FreeBSD fans rally round zVault upstart
- Reference: 1747073169
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/05/12/second_preview_zvault/
- Source link:
The [1]zVault project is a new all-FOSS OS for network-attached storage (NAS) servers, based on FreeBSD 13.3. The project has just unleashed its [2]second preview release, which resolves some intellectual property issues that sidelined the first preview. For now, this is a preview, and we definitely do not recommend storing any important data on it. It's an encouraging sign, though.
As we [3]covered last March , iXsystems has put its FreeBSD-based NAS OS, TrueNAS CORE, into maintenance mode. Its successor offering is [4]TrueNAS SCALE , which, instead of FreeBSD, uses Debian Linux as its underlying OS. The company is keen to emphasize that " [5]No one is being 'marooned' by Debian focus ," as it told The Register sister site Blocks & Files. Indeed, thanks to the magic of ZFS [6]boot environments – complete, bootable OS snapshots – it's even possible to do an in-place migration from the FreeBSD version to the new Linux version.
[7]
But if you're not interested in running Docker containers on your storage server, or you don't want to integrate your storage with your Kubernetes clusters, there's good news: zVault has picked up the final FreeBSD version of TrueNAS CORE.
[8]
zVault issued a [9]first preview release in late February, but Kris Moore of iXsystems [10]opened an issue with that release, claiming that it contained iXsystems' intellectual property, and the zVault project withdrew the ISO in response. Now, the zVault team is working on disentangling the last traces of iXsystems and removing all remaining proprietary files to produce an all-FOSS version.
[11]A new Lazarus arises – for the fourth time – for Pascal programming fans
[12]openSUSE deep sixes Deepin desktop over security stink
[13]GNOME Foundation's new executive director is Canadian, a techie, and a GNOME user
[14]Fedora 42 now an official Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 distro
FreeBSD blogger Vermaden has posted an update expressing the sentiments of some FreeBSD folk towards iXsystems' move: " [15]TrueNAS CORE is Dead – Long Live zVault ." It's an update to their post from last year titled " [16]TrueNAS CORE versus TrueNAS SCALE ." It includes a [17]screengrab of a list of over 50 files in the first release that referenced the TrueNAS Enterprise License Agreement.
The zVault project has a relatively modest [18]roadmap on its homepage. Step 1: Get something working out the door. Step 2: Publish a stable release. Step 3 is a version 13.5 update. Only then comes Step 4, which is to rebase the OS on the current FreeBSD 14.
In the meantime, there is also [19]XigmaNAS , which continues from an older version of FreeNAS predating iXsystems' involvement, without all the modernization work that iXsystems put into it. It's rather more complicated to deploy than TrueNAS CORE, and its web UI is significantly less polished, but it's there, it works, and it gets updates. ®
Get our [20]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.zvault.io/
[2] https://github.com/zvaultio/Community/releases/tag/zVault-13.3-MASTER-202505042329-ca844f8808
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/18/truenas_abandons_freebsd/
[4] https://www.truenas.com/truenas-scale/
[5] https://blocksandfiles.com/2024/04/08/ixsystems-no-one-is-getting-marooned/
[6] https://wiki.freebsd.org/BootEnvironments
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aCJvfAsD13qlhmT_QvmJ4wAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aCJvfAsD13qlhmT_QvmJ4wAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://github.com/zvaultio/Community/releases/tag/zVault-13.3-MASTER-202502240515-8d9f8c8cc2
[10] https://github.com/zvaultio/Community/issues/7
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/09/new_lazarus_4/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/09/opensuse_ditches_deepin/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/08/new_gnome_director/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/07/fedora_42_wsl2_official/
[15] https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2024/04/20/truenas-core-versus-truenas-scale/#truenas-core-dead-long-live-zvault
[16] https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2024/04/20/truenas-core-versus-truenas-scale/
[17] https://vermaden.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/zvault-truenas-core-proprietary-files.png
[18] https://zvault.io/#roadmap
[19] https://xigmanas.com/xnaswp/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
TrueNAS Scale has its own stability issues
They replaced Kubernetes with Docker - not exactly the same thing at the enterprise level - and changed also the virtualization layer moving to Incus - meaning it's now just an "experimental" feature.
So unless you plan to use it just as a ZFS NAS, you'll encouinter compatibilty issues as long as they don't settle on a specific toolset and keep available for long enough. Scale looks more a rolling beta than a stable solution. Im' afraid it will take time before it gets stable enough. Better than their disastrous attempt with "Corral", but still unpolished.
PS: not all versions can be directly upgrade from BSD to Linux - you may need to upgrade to an older release and the update it to the newer ones.
Dumb move by iXsystems
One of the attractions of ZFS is the low-overhead snapshots, excellent if your system is hit be ransomware.
But that presumes that the vulnerabilities that allowed it are not able to take over the ZFS host. Having FreeBSD for your NAS and Linux/Windows for your clients allowed that, making the NAS Linux-based removes one aspect of such security.
Great news!
I'm eagerly anticipating the first stable release of zVault.
As someone who has used FreeNAS (as it was) since release 8, I have a couple of nicely stable jails that I have no interest in migrating to Docker containers and see no benefit in migrating away from the ultra stable and reliable FreeBSD system which has served me so well over the years and three hardware platforms. My Proxmox cluster only uses my NAS for backup and image storage, so I'm very happy sticking with NFS mounts from the NAS for that. I'm more than happy to follow the old adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"!
Now that iXsystems have moved to their SCALE version, the company's forums are overrun with Linux users who seem unable to read documentation or FAQs before asking questions, lowering the signal to noise ratio significantly.
I can see (and hope for)...
a merge of the Xigma and zVault projects....