Why do you use freenas?

[jamiejunk]

I'm wondering why some of the more experienced people here run freenas as opposed to vanilla FreeBSD?

I know a lot of the stuff is pre packaged and ready to roll which is nice. But personally I'm just needing iscsi/Nfs sharing on top of ZFS. I'm starting to feel a bit cramped by things like freenas not supporting ZFS replication to a second location.

So why do you run freenas as opposed to vanilla BSD?


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[DrKK]

I'm starting to feel a bit cramped by things like freenas not supporting ZFS replication to a second location.

I must be misunderstanding you. You can certainly zfs send to a second location, sir.

 

[Ericloewe]

I think the new replication stuff now allows more complex replication scenarios, like from A to B and C, instead of just B or C.

 

[jamiejunk]

Not through the gui you can't.
To automate it in the cli with something like zxfer, you need to run that in a jail I believe.


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[jamiejunk]

I think the new replication stuff now allows more complex replication scenarios, like from A to B and C, instead of just B or C.

In 9.3.1? I haven't installed that yet so I haven't seen it if it is. I only ever saw "we're gonna revamp the replication stuff soon" in the bug tracker over the years. [emoji12]


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[pirateghost]

I'm confused. ZFS replication works fine and is automated. What exactly are you talking about?

 

[jamiejunk]

I want to replicate snapshots to two different locations. One on site, the other offsite. To my knowledge you can't do that with freenas. At least not yet.


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[pirateghost]

Gotcha.

 

[cyberjock]

Currently you cannot replicate from one source to two places automatically using the built-in ZFS replication feature. You also cannot replicate A->B and B->C with the same datasets.

You can certainly script your own if it is a needed feature.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

the reason i like it is because all my settings are saved in an easy to backup/restore config.

I also have a freebsd server I use for other purposes and though I have the steps to configure it documented, it would probably take me more than a day to configure stuff back to how I had it.

 

[Arwen]

the reason i like it is because all my settings are saved in an easy to backup/restore config.

I also have a freebsd server I use for other purposes and though I have the steps to configure it documented, it would probably take me more than a day to configure stuff back to how I had it.

That sums up why I use FreeNAS as well.

Plus, it has the built in protocols I need, SSH, Rsync, NFS. Most consumer NAS are CIFS, WebDav, and such, not useful for me.

Though if I had to use a non appliance OS, it would likely be Gentoo Linux.