TrueNAS 26 (Early)

TrueNAS 26 brings many new features and improvements to the TrueNAS experience.

TrueNAS 26 introduces an annual release cadence with simplified version numbering. Instead of fish-themed code names and multi-digit version strings, releases now use straightforward numbers like “26.1”. TrueNAS 26 receives feature packs, security updates, and hotfixes throughout the year, providing more predictable upgrade cycles and extended testing periods for both the engineering team and end users.

WebShare provides browser-based file access without requiring SMB or NFS client mounting on user systems. Users can browse, upload, download, and manage files directly from a web browser, with support for folder creation, filtering, snapshot timeline viewing, shareable links, and hidden file toggling. WebShare is configured through TrueNAS Connect and requires a dataset and at least one local user account with WebShare access enabled.

When TrueSearch is enabled in the WebShare service configuration, all active shares are indexed for fast file searching by filename, content, or file type. Encrypted datasets are excluded from indexing. Passkey authentication options provide flexible access control for WebShare users.

TrueNAS Ransomware Defense is a security service that monitors SMB and NFS file shares in real time and automatically responds to ransomware attacks to protect data stored on the TrueNAS system. The service is available through TrueNAS Connect and uses multiple detection methods, including honeypot decoy files, suspicious behavior analysis, encryption signature identification, and snapshot comparison to track unusual data changes. When a threat is detected, configurable protection responses can automatically disable affected shares, set them to read-only, restrict access, or pause snapshot deletion to preserve recovery points. IP blocking, threat scoring, and snapshot-based recovery tools are available to investigate incidents, remediate threats, and restore data.

LXC containers, introduced as an experimental feature in TrueNAS 25.04, are fully supported in TrueNAS 26. Containers provide lightweight, isolated Linux environments that share the host kernel while maintaining their own file system, processes, and network configuration, using fewer system resources than virtual machines while starting quickly and scaling efficiently.

TrueNAS 26 extends container support to Enterprise systems with High Availability (HA) configurations, enabling container failover between controllers. HA container failover requires a static IP configuration.

Users migrating from TrueNAS CORE who previously relied on custom Jails can use containers as a supported migration path.

TrueNAS 26 introduces stateful SMB HA failover for Enterprise systems with High Availability (HA) configurations. When enabled in the SMB service configuration, TrueNAS maintains SMB session state across controller failover events, allowing SMB clients to recover existing connections without re-authentication after a failover. See Enabling SMB Stateful Failover for configuration details.

TrueNAS 26 adds Spotlight search support for SMB shares, allowing macOS clients to use Spotlight to search file contents directly on TrueNAS SMB shares. Spotlight search is enabled per share in the SMB service configuration.

TrueNAS 26 integrates OpenZFS 2.4, which introduces new capabilities including hybrid pool support for combining flash and HDD storage, physical block rewriting, and dynamic gang header improvements. See OpenZFS Feature Flags for details on newly added feature flags.

TrueNAS 26 ships with Linux Kernel 6.18 LTS, enabling support for new hardware and receiving long-term maintenance and security updates from the upstream kernel project.