Presentation for SouthEast LinuxFest 2013.

1. A Sneak Peek at
FreeNAS 9.1
Dru Lavigne
Documentation Lead, iXsystems
SELF, June 8, 2013

2. Outline
Introduction and Features
ZFS Overview
What's New Since July, 2012
What's New in Upcoming 9.1
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. Features
Create UFS or ZFS volumes (ZFS recommended)
Import existing UFS/ZFS RAID/z 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

5. Features
Integration with OpenLDAP, Active Directory
Automated, secure replication via rsync/ssh
Automated ZFS snapshots and scrubs
Front-ends to cron, sysctls, loader.conf
Reporting graphs, scheduled S.M.A.R.T. tests,
automated alerts, UPS

6. Features
Link aggregation, failover, and VLAN support
DDNS, SNMP, and TFTP support
Supports OSX Time Machine and Windows
Shadow Copies
Control panel to stop/start and view the status of
services

7. Features
OS is installed on USB stick/CF and is separate
from data on storage disks
Upgrades keep a backup of the old OS, allowing
for rollback
Administrative GUI accessed through a web
browser; 8.2 added a web shell for command line
operations
Users Guide available in wiki, HTML, PDF, epub,
and Kindle formats

8. ZFS
128-bit filesystem designed to be “self-healing”
with checksums to provide data integrity
Snapshots (point in time) only store what has
changed since the last snapshot (COW)
Scheduled scrubs verify integrity of disks and data
Deduplication saves space (removes duplicate
data)
Datasets have properties (quotas, compression)

9. ZFS
RAIDZ* levels designed to overcome hardware
RAID limitations
RAIDZ1: equivalent to RAID5
RAIDZ2: double-parity solution similar to RAID6
RAIDZ3: triple-parity solution
Caveats: resilvering takes time and can stress
disks

10. Releases
8.0 was released in May, 2011 with a focus on
NAS core functionality (redesign of .7x which was
EOL'd in 2011)
8.2.0 introduced the original Plugins architecture
(July 20, 2012)
8.3.0 introduced ZFSv28 (October 26, 2012)
8.3.1 introduced full disk encryption (March 20,
2013)
9.1.0 will enter beta in June, 2013

11. What's New
8.2.0:
FreeNAS plugins provide the administrator the
flexibility to install additional software from the
FreeNAS GUI to meet the requirements of the
NAS
Based on FreeBSD jails and PC-BSD PBIs. As
each Plugin is installed, an icon is added to the
FreeNAS GUI which is used to configure the
application and start/stop its service
http://www.slideshare.net/dlavigne/scale13

12. What's New
8.3.0:
ZFSv28 adds deduplication, RAIDZ3, improved
snapshot support, and removable log devices
autoexpand property allows pool expansion by
replacing existing disks with larger ones

13. What's New
8.3.1:
GELI full disk encryption for new ZFS volumes
(not ZFSv30 encryption which is closed source)
Full disk encryption, not per-filesystem encryption
Targeted at users who store sensitive data and
want the ability to safely dispose of disks
(independent of the encryption key) without wiping
them first
http://www.slideshare.net/dlavigne/nelf2013

14. What's New in 9.1
Based on 9.1:
Many new drivers and bug fixes since 8.x
Same ABI as PC-BSD PBIs means that there is
more software available for installation (over
1100)

15. What's New in 9.1
Volume Manager:
UFS and ZFS now have separate managers
How to extend a ZFS pool or add log/cache
devices is more intuitive
Easier to manage a large amount of disks
Estimated size of ZFS pool is displayed for
selected RAIDZ* layout and GUI will not let you
create an unsupported layout

16. ZFS Volume Manager

17. ZFS Volume Manager

18. ZFS Volume Manager

19. What's New in 9.1
Plugins Redesign:
Supports multiple types of jails and multiple jail
installations
Additional software can now be installed using
FreeNAS PBIs, PC-BSD PBIs, FreeBSD
packages, FreeBSD ports, and pkgng
How to add storage to a jail is more intuitive

20. Plugins Redesign

21. Plugins Redesign

22. Plugins Redesign

23. Plugins Redesign

24. Plugins Redesign

25. What's New in 9.1
Misc:
Shell supports paste and resizing
Alerts can be dismissed
GUI now supports addition of Init/Shutdown
scripts
GUI now supports NIS configuration

26. What's New in 9.1
Misc:
Can now configure replication user
Can now change SFTP logging level/facility
Can specify NFS bind ports
zilstat added to help determine if system would
benefit from dedicated ZIL device

27. Resources
Website: http://www.freenas.org
Forums: http://forums.freenas.org
Bug tracker: http://support.freenas.org
Users Guide: http://doc.freenas.org
IRC: #freenas on Freenode

28. Questions
Contact:
dru@freebsd.org
URL to Slides:
http://slideshare.net/dlavigne/self2013