TrueNAS CORE 13 is the end of the FreeBSD version
- Reference: 1710761526
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/03/18/truenas_abandons_freebsd/
- Source link:
NAS vendor iXsystems has been busy this year, but apart from some statements in online user communities, it hasn't been talking about the big news. Back in 2022, we [1]covered TrueNAS CORE 13 , the new release of its FreeBSD-based turnkey OS for NAS servers, and in that article we mentioned its new product, the Debian-based TrueNAS SCALE, aimed at providing storage for Kubernetes users.
Now it seems the company is betting its future on that Linux-based product, meaning the end is in sight for the FreeBSD offering.
[2]
TrueNAS SCALE is apparently thriving. Gartner recently handed iXsystems a gong for [3]Customers' Choice in storage. With some VMware users [4]feeling uncomfortable about Broadcom's takeover and assessing alternatives, many TrueNAS customers [5]told the company that they were considering KVM.
[6]
[7]
Meanwhile, the company released [8]version 23.10 of the Debian-based TrueNAS SCALE. It even found time to [9]donate its Fast DeDup feature to the FOSS world.
Good for iXsystems, and good for TrueNAS SCALE. But what about, if you'll pardon the pun, its core offering? It's called TrueNAS CORE 13 because it's based on [10]FreeBSD 13 … but that came out in April 2021, and earlier this month, the developers released the latest update, [11]FreeBSD 13.3 . TrueNAS CORE 13 users – including this vulture – are still waiting for the 13.1 release, which is still shown as an "Unstable Build" on the company's [12]Software Releases page , and with nary a hint on the [13]status page .
[14]
TrueNAS CORE [15]evolved from the older FreeNAS . FreeNAS [16]first appeared in 2005, based on the [17]m0n0wall firewall with a web GUI written in PHP. Under iXsystems, FreeNAS [18]got a whole new UI in version 11 , which is still used today. A fork of the original FreeNAS, updated with current FreeBSD components, continues as the [19]XigmaNAS project .
The creator of PC-BSD, Kris Moore, is [20]still with iXsystems, where he's now Senior VP of Engineering. He's also active on Reddit under the handle of [21]/u/kmoore134 . [22]Back in December , he told the TrueNAS subreddit:
Right now the plan for CORE is to release a 13.1 update in Q1 of 2024. This will be a maintenance-only type update which includes an update to the FreeBSD base, OpenZFS and Samba. No new features expected.
That's looking dated now. [23]FreeBSD 13.1 came out in May 2022, and reached its [24]end of life in July 2023, replaced by [25]FreeBSD 13.2 .
Moore continued:
We have no plans for a FreeBSD 14-based TrueNAS at this time, and the 13.1 release will be a longer-lived maintenance train for those who want to continue running on the BSD product before migrating to SCALE later at some later date.
That sounds bad. We asked the company if this was true, and marketing veep Mario Blandini confirmed it, telling The Reg :
TrueNAS CORE is entering its sustaining engineering phase within the TrueNAS project. TrueNAS SCALE within the TrueNAS project is where new features and updated components are developed and tested. Some of those are eligible for backporting to TrueNAS CORE, and CORE users can migrate to SCALE to take advantage of new features.
There will be at least one more update to CORE:
Next up for TrueNAS CORE is 13.3, which we can give you some early detail on before it is released next month, based on FreeBSD 13.3. Among TrueNAS features, it will include updates to ZFS as well as an upgrade of Samba to version 4.19, to maintain parity with the next release of SCALE.
The [26]13.3 wishlist contains more details of the updates to expect.
[27]Fresh version of Windows user-friendly Zorin OS arrives to tempt the Linux-wary
[28]Fedora 41's GNOME to go Wayland-only, says goodbye to X.org
[29]Trying out Microsoft's pre-release OS/2 2.0
[30]Linux for older phones postmarketOS changes its init system
There is an upgrade path. Because of the way TrueNAS works, the OS is kept on its own, dedicated drive – the company recommends a fast SSD – that is not shared with the network, and indeed cannot be. Thanks to ZFS snapshots, it's possible to do an [31]in-place migration , although it's a one-way process. Both the FreeBSD and Linux editions use the same OpenZFS file system so the new OS can pick up and migrate the settings from the old one. What it can't bring across is VM appliances. TrueNAS CORE [32]plugins run in FreeBSD Jails or under the [33]bhyve hypervisor , whereas TrueNAS SCALE [34]applications run inside the Linux kernel's KVM. These are not interchangeable.
This is significant and sad news because iXsystems grew out of the original BSD vendor, [35]Berkeley Software Design, Inc. , which sold [36]BSD/386 , the first commercial BSD-based OS for commodity hardware. We described the early history of BSD when we [37]looked at FreeBSD 13.1 . The company has a long and [38]complex history involving multiple mergers, sell-offs, and re-acquisitions, including Walnut Creek CD-ROM.
The Unix market has been turbulent and troubled for many decades, and under its various names, the company has a long history of divestments, acquisitions, and, indeed, shutting products down. After merging with Walnut Creek, it [39]sold off its OS division to Wind River, which then [40]sold off the FreeBSD part of the business as the FreeBSD Mall, which [41]iXsystems acquired in 2007, soon after its [42]2006 acquisition of PC-BSD, a desktop-focused FreeBSD distro.
[43]
In 2009, the developer of FreeNAS moved on to a Linux-based system, which developed into [44]Open Media Vault . iXsystems stepped up and [45]took over FreeNAS development . It also continued work on its desktop version, which in 2016 it renamed TrueOS. In 2020, it [46]discontinued TrueOS , and [47]combined FreeNAS with its TrueNAS line .
For the company, this move doubtless makes sound commercial sense. Although The Reg FOSS desk remains skeptical about whether most of its users actually need Kubernetes, it remains popular and adoption continues to grow. Many companies have hitched their future to this bandwagon and got rich. For iXsystems, it seems to us like a small fish choosing to jump into a big pond, and we are concerned what might happen if the wave of microservices hype crests and dissipates.
One of the advantages of FreeNAS was that it was simple and frugal with resources. Like XigmaNAS, it installed onto a USB key, meaning that upgrading was as simple as writing a new image to a new key. In our briefings with the company, we've repeatedly reminded iXsystems of this, and requested the return of that feature, but the company's representatives didn't seem to understand why it was desirable.
Eleven years ago, we wrote about how aiming for enterprise customers [48]lost Novell its small business heartland . We are concerned that iXsystems risks the same fate.
One of the problems with ZFS on Linux is that because it's not part of the kernel, its cache must remain separate from the Linux kernel's own cache, which is a [49]key advantage for bcachefs . We have no fewer than three old HP Microservers around, with a grand total of 22 GB of RAM between them. That means TrueNAS SCALE is little use to us – and, we suspect, many other small deployments.
There are already [50]mutterings about a fork , and we will be watching the area closely. ®
Get our [51]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/11/truenas_13_released/
[2] 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=2ZfhzKMPRXf4mTLB9h6sVWQAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/truenas-enterprise-customers-choice-for-primary-storage-in-2024/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/broadcom_moves_to_reassure_vmware/
[5] https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/new-survey-ranks-top-hypervisor-options-as-users-seek-vmware-alternatives/
[6] 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=44ZfhzKMPRXf4mTLB9h6sVWQAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZfhzKMPRXf4mTLB9h6sVWQAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/23.10/gettingstarted/scalereleasenotes/
[9] https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/ixsystems-and-klara-systems-celebrate-valentines-day-with-a-heartfelt-donation-of-fast-dedupe-to-openzfs-and-truenas/
[10] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.0R/announce/
[11] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.3R/announce/
[12] https://www.truenas.com/docs/truenasupgrades/
[13] https://www.truenas.com/software-status/
[14] 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=44ZfhzKMPRXf4mTLB9h6sVWQAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2016/10/18/truenas_review/
[16] https://web.archive.org/web/20080313190212/http://sourceforge.net/potm/potm-2007-01.php
[17] https://m0n0.ch/wall/index.php
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2017/06/15/freenas_11/
[19] https://xigmanas.com/xnaswp/
[20] https://www.ixsystems.com/our-team/
[21] https://www.reddit.com/user/kmoore134/
[22] https://www.reddit.com/r/truenas/comments/18hfwcr/comment/kd7l36h/
[23] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.1R/announce/
[24] https://www.freebsd.org/security/unsupported/
[25] https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.2R/announce/
[26] https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/truenas-13-3-wishlist.116359/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/15/zorin_os_17_1/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/fedora_41_drops_x_gnome/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/11/trying_ms_prerelease_os2_2/
[30] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/11/postmarketos_goes_systemd/
[31] https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/gettingstarted/migrate/migratingfromcore/
[32] https://www.truenas.com/docs/core/coretutorials/jailspluginsvms/plugins/
[33] https://bhyve.org/
[34] https://www.truenas.com/apps/
[35] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Design
[36] http://gunkies.org/wiki/BSD/386
[37] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/20/freebsd_131/
[38] https://www.ixsystems.com/history/
[39] https://www.eetimes.com/wind-river-buys-into-open-source-but-avoids-linux/
[40] https://www.macworld.com/article/152246/freebsd.html
[41] https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/ixsystems-announces-acquisition-of-freebsd-mall/
[42] https://web.archive.org/web/20170701063157/http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2006/10/23/ixsystems-pc-bsd.html
[43] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZfhzKMPRXf4mTLB9h6sVWQAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[44] https://www.openmediavault.org/
[45] https://lwn.net/Articles/366886/
[46] https://www.truenas.com/trueos-discontinuation/
[47] https://www.truenas.com/blog/freenas-truenas-unification/
[48] https://www.theregister.com/Print/2013/07/16/netware_4_anniversary/
[49] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/10/linux_kernel_67/
[50] https://old.reddit.com/r/truenas/comments/1baju4f/any_updates_on_core_131/
[51] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Doesn't TrueNAS Scale work just as well on the HP Microservers?
[Author here]
> I don't see why having HP Microservers would be a problem if you wish to stay within the TrueNAS ecosystem
Sir is missing the point. It's not the Microservers _qua_ Microservers. It's the difficulty and expense of putting more RAM in them.
I have an N54L with 8GB, an N40L with 6GB, and a Gen 8 with 8GB. That is why I specified "with 22GB of RAM between them" in the article. 8+8+6 = 22.
Of the 3, only the Gen 8 can be affordably upgraded, and even then it would be neither cheap nor easy.
It would be considerably cheaper to replace the two older N-series Turion-based servers with newer models than to upgrade their RAM. RAM upgrades also require removal of the motherboards which means disconnecting all cabling: about a dozen cables, some tiny, some big, all difficult. And on the small island where I live, obtaining used replacement hardware involves expensive shipping, and a high probability of receiving damaged/broken kit. All 3 of these servers were bought used, and for all 3, I collected them in person.
FreeBSD is if anything _more_ RAM-efficient than Linux. OpenZFS on Linux is _substantially_ less so because it requires two separate caches, the Linux kernel's page cache _plus_ the OpenZFS advanced read cache. These cannot be combined because ZFS cannot be merged into the Linux kernel due to a conflicting source code licence.
Re: Doesn't TrueNAS Scale work just as well on the HP Microservers?
[Original Coward here]. Ah, good point. I hadn't considered at all that Linux would require more RAM than FreeBSD.
Re: Doesn't TrueNAS Scale work just as well on the HP Microservers?
Fair enough. I did try to spell it out, though:
«
One of the problems with ZFS on Linux is that because it's not part of the kernel, its cache must remain separate from the Linux kernel's own cache,
»
Bad news indeed
This is a bad move as far as I can see it for two reasons. The first is the obvious one that being able to boot the lot from a USB stick in a small server or adapted desktop is great for home and small office use, furthermore that is likely to get small businesses looking at paid-for support if they are using it and realise it has become business critical.
Second reason is that I would rather have a different OS for my backup machine in case my main machines (almost all Linux) find themselves with their pants down one day due to a zero-day bug, one would hope that FeeeBSD would not (more so given their generally slow/negligible adoption of useless features that might compromise security).
In my previous employment we had a ZFS based NAS using Solaris, but that turned out to be pretty awful due to Sun rushing it out, and Oracle being rubbish at fixing any of that once they took over. Perhaps as the key engineers had all left! So while I think ZFS is fantastic for this sort of a job due to integrity checks being built-in, and low-overhead snapshots against data corruption by ransomware, it seems hard to get a company who can wrap it in to a good product that is not prone to bloat and usurious licenses.
Re: Bad news indeed
Agreed, especially when, on at least my HP Microserver, there is a USB port inside the case on the motherboard, which you can use as the boot device. Probably HP put it there with exactly that use-case in mind.
Some backtracking here, maybe
Liam, you're previously proclaimed UNIX dead, and re-iterated this belief as recently as last week.
I think you would be a little two-faced if you don't include FreeBSD in the group of systems that are under the UNIX banner.
Suck it up. According to you [1] Unix is dead and Linux is the new UNIX!
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/
Re: Some backtracking here, maybe
[Author here]
> if you don't include FreeBSD in the group of systems that are under the UNIX banner.
Nobody has paid for FreeBSD to be put through Open Group UNIX™ testing, therefore, FreeBSD is not a UNIX™ and never has been.
At least 2 companies paid for this for Linux: Huawei and Inspur. There may be others: I do not have access to historical records.
Legally speaking, BSD is not UNIX, as the FreeBSD project carefully spells out:
https://docs.freebsd.org/en/articles/explaining-bsd/
Note that the BSDI company mentioned in that page is now known as iXsystems. This is the original company that productised and sold BSD/OS stepping away from BSD. I think that's very sad.
Re: Some backtracking here, maybe
If you look back at my posts, the fact that BSD never took the UNIX branding is a point that I make frequently, but when I say that, I often get shouted down!
I have often taken exception to your assertion that Huawei and Inspur putting their flavours of Linux through UNIX TM branding means that Linux in general has UNIX TM branding. It doesn't, because you don't know how much work Huawei and Inspur did to their versions to achieve their acceptance, nor do you know how much of that was accepted back into mainstream GNU/Linux. This is actually the other side of the double edged sword that is Free Software. People can change it to suit their needs.
In my view Linux is not UNIX, and as I have said, is moving away from UNIX at an ever increasing rate, although in those two cases I accept that I may have to make a minor, and time-limited exception.
Re: Some backtracking here, maybe
Yes, I know and I do take your point.
By and large, in my experience so far, the vendors of CentOS clones do not put a huge amount of R&D into their efforts. The thing that made the RHELatives desirable was their compatibility with RHEL. If a vendor were to make profound changes in order to pass a test, it wouldn't be CentOS compatible any more, and thus, they might as well have chosen something else, such as Debian.
So, the real answer here is I don't know, and I am not going to go to great effort to find out, as both are historical now. The companies aren't going to tell me, the Open Group probably doesn't know, and it doesn't matter any more.
The point is not "Linux is right now at this moment a Unix because it carries the Unix branding". It cannot be: it does not any more.
The point is: "Linux passed in the past. It has done it before, and therefore, it is a certainty that given some effort it could do it again."
I am sure any of the BSDs could as well, if anyone wanted to spend the time and effort... but nobody does.
Xinuos might have the best case to do so, but I don't think it has enough money. I think its niche is small and not very lucrative.
But it did happen, and a lot of people in this sector of this industry seem to be blind to this fact, which is why I keep repeating it.
From the many fora and lists I inhabit, my strong impression is that most people still believe that "Unix" still means "based on AT&T code" and that nothing _not_ based on AT&T code can be a Unix. That has not been the case since very soon after the beginning of the public Linux project, and I think it's important to acknowledge this.
Current OSes that bear the brand are macOS, AIX, Unixware, SCO OpenServer, HP/UX, and gods help us, z/OS.
(Note: not Solaris.)
But _OSes still in active development_ that bear or have born the brand are macOS and Huawei EulerOS/openEuler.
AIX and HP/UX are in maintenance, as are the Xinuos products.
Even their more current offering, OpenServer 10, is FreeBSD-based:
https://www.xinuos.com/wp-content/uploads/Xinuos-Data-Sheet-OpenServer-10.3.pdf
And it's no longer mentioned on the homepage, or the products list. I think it's dead.
For my money, there is a Venn diagram here, and the interesting part is is the intersection between "previously passed the testing" and "is in continued active development".
That ellipse holds 2 editions of MacOS and 1 Linux distro.
And what about the Clustered version?
If I had known this was coming, I might not have spec'd out a TrueNAS M40 system for a client, which is an Active/Passive cluster pair from IxSystems. Sigh...
Re: And what about the Clustered version?
[Author here]
> an Active/Passive cluster pair
AFAICS, if you are clustering them, then you are therefore using TrueNAS SCALE, according to the company's own page:
https://www.truenas.com/m-series/
Scale is not based on FreeBSD. It is based on Debian. It is unaffected by this. You are running the product that has _replaced_ the product that this article is about.
Good reporting
Cheers Liam, an in-depth, and well balanced article.
I know Linux is the devil to *BSD users, but apart from that: what is bad about the move to Linux? Will people miss features?
Doesn't TrueNAS Scale work just as well on the HP Microservers?
I'm a FreeBSD guy at heart and was a bit sad when I saw this coming a year ago or so. However, as you say, it makes sense from iXSystems' perspective.
Fortunately, as the OpenZFS codebase is shared between Linux and FreeBSD, any contributions from iXSystems to OpenZFS (such as the fast-dedup you mention) will automatically surface in FreeBSD too. Possibly even before they end up in Linux because OpenZFS always needs to be slightly behind the latest Linux kernel.
But, I don't see why having HP Microservers would be a problem if you wish to stay within the TrueNAS ecosystem. Surely TrueNAS Scale works just as well on the HP Microservers? It's just a one-time migration effort.