FreeNAS 11.3-U5 releases: free Network Attached Storage (NAS) services

FreeNAS is a small FreeBSD-based operating system that offers free Network Attached Storage (NAS) services (CIFS, FTP, NFS).

FreeNAS

Feature

File Sharing

File sharing is what FreeNAS does best. Every major operating system is supported with SMB/CIFS (Windows file shares), NFS (Unix file shares) and AFP (Apple File Shares) as well as FTP, iSCSI (block sharing), WebDAV and other methods of sharing data over the network are available. iSCSI also supports VMware VAAI, Microsoft ODX and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and 2012 R2 Clustering.

Most operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, many Linux distributions, and PC-BSD® can connect using SMB shares with little or no additional configuration needed on the client side. Most Unix-like operating systems support connecting with NFS out of the box, and free clients are widely available. AFP is primarily used by Mac OSX and is well suited for a network environment that only connects with Macintosh clients. FreeNAS® also supports Time Machine backups.

Web Interface

If FreeNAS has one goal, it’s simplifying complex administrative tasks for as wide a user base as possible. Every aspect of a FreeNAS system can be managed from a Web User Interface. A setup Wizard further simplifies configuration at installation time or later in the setup process. Volume creation, or the setting of permissions on individual shares or performing software updates, can be done without missing a critical step or encountering a silent failure.

Of course, the FreeNAS Team knows we can’t think of everything. Many services have advanced configuration options available from the Web User Interface that is available in advanced menus. The full power of the FreeBSD shell environment is also available just a click away or through SSH. Ultimately, FreeNAS makes NAS deployment easier than ever but doesn’t get between you and the solution you need.

Data Protection

ZFS is designed for data integrity from top to bottom. RAID-Z, the software RAID that is part of ZFS, offers single parity protection like RAID 5, but without the “write hole” vulnerability thanks to the copy-on-write architecture of ZFS. The additional levels RAID-Z2 and RAID-Z3 offer double and triple parity protection, respectively. A software mirror option is also available. The FreeNAS Volumes screen lists each possible parity arrangement based on the number of disks you select when creating a new volume.

Every ZFS filesystem is also verified with checksums from top to bottom to ensure data integrity. If inconsistencies are found, parity blocks can be used to repair corrupt data. A regular scrub is turned on by default and can be rescheduled or configured from the web interface.

Snapshots

Thanks to ZFS, snapshots of the entire filesystem can be made and saved at any time. As long as a snapshot exists, administrators can access files as they were when the snapshot was made.

Snapshots can be made on a one-off basis or scheduled as a cron job from the web interface. At any time, the entire filesystem can be rolled back to the most recent snapshot. Older snapshots can be cloned and accessed to recover data from that version of the filesystem. From the web interface, users can see how much space a particular snapshot is occupying on the volume and delete, clone, or roll back to individual snapshots as needed.

Replication

ZFS Snapshots are more than just local backups – they can be used to create remote backups as well. Replicating snapshots of the filesystem to a remote ZFS filesystem creates a complete duplicate there. Furthermore, additional snapshots of the same filesystem can be sent incrementally, reducing the size of each backup to the changes that were made between snapshots. In case of catastrophic damage to a local ZFS filesystem (such as disk failure in excess of parity protection or irrecoverable log device failure), any backed-up snapshot can be sent to a new ZFS filesystem, recovering all data up to that backup.

Encryption

FreeNAS is the first and only open source project to offer encryption on ZFS volumes! A full-volume encryption option is available during volume creation, providing industry standard AES-XTS encryption which can be hardware-accelerated (when the processor has AES-NI capability).

Encrypted volumes can only be read by FreeNAS systems in possession of the master key for that volume. The user can optionally create a passphrase to add extra protection for their system against loss or theft.

Encryption allows for confidence when retiring and recycling hard drives because the drives no longer need to be wiped provided the master keys are obliterated.

FreeNAS 11.3-U5 has been released and has brought performance improvements, enhancements, new features, and bug fixes, as well as new and upgraded drivers.

Changelog

Bug Fixes

Key

Summary

Component/s

NAS-107603 Replication that worked in 11.3-U4 and 12.0-Beta2 fails in 12.0-RC1 Replication
NAS-107544 SMART and scrub tasks are not running Tasks
NAS-107533 Unable to remove certificate in s3 service Certificates
NAS-107531 Comment and restrict change of large blocks support in replication Replication
NAS-107506 Additional Domains don’t show up on save Middleware, WebUI
NAS-107468 Cloud sync to Wasabi fails with “Can’t mix absolute and relative paths” Tasks
NAS-107411 No Task Manager Progress is shown Replication
NAS-107316 UPS Settings Saving Bug WebUI
NAS-107315 middlewared memory leak Middleware
NAS-107314 Replicated dataset is not set to read-only Replication
NAS-107292 Unable to Delete Expired ACME Certificate Certificates
NAS-107235 Error when updating a Jail 11.3-RELEASE-p6 to 11.3-RELEASE-p612 Middleware
NAS-107160 Apparent crash on delete of share to invalid directory
NAS-107148 Generate a random default serial extent
NAS-107133 unable to delete iscsi file extents
NAS-107128 When creating pool, adding vdev, then removing it, leaves debris WebUI
NAS-107121 `failover_aliases` and `failover_virtual_aliases` are being overwritten as empty arrays WebUI
NAS-107120 change failover_vhid to type `select` instead of `input` WebUI
NAS-107116 allow editing empty interfaces
NAS-107108 Google Drive Cloud Sync tasks fail with exportSizeLimitExceeded Cloud Credentials
NAS-107107 Clear any potential stale state after leaving AD domain
NAS-107104 ACME DNS renewals don’t work Certificates
NAS-107100 Do not run check_available in a tight loop in case an exception happens
NAS-107099 Do not display previous replication task status after deleting it and…
NAS-107096 Custom sync schedule forgotten when editing task Tasks
NAS-107090 Merge FreeBSD SA-20:21-30 EN-20:17-18
NAS-107076 Expand regression tests for user api
NAS-107074 Permissions are incorrect on home directory move
NAS-107067 Fix chown of skel directory contents for new local users
NAS-107055 Forums user reported logs filled with fruit error messages SMB
NAS-107053 Pool in dashboard omits special vdevs from count and status WebUI
NAS-107037 Have ftp reload method reload proftpd rather than restart it
NAS-107035 Swap size setting not honored on 4k sector disks WebUI
NAS-107032 Unable to upload 8TB file to backblaze. Middleware
NAS-107029 Unable to configure UPS on TrueNAS 12 WebUI
NAS-107023 Expand list of error strings that should trigger an AD rejoin
NAS-106993 Reassign sys.{stdout,stderr} after log rollover
NAS-106984 “jls” hostname does not reflect modified hostname
NAS-106978 Add regression tests for AD machine account keytab generation
NAS-106966 collectd: blank warning emails
NAS-106965 qBittorrent Plugin Not Installing Plugins
NAS-106948 Recycle bin versioning not enabled Middleware
NAS-106918 Replacing boot usb drive problem Boot Environments
NAS-106866 Proper/better errno for failed authentication Middleware
NAS-106864 SED doesn’t work for nvme Middleware
NAS-106854 plugin boot checkbox re-enables itself WebUI
NAS-106842 Setting IPMI to DHCP should gray-out IP addresses WebUI
NAS-106840 setting invalid VHID value fails silently. HA, WebUI
NAS-106808 Ensure monpwd/monuser fields are provided for UPS service
NAS-106798 api context /services/iscsi/targettoextent does not allow null value for iscsi_lunid API, iSCSI
NAS-106797 Periodic Snapshot Tasks – “Enabled” checkboxes are not unique inputs Snapshot, Tasks
NAS-106787 iSCSI webUI columns COMPLETELY break when edited iSCSI, WebUI
NAS-106745 Cloud Sync Bandwidth Limit Field Validation WebUI
NAS-106713 Cron job still runs despite being deactivated and then deleted Tasks
NAS-106690 Can’t clear Kerberos Principal from GUI WebUI
NAS-106682 Validation Error on creation of Manual SSH Connection for Replication Task Replication
NAS-106675 dashboard is completely blank no widgets Dashboard
NAS-106658 ZFS replication does not create datasets on target Replication, Tasks
NAS-106583 FreeNAS disks forget their assigned pool ZFS
NAS-106496 System crash after middlewared.set_sysctl():407 – Failed to set sysctl Middleware
NAS-106133 Categories for support proxy Middleware
NAS-106110 UPS ups is on battery power alerts since upgrade to 11.3 Middleware
NAS-106038 Replication progress report error WebUI
NAS-105099 Periodic Snapshot are missing the lifetime in its name
NAS-104906 Rsync tasks view shows incorrect remote path Tasks
NAS-102808 Running Cloud Sync tasks keep on running after deletion in GUI Cloud Credentials, Middleware

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