TrueNAS is fundamentally a storage appliance, so we recommend that you always run it not directly exposed to the internet.

However, there are many instances where a user needs to access their storage data or services remotely. In most corporate environments, a corporate VPN service controls internal and external access, performs proper auditing, and applies and enforces security best practices. For the small business or home lab, where a corporate VPN is not an option, you can choose from many easy-to-deploy and manage services that give you or your clients access to your storage services and applications. This guide introduces several access options and provides a basic walk-through enabling remote access to your TrueNAS.

Due to the interaction between the TrueNAS, Minio, and FreeBSD software lifecycles, the Minio plugin does not generally deploy in TrueNAS 13.0 nor is full data migration of MinIO data from end of life (EoL) deployments of MinIO possible. Users are encouraged to pursue a manual backup and restore strategy before attempting to move to TrueNAS 24.04 or newer. These versions provide fully maintained, and updatable MinIO applications.

Configuring TrueNAS to work with virtualized features, such as virtual machines (VMs) and applications, is part of the setup process that, when optimized, takes advantage of the network storage capabilities that TrueNAS offers.

This article assumes you have the latest release version of TrueNAS installed on your system. The following steps are a list of configuration prerequisites you have completed and are familiar with before beginning VM and application installations.