why is FreeNAS so broken? (2 months in)

[stryker]

I ultimately decided on FreeNAS after 6 months of research and limited testing. During that same period of time, I was accumulating my hardware and have built a decent piece of machinery for the FreeNAS install. I went with FreeNAS over UnRAID for obvious reasons and while the whole apps, jails, plugins, VMs or whatever you wish to call them was not my main focus (and still is not), I am disturbed with how broken this system is. I have moved nearly all my data to this system and I am seriously worried. I installed 11.1 originally after review of forum other threads and was focused on a bullet-proof ZFS solution. I don't care what the GUI looks like but having one that works would be nice.

My rig has two NICs and only used one originally with a static IP only to find out the netmask had some sort of issue and continues today. I have since selcted DHCP on that interface and use a secondary interface as static, both of which work (kind of). At first install upon GUI, I wasn't able to update because of who knows what bug but I am sure it had to do with the netmask issue and maybe a DNS issue, too much is out there to really determine what's going on, check the logs right? There was some login issue too but I don't want to go on and on.

My ZFS pools work fine as does my storage sharing across multiple platforms so I guess I shouldn't complain. I have no idea what's happened over the course of the past couple months with updates but somehow I was able THREE additional boot environments. As of writing this, I am running 11.2 B3. Not sure why I have to switch between the legacy portal and the new GUI to get anything done. And don't ask me about plugins or jails because they're broken, wasted a ton of time, and having nothing to say other than bad words ; )

TLDR - FreeNAS as a ZFS solution 10/10. Jails, plugins, and VMs are serious waste of life

 

[sretalla]

focused on a bullet-proof ZFS solution

I am running 11.2 B3

Those two statements don't seem to be coming from the same set of intentions... don't run Beta software if you are focused on stability.

 

[voyager529]

In my opinion, FreeNAS is amidst a bit of growing pains. The jails/plugins/VMs functions are moving from warden to iocage, the UI has been a serious focus and had massive revisions for over a year, the underlying FreeBSD version itself was a massive shift, and the network stack is caught in the middle of all of this.

You're running the third beta version of 11.2, and if you look at the change logs with each release, they're extensive. "Beta version" means that problems are an expectation. If you're here to rant about a beta being a beta, I mean, you do you...but I'd submit the question of whether your expectations are reasonable for something literally labeled in a way to indicate shortcomings.

Especially if plugins aren't a big deal for you, 11.1 is still available and is pretty stable. If you want 11.2 as a stable release, by all means. the RC was released today, meaning that the stable release will likely be out by the end of the year.

 

[stryker]

thanks for the replies but my rants are not stemming from beta alone and maybe you'd understand more if you initially came to freenas at 11.1 stable, then 11.2 beta and whatever version is running. i had issues with 11.1 stable as did many others with similar issues i found here on this very forum. forgive me for not documenting everything i've done over the course of 2 months and outlining it all here for you. i blindly jumped into 11.2 b3 because 11.1 wouldn't boot or required me to manually select a specific version during boot. over the course of the past 2 months there have a couple revisions, none of which have solved a single issue i had originally incurred.

i do stand behind my point with my setup still being bullet-proof, just don't touch anything.

 

[Jailer]

11.1 wouldn't boot or required me to manually select a specific version during boot.

That's not a FreeNAS issue.

11.1 has been very stable for the vast majority of users including myself. Perhaps if you shared what your hardware is or described some specific issues you've had that are related to FreeNAS others may be able to help you. So far all you've done is give vague complaints which makes you look suspiciously like a troll.

 

[stryker]

That's not a FreeNAS issue.

11.1 has been very stable for the vast majority of users including myself. Perhaps if you shared what your hardware is or described some specific issues you've had that are related to FreeNAS others may be able to help you. So far all you've done is give vague complaints which makes you look suspiciously like a troll.

seriously, this is the FreeNAS community? why would i waste my time on the introductions section of this forum to troll?

outright stating "that's not a FreeNAS issue", admittedly unknowing what my specific issues are?

 

[HoneyBadger]

Perhaps if you had posted a thread seeking advice back when 11.1 was refusing to boot, you would have received appropriate advice, such as "install to fresh boot media and re-import your pool" rather than upgrading to a beta release?

And while you may state that your hardware is "fine" I work on the principle of "trust, but verify" - so perhaps a list of system specifications would be helpful.

I do agree with your overall summation line though:

TLDR - FreeNAS as a ZFS solution 10/10. Jails, plugins, and VMs are serious waste of life

My FreeNAS machines that are in "production" style roles have absolutely none of that extra fluff.

 

[Jailer]

why would i waste my time on the introductions section of this forum to troll?

Why wouldn't you post some actual questions to try and get some help from a forum of knowledgeable and helpful people instead of just complaining?

If you want to have a better experience then post your complete hardware specs (per the forum rules you agreed to when you signed up for an account) and ask some meaningful questions. You may actually get some help and solve some issues you've been having.

 

[LIGISTX]

I do agree with the extra “fluff” being less good than it has been in the past. On 9.0.2 I had a pretty solid experience, but once I upgraded to 11.1, I did develop weird jail issues. One such issue was I couldn’t run a corn job from the webui to save my life, tried every possible thing including crontab itself. But, for me, my solution to the weird state of Jails and VM’s I decided the best course of action for myself was to start virtualizing everything.

This allows me to run freenas as vanilla as possible. I now handle all the extra frills external to freenas and have freenas just to do one thing; run ZFS. ZFS is bomb, it does its job well, and that is what I am after as most users truly are I believe. Virtualization is not for everyone, but it is a good solution in my eyes.


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[stryker]

Why wouldn't you post some actual questions to try and get some help from a forum of knowledgeable and helpful people instead of just complaining?

If you want to have a better experience then post your complete hardware specs (per the forum rules you agreed to when you signed up for an account) and ask some meaningful questions. You may actually get some help and solve some issues you've been having.

exactly because of people like you.

Perhaps if you had posted a thread seeking advice back when 11.1 was refusing to boot, you would have received appropriate advice, such as "install to fresh boot media and re-import your pool" rather than upgrading to a beta release?

And while you may state that your hardware is "fine" I work on the principle of "trust, but verify" - so perhaps a list of system specifications would be helpful.

I do agree with your overall summation line though:



My FreeNAS machines that are in "production" style roles have absolutely none of that extra fluff.

and this is the way it was originally planned. after months of getting everything running, i veered from the plan thinking it would be great if i could have this service or that service. forget all that. i've got a two R330's dedicated to virtualization running a flexible hypervisor i am pleased with.

as far as the freenas machine, she is a supermicro X8DT6 running dual xeon L5640s, 48gb ECC-DDR3 (1333) with LSI 9211-8E HBA coupled with the LSI 16 port expander, 128gb SSD host drive and 16 8tb bestbuy shuckers fashioned in RAIDZ2 style

 

[LIGISTX]

exactly because of people like you.

I mean, just saying.... that likely won’t get you very far. But ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Some people don’t actually want help from other nice humans.


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[Jailer]

exactly because of people like you.

Good luck with your build.

 

[HoneyBadger]

she is a supermicro X8DT6 running dual xeon L5640s, 48gb ECC-DDR3 (1333) with LSI 9211-8E HBA coupled with the LSI 16 port expander, 128gb SSD host drive and 16 8tb bestbuy shuckers fashioned in RAIDZ2 style

Assuming that the LSI HBA is in IT mode, all of those things should work fine with any ZFS setup. It's a little underpowered for serving VMs at great scale, and RAIDZ2 is definitely not the vdev configuration for that either (especially if you're using iSCSI) but it should work, albeit not terribly well.

The output of zpool status inside CODE tags may be helpful here; also, what protocol are you using to share the files with your hypervisor, and which one? (I'm going to assume iSCSI and VMware, as that's the most common.)

My rig has two NICs and only used one originally with a static IP only to find out the netmask had some sort of issue and continues today. I have since selcted DHCP on that interface and use a secondary interface as static, both of which work (kind of). At first install upon GUI, I wasn't able to update because of who knows what bug but I am sure it had to do with the netmask issue and maybe a DNS issue, too much is out there to really determine what's going on, check the logs right? There was some login issue too but I don't want to go on and on.

Getting network issues right after an install on well-understood hardware (Intel NICs on a SuperMicro board) would have been my cue to check that there wasn't something misconfigured in my environment - "netmask issue" isn't very specific, and while not being able to update is usually a result of not entering a default gateway/route in FreeNAS, if you're having unspecified network gremlins it's hard to pin down what's the real cause. The choice to upgrade was also a bit of misstep in my opinion; maybe that works for Windows, but not here.

Assuming you haven't upgraded your zpool itself since installing 11.2-BETA, my optimal solution would be a fresh install of 11.1-U6 onto known-good media (what model is that SSD, because a few Marvell controllers have been shown to have issues with FreeBSD) and then verify that the basics are fully working before importing your pool.

And I'm going to ask everyone to step it down a notch. Yes, the OP's thread title was fairly inflammatory, but there's no need to respond with hostility.

 

[danb35]

no need to respond with hostility

Indeed not. The ignore list is a wonderful thing.

 

[Havasu_Dan]

I don't normally say/add much to these threads because I think most are rantings caused by lack of research.

I would like to offer an opposite experience with FreeNAS.

I started to have issues with the three NAS systems in my network and began researching what I could do to update them. I was put off a bit at first with the FreeNAS package simply because I had not used BSD and wasn't ready to learn a new OS. I am well versed in Linux and Windows and can add all the acronyms to my signature file.

I built every NAS package out there in VM to try them all. Test Test Test. I think I broke every one of them multiple times, reloaded them even more.

I spent weeks reading and researching before I decided to build my FreeNAS system. Test Read Research Test Read Research. You get it right? I researched, tested and read everything here. Every combination. Every posting that was subject related written by both newbies and crusty arrogant gurus. All of them!

I reluctantly spent hours reading posts from obvious a$$holes who seemed to know what the hell they were talking about. I researched all of the systems listed in their signature files to put together a combination which incorporated hardware I currently had along with purchasing the correct items I didn't.

Research!

I chose the stable version. Beta is exactly that. Beta. I let updates percolate before running them.

I heeded the warnings regarding ECC memory. I followed the guides, advice, and warnings on manufacturers, models, and versions of everything. Everything!

You know I'm going to say it.

I have a rock stable system for months now. I run applications in jails and have multiple VM slices.

I do not use my machine for development. I use it for what it's designed for. A file server.

If you want a machine to build multiple VM's in build one for that. If you want a place to store movies, build that. If you want a enterprise level file server, build this.

The learning curve for BSD and ZFS file structure/systems was rough but has to be done and has paid off perfectly for me. I'm glad I chose FreeNAS and glad I spent the time to understand my system.

Dan

 

[jgreco]

I researched, tested and read everything here. Every combination. Every posting that was subject related written by both newbies and crusty arrogant gurus. All of them!

I reluctantly spent hours reading posts from obvious a$$holes who seemed to know what the hell they were talking about. I researched all of the systems listed in their signature files to put together a combination which incorporated hardware I currently had along with purchasing the correct items I didn't.

If everyone took the time to do all these steps, everyone would

have a rock stable system

Basically we all stick around here for the people who are willing to put in the effort to get the excellent result. Sorry if some of us come off as "crusty arrogant gurus," but it really gets so old repeating the same things over and over. Every report of success is rewarding, though.

You're encouraged to repay the kindness of iXsystems in developing FreeNAS by sticking around and answering questions you're comfortable answering, to whatever amount you're able and willing. That's my motivation for participating here...

 

[LIGISTX]

To offset some of the negativity with some more positive comments in the hopes some of those crusty's can help out, this place is a huge body of knowledge. I am a complete noob by all accounts, and I have successfully speced out 2 systems, one built with ebay parts and one built from scratch with new parts successfully. Granted, I am a huge hardware guy, so the physical assembly and part picking was easy, but being successful from the software side took a bit of work, lots of really stupid questions which the community helped out greatly with, but as file serving systems they have worked out 110%. So far 0 issues with the ebay server being up for over 2 years with only 48 disc on/off cycles (most of those where from updates or config/hardware changes) which shows the system is pretty damn stable as I bet 30 of those where within the first month just testing things....

Now, by my own admission, yes I have had some weird issues with 11.1 which neither I nor my friend who owns the ebay system have had on 9.10, but I do think Xi is in the middle of a bit of a redefinition of what their platform is. As a file system, its great, its rock solid, data integrity has never been a concern, and the OS just works. Never had a single crash nor even a data loss scare *yet, knock on ALL the wood*. Jails have been a little.... weird on 11.1 for me, and bhyve worked, but, not "well" from my limited experience. That said, I am sure they are working on it, and I am by no means a Free BSD person, nor really even a linux person (this is my first dabbling outside of windows, and even then I really am just a hardware nerd and #PCMR gamer....) so while it has been a learning curve, clearly if I can do it anyone can........................... For me it has been a fun learning experience, not without some struggles and headaches, but I can't say I am not happy with it; quite the contrary, I am happy with it. Thanks to all those who have helped over the years!!

/#successstory -- GLHF