Any ETA for an 11.3-BETA? 11.2 soon to be deprecated by upstream (FreeBSD)

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Hi all,

From: Jan Beich <jbeich@freebsd.org>
To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org
Subject: [HEADS UP] Binary packages for FreeBSD 11 to require 11.3 soon
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 04:19:07 +0200
Message-ID: <sgo1-gx5w-wny@FreeBSD.org>

FreeBSD 11.3 was released on 2019-07-09. After adding 3 months support
overlap it'd be 2019-10-09 (yesterday). Given 11.2 is EOL the package
cluster will upgrade from 11.2 to 11.3 [*] while the ports tree would
adjust ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_SYSTEM knob and drop 11.2-specific workarouds.
Once packages for 11.3 are built (from 2 to 4 days + few hours to mirror)
/quarterly and /latest won't be usable on 11.2 anymore. /release_2 from
2018-06-05 should still work.

So, upgrade to FreeBSD 11.3 or backup 11.2 packages. If you're on
FreeBSD 11.3 already beware some packages may disappear due to broken
build e.g., from base Clang/libc++ 8 upgrade.

--
[*] Look for 113amd64 and 113i386 jails on https://pkg-status.freebsd.org/
May not be visible until build starts e.g., on Tue/Thu/Sat at 01:00 UTC.
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This implies that we will not be able to create or update jails with binary packages installed after the switch date. While it is possible to run an 11.2 jail on an 11.3 kernel/system, it is not the other way round.

We had the same situation with the switch from 11.1 to 11.2 ...

Kind regards,
Patrick

 

[mccann73]

Been keeping an eye on the Jira pages, I see they have put a release date on the 11.3 beta of 05/Nov/19, currently with 33 outstanding tickets...

 

[Jailer]

It's the same situation FreeNAS has always been in. If you have jails that need to be current then you need to use something else for them. It's the same reason I have seriously considered moving my jails off FreeNAS on onto a vanilla FreeBSD installation. If it weren't for the ease of server management that FreeNAS offers I would have done so long ago.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

It's the same situation FreeNAS has always been in. If you have jails that need to be current then you need to use something else for them. It's the same reason I have seriously considered moving my jails off FreeNAS on onto a vanilla FreeBSD installation. If it weren't for the ease of server management that FreeNAS offers I would have done so long ago.

Well, one could update the base system earlier independent of development of FreeNAS specific features. E.g. build 11.2-U6 on a FreeBSD 11.3 base system ...
It's not that the deprecation of a particular FreeBSD branch comes as a surprise ;-)

Kind regards,
Patrick

 

[seanm]

This has been what I've been most disappointed with about FreeNAS, it's seeming inability to stay current with security releases of the OS and various dependencies.

We're now 3 weeks away from the *newest* version of FreeNAS being based on an *EoL* version of FreeBSD. Crazy.

It's one thing to be told "don't put your FreeNAS on the Internet", but apparently you can't safely put any jail on the internet either, since the jail OS can't be any newer either. :(

 

[mccann73]

I thought FreeNAS now followed the BSD version number, ie, FreeNAS 11.3 will be released on FreeBSD 11.3, which just released in July 2019 and is the current version of the 11 branch, with the branch EOL by the end of 2021.

With the huge amount of work done for 11.3, I can understand why they kept to the 11 branch, moving to12 once everything has settled down...

 

[seanm]

I thought FreeNAS now followed the BSD version number, ie, FreeNAS 11.3 will be released on FreeBSD 11.3, which just released in July 2019 and is the current version of the 11 branch, with the branch EOL by the end of 2021.

I believe that's correct. But FreeNAS is currently based on FreeBSD 11.2, which is EOL in 3 weeks. It's looking like FreeNAS 11.3 *beta* won't be out before that, to say nothing of the non-beta release date. Until then, FreeNAS 11.2 is running on an OS version that doesn't get even security updates:

https://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-announce@freebsd.org/msg00919.html

"As of October 31, 2019, FreeBSD 11.2 will reach end-of-life and will no longer be supported by the FreeBSD Security Team. Users of FreeBSD 11.2 are strongly encouraged to upgrade to a newer release as soon as possible."

 

[Apollo]

Freenas 11.2-U6 does have support for 11.3 iocage jails it seems. Just specify 11.3-RELEASE duringn jail creation.
I haven't done much testing though.

 

[Jailer]

Freenas 11.2-U6 does have support for 11.3 iocage jails it seems. Just specify 11.3-RELEASE duringn jail creation.
I haven't done much testing though.

You can't run a jail on a newer version of FreeBSD than the host.

 

[mjt5282]

as a test, I DL'd Freebsd 12-stable and compiled openzfs on Freebsd (https://github.com/zfsonfreebsd/ZoF), installed it and mounted my freenas pools. They all imported fine, I was careful not to upgrade the pool and played around with the plain freebsd interface. No web UI, but the new ZFS trim functionality, of course native ZFS encryption, etc. I gather this is not going to be in the 11.3 beta whenever that comes out. I am also tempted to "leave the nest" and migrate to plain Freebsd, but I probably have more Unix experience than most FN users....

 

[Monkey_Demon]

You can't run a jail on a newer version of FreeBSD than the host.

Using FreeNAS 11.2-U6 I created a jail with 11.3-RELEASE. Everything was fine until I tried to start the jail. The error message said one can't start a jail with a release > the one that's on the system. Jailer is right.

But then I decided to use iocage to create a jail and followed these instructions. When I did so, the iocage fetch command (Step 2 in the instructions) gave me the choice of 3 releases: 11.2-RELEASE, 11.3-RELEASE, and 12.0-RELEASE. It also gave a warning: "WARNING: FreeBSD 11.2-RELEASE is approaching its End-of-Life date. It is strongly recommended that you upgrade to a newer release within the next 1 week."

Now I'm quite worried. If FreeNAS release numbers are coordinated with the underlying version of FreeBSD used in the build, and we don't even have a production version of 11.3 yet, do we even know we'll be able to use iocage to build jails after this month?

Also, I'm rather new to FreeNAS and FreeBSD. Using the CLI to snoop around, I happened to notice the jail I had created using FreeNAS's GUI had a path suggesting it's an iocage jail. Does this imply that the GUI uses iocage behind the scenes and that all the CLI tedium is unnecessary?

 

[mjt5282]

Freenas 11.2 uses iocage to manage it's jails. Older version of FN used warden. Our worry on this thread is that when Freebsd 11.2 is EOL'd in one week, then, yes, pkg's will no longer update and we will in essence be forced to upgraded to the 11.3 beta when released if we want newer packages. The installed and running jails will continue to run, we just can't expect that behind the scenes that the freebsd 11.2 packages will ever upgrade again.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Now I'm quite worried. If FreeNAS release numbers are coordinated with the underlying version of FreeBSD used in the build, and we don't even have a production version of 11.3 yet, do we even know we'll be able to use iocage to build jails after this month?

No, we won't. This is precisely the point of this thread.

I don't care about any new features of FreeNAS 11.3 - 11.2 does everything I need. IMHO the development model must start to separate feature releases from the underlying FreeBSD version. So that we can have e.g. FreeNAS 11.2-U7 based on a FreeBSD 11.3 system.

And while I'm ok with using the 11.3-BETA - we do not have that, yet. It's nightly development snapshots, that are not guaranteed to even run at all.

Kind regards,
Patrick

 

[Monkey_Demon]

Freenas 11.2 uses iocage to manage it's jails. Older version of FN used warden. Our worry on this thread is that when Freebsd 11.2 is EOL'd in one week, then, yes, pkg's will no longer update and we will in essence be forced to upgraded to the 11.3 beta when released if we want newer packages. The installed and running jails will continue to run, we just can't expect that behind the scenes that the freebsd 11.2 packages will ever upgrade again.

Right now I'm mainly doing this to get Plex running. Does what you say about the switch to iocage imply that a plugin installed through the FreeNAS Plugins tool will automatically set itself up in its own iocage jail? In other words, the only difference between manually installing Plex using pkg in an independently created jail and using FreeNAS's Plugins tool is that one can update a manual installation to the latest version without waiting for it to be released as a FreeNAS Plugin?

 

[Monkey_Demon]

... IMHO the development model must start to separate feature releases from the underlying FreeBSD version. So that we can have e.g. FreeNAS 11.2-U7 based on a FreeBSD 11.3 system.

And while I'm ok with using the 11.3-BETA - we do not have that, yet. It's nightly development snapshots, that are not guaranteed to even run at all.

Totally agree with 99% of this. I'd adopt the convention that the first release of a new version of FreeNAS would always be an OS-only upgrade and would be numbered .0. E.g., FreeNAS 11.3.0 would be the first 11.3 release and differ from all previous FreeNAS releases only in that it would be built on FreeBSD 11.3 but have no other substantive changes to FreeNAS.

The problem with this is that there may be some OS-specific dependencies that require changes to FreeNAS, so the FreeNAS part of 11.3.0 won't be identical to that of 11.2.x. Also, making bug fixes and enhancements to say FreeNAS 11.3.1, may require retracing some steps to customize how FreeBSD is configured and hooked into FreeNAS. This creates more work. But IMHO, learning from the experience running the new version of FreeBSD without changing FreeNAS and the clarity and efficiencies for users due to running the current version of FreeBSD would be worth any such extra effort.

 

[Apollo]

Totally agree with 99% of this. I'd adopt the convention that the first release of a new version of FreeNAS would always be an OS-only upgrade and would be numbered .0. E.g., FreeNAS 11.3.0 would be the first 11.3 release and differ from all previous FreeNAS releases only in that it would be built on FreeBSD 11.3 but have no other substantive changes to FreeNAS.

The problem with this is that there may be some OS-specific dependencies that require changes to FreeNAS, so the FreeNAS part of 11.3.0 won't be identical to that of 11.2.x. Also, making bug fixes and enhancements to say FreeNAS 11.3.1, may require retracing some steps to customize how FreeBSD is configured and hooked into FreeNAS. This creates more work. But IMHO, learning from the experience running the new version of FreeBSD without changing FreeNAS and the clarity and efficiencies for users due to running the current version of FreeBSD would be worth any such extra effort.

Since introduction of Coral a while back there has been many drastic changes at the OS level and migration from Warden jails to iocage has been a tough endeavor. Even the GUI had to be revamped.
iocage jails alone have been a feature that have slowly evolved for the better but it took a significant amount of time.
Now, I think this is something developers shouldn't have to tinker too much anymore and this should free them to do the more important stuff.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

In other words, the only difference between manually installing Plex using pkg in an independently created jail and using FreeNAS's Plugins tool is that one can update a manual installation to the latest version without waiting for it to be released as a FreeNAS Plugin?

Yes. I run all my applications this way. Mineos, Nextcloud ... all manually installed via pkg in standard jails. Only that the ability to update just ended with the FreeBSD packages switching to 11.3. But while the FreeBSD release used is still supported, definitely yes.

HTH,
Patrick

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

BTW ... the silence from iX Systems is deafening :p

 

[anmnz]

Well yeah but iX folks never have monitored these user forums much (@dlavigne's efforts are an exception!)

A Jira ticket is the way to engage them.

 

[arnicks]

Only that the ability to update just ended with the FreeBSD packages switching to 11.3.

I could be wrong as I only really dabble in FreeBSD admin... I thought the change in package support was based on major releases, not minor.

I know I just had to update a couple of servers I had still running FreeBSD 10.3 a while ago after the loss of pkg support, but from what I read, and thought I understood, it was the EOL of 10 that meant that I lost ports/pkg support and any release of 11.x will work until the last release becomes EOL.

Based on the release notes for using freebsd-update, I stepped through several EOL releases (e.g. 11.0) on the way to 11.3 and had no problems with packages once I had got the right INDEX-11 in place etc.

Lets hope we don't have the same problem counting down to 11.3 to EOL without a FreeNAS 12 ready for production - then loss of packages will certainly be on the cards.

Rgds
Andrew