNAS Core server for a number of years now.

I've been playing around with alternative solutions that don't involve docker for the services I currently have running in jails.

As have I. But again, the GUI etc makes things incredibly handy

Proxmox plus LXC sows some promise but I have a feeling I'm going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Docker universe at some point.

Quite possibly, but again, FreeBSD is just stability at it’s finest

@Patrick M. Hausen As I am not a developer, I will be of little help in forking and developing it… although I would love to see this happen sooner rather than later.

 

[victort]

I think @Patrick M. Hausen summed it up pretty succinctly. If you're expecting a straight answer from iX don't hold your breath. That's not how the corporate world operates.

And I do agree. It’s quite simply frustrating when official statements are lacking. Hope is there, but then again, it’s not.

 

[Etorix]

2 years to fork the project, undo the iX changes to FreeBSD src and ports and try to get a clean build of middleware and UI on a stock FreeBSD regardless of the version. Doable I reckon.

Would XigmaNAS represent a viable alternative or a valuable starting point?

 

[Davvo]

I do understand everyone’s concerns. But right now I‘m simply looking for a simple answer…

As things appear now, there is no future in iX for TrueNAS CORE. Honestly, I'm disappointed.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Would XigmaNAS represent a viable alternative or a valuable starting point?

Why? TrueNAS CORE is on github - it's open source. BSD licensed. Everything and the kitchen sink. We just need to find a team that doesn't start promising then loses steam within weeks. And we need to agree among developers about the direction and the first steps.

My personal idea:

• Fork - just do it.
• Agree on a name - no idea if FreeNAS is trademarked by iX and if yes, if they are willing to let it go. OpenNAS? Whatever.
• Understand the build process, familiarise myself so I can reliably build the status quo into a release.
• Now work starts: identify all local modifications they made to the FreeBSD source tree, judge if they are necessary, if possible undo them and find a different solution.
• The goal is to get a clean reliable build on a stock FreeBSD release - just put the "XY-NAS" on top.
• Same for the ports tree. One example I am aware of: they modified the collectd port. It delivers many more metrics compared to the stock FreeBSD one. What I do not understand: WHY THEY NEVER UPSTREAMED THAT?
• Once we can build "XY-NAS" on a stock FreeBSD and stock FreeBSD packages, switch from 13.2 to 14 or even 15, fix breakage until you get a clean build again.
• Then - and only then - think about new features, UI improvements etc.

My personal mantra when building on top of open source projects: never - at all costs - keep local modifications. Upstream everything. EVERYTHING. When my developer colleagues ask for a piece of software like - lately - phpfpmtop that does not exist on FreeBSD I create a port and submit it for inclusion in the ports tree. Picture Steve Ballmer's "dance monkey" but instead of "developers, developers, ..." go "upstream, upstream, upstream ..."

That's me. That's how I think open source should be done.

Kind regards,
Patrick

 

[Davvo]

@Patrick M. Hausen I believe I write for quite a substantial amount of users here in saying that we would totally support such a project but don't have the necessary skills to directly shape it by contributing with the code.

As a side note I am interested in the fate of the software engineers that worked on CORE: asking programmers here, is the switch to SCALE (FreeBSD to Linux) possible?

 

[Etorix]

@Patrick M. Hausen I agree… until the point you take Ballmer's monkey dance as a model.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

I am attending regular ZFS and bhyve users calls organised by Michael Dexter and I can assure you that there is concern among more "hard core" developers than me to turn the platform into a true open source project again. Not entirely convinced we will gain traction, but I will definitely try to contribute what I can.

If you wonder why I frequently bring up that name, even though Michael does not participate here - watch this for his ideas about what makes an "appliance" and a strong argument that FreeBSD is the appliance OS.

The FreeBSD Appliance - Michael Dexter - EuroBSDcon 2023

Michael Dexter: The FreeBSD Appliance The FreeBSD Operating System has traditionally been viewed as both a complete server and desktop solution, and a colle...

www.youtube.com

 

[victort]

Who is the "Patrick" he mentions around 11:30?

I just noticed FreeBSD only released a few months ago, so it isn't that old. Hopefully we can come to some working solution. If IX abandons CORE, I'm probably going to change the servers I manage to something that can run jails.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Not me, probably Patrick Mooney of Oxide Computer.

Yes, of course, that's a brand new presentation he gave at EuroBSDCon 2023 in Coimbra, Portugal. I hosted a half-day workshop on Vagrant. So much for "FreeBSD is dying". Yeah, since 1994 ...

 

[Davvo]

I just noticed FreeBSD only released a few months ago, so it isn't that old. Hopefully we can come to some working solution. If IX abandons CORE, I'm probably going to change the servers I manage to something that can run jails.

I'm not against using something else entirely, but that something else needs to give me the same safety of mind jails and FreeBSD give me... which as of now I can't seem to find, so I will likely stick to jails as well if things don't substantially improve.