Presentation for FSOSS 2011.

1. FreeNAS 8: Open Source
Storage for the Enterprise
Dru Lavigne
Director of Community Development, iXsystems
FSOSS, October 28, 2011

2. Outline
Introduction to FreeNAS 8
Current Features and ZFS Overview
Planned Features
Configuration Workflow with Demo
Getting Involved with the Community
Additional Resources

3. Introduction
Open source NAS (network attached storage)
based on an embedded version of FreeBSD
(nanoBSD) and released under 2-clause BSD
license
Enterprise-grade appliance (TrueNAS) is also
available in 2U/4U form factors with professional
support

4. Introduction
8.x is a rewrite of the original monolithic design
(.7x) to a modular design
8.0 was released May/11 with a focus on NAS
core functionality
8.0.2 was released Oct/11 and incorporates most
core features and many bug fixes
8.1, due late 2011 or early 2012, will introduce
plug-in architecture for addons

5. Introduction
If you're used to .7x:
Hardware requirements have changed
Designed to be installed on a thumb drive or
compact flash, not a hard drive
Graphical administrative interface is completely
different and info in .7x forums/docs won't apply
Many .7x features are not “core NAS” and may be
missing until plug-in architecture is available

6. Current Features
Create UFS or ZFS volumes (ZFS preferred)
Import existing UFS/ZFS RAID volumes
Import existing UFS, DOS, NTFS, EXT2/3
volumes
Create shares using Appletalk, NFS, and SMB
protocols
Configure access through FTP/SFTP, SSH, and
iSCSI

7. Current Features
Integration with OpenLDAP, Active Directory
Automated secure replication via rsync/ssh
Automated ZFS snapshots
Front-end to cron
Reporting graphs, scheduled S.M.A.R.T. tests,
automated alerts, UPS

8. Current Features
Link aggregation and failover
IEEE 802.1q VLAN support
DDNS, SNMP, and TFTP support
Control panel to stop/start and view the status of
services
Users Guide available in wiki, HTML, PDF, epub,
and Kindle formats

9. Current Features
Supports OSX Time Machine
Supports Windows Shadow Copies
Provides front-end to create ZFS clones, create
ZFS datasets (quotas, compression), create
zvols, export ZFS volumes, scrub ZFS volumes,
and view zpool status

10. ZFS
128-bit filesystem designed to be a “self-healing”
and to address hardware RAID issues with data
integrity
Snapshots only store what has changed since last
snapshot
Snapshots (which are ro) can be cloned (which
are rw)
Can rollback system to a snapshot

11. ZFS
Uses ZIL (ZFS Intent Log) to manage writes. SSD
½ size of RAM can increase performance.
Mirrored ZIL provides protection from data loss.
Uses L2ARC on-disk cache. Dedicated SSD may
accelerate read operations, especially when some
data is read repeatedly, and cannot fit in the
system memory ARC cache. Loss of device will
only slow down reads (no data loss).
http://www.solarisinternals.com/wiki/index.php/
ZFS_Best_Practices_Guide

12. ZFS
RAIDZ1: equivalent to RAID5 without the write-
hole
RAIDZ2: double-parity solution similar to RAID6
RAIDZ3: triple-parity solution
Caveats: resilvering takes time and can stress
disks

13. ZFS
Versions:
15: FreeNAS 8.0.2
28: FreeBSD 9.0, TrueNAS
adds RAIDZ3, deduplication
30: Oracle has not open sourced (yet?)
adds encryption
FreeBSD zfsd (ZFS fault monitoring and
management daemon) may address this

14. Planned Features for 8.1
Plug-in architecture for non-core functionality
Document API so users can contribute own plug-
ins
Integrate plug-in architecture with PBI format
Migration utility from .7 to 8.x
Front-end to sysctl and loader tunables

15. Configuration Workflow
1. Set the administrative username and password
2. Create volumes/datasets
3. Create users/groups or integrate with LDAP/AD
4. Configure share and volume permissions
5. Start applicable service(s)
6. Test the configuration

16. Demo

17. Participate
Report bugs
Try out the testing snapshots
Contribute configuration scenarios
Assist users on the forums or IRC
Blog or write a review about your FreeNAS
experience

18. Resources
Website:
http://www.freenas.org
Forums:
http://forums.freenas.org
Bug tracker:
http://support.freenas.org

19. Resources
Links to Users Guide:
http://doc.freenas.org
IRC:
#freenas on Freenode
Links to mailing lists, instructional videos, and
professional support:
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/
FreeNAS_Support_Resources

20. Questions
Contact:
dru@freebsd.org
URL to Slides:
http://slideshare.net/dlavigne/fsoss2011