FreeNAS 9.10-RELEASE now available!

[jkh]

Hi folks,

The FreeNAS Development Team is very happy to announce that FreeNAS 9.10-RELEASE is now available!

This is an interim release between the 9.3 series and 10 (which is still a few months away), using the same UI and middleware that everyone is used to from 9.3 but with new OS underpinnings, specifically FreeBSD 10.3-RC3.

Coincident with this release of 9.10, we are also placing 9.3 into maintenance mode and will only be pushing further updates to the 9.3-STABLE train in response to the most critical security advisories or product flaws. We therefore strongly suggest that all current users of 9.3 upgrade to 9.10 in order to continue to benefit from the ongoing maintenance and bug fix work we will be doing on the 9.10-STABLE Train. Most, if not all, bug fixes will be made exclusively to the 9.10-STABLE train in reaction to tickets filed on http://bugs.freenas.org. Again: Users who choose to stay on the 9.3-STABLE train will see only the most critical bug fixes and no new features or non-essential enhancements.

To update to 9.10 from 9.3, go to System->Update and select the 9.10-STABLE train from the Train selection drop-down. To update from any earlier release of FreeNAS to 9.10, simply grab the ISO image and boot it (from CD, IPMI or USB stick), selecting the Upgrade option in the installer.

A note on jails for 9.10: As you will see in the release notes, the FreeNAS jail templates have also been updated to FreeBSD 10.3. Due to the way templates are cached, however, anyone currently using jails (including plugins) will continue to use the cached (already fetched) 9.3 jail templates. This is not really a problem since FreeBSD 10 is backwards compatible with 9.3 and all existing plugins and jails should continue to function normally after the upgrade, but should you create any new jails or plugins, you may be surprised to note that they're also using the 9.3 templates. This is a limitation of the jails architecture in FreeNAS which is being addressed differently in 10, and for now the only way around this is, unfortunately, to nuke your jails dataset completely (to delete all cached templates) along with any jails in it, and start over with a new jails dataset.

Also as noted in the release notes, experimental support for bhyve virtual machines has been added to this release, along with an interim tool called iohyve for managing them. In 10, VM management will all be handled at a much higher level in the new middleware, but for now, at least, users with sufficient Unix savvy can create VMs for experimentation purposes. Given that 9.10 and 10 both use the same version of bhyve, those same users should also be able to hand-migrate their VM images when the time comes.

The upgrade to FreeBSD 10.3 brings a lot of new hardware support and performance improvements to the popular FreeNAS 9.x series, and we sincerely hope you enjoy this release while we continue to work hard to bring you the ground-up rewrite that is 10!

Sincerely,

The FreeNAS Development Team

Release Notes:

OS:
The base OS version for FreeNAS 9.10 is now FreeBSD 10.3-RC3,
bringing in a huge number of OS-related bug fixes, performance
improvements and new features (new drivers, new CPU chipset support,
USB 3.0, etc) and basic support for hosting virtual machines with
bhyve.

Directory Services:
You can now connect to large AD domains with cache disabled.

Reporting:
Add the ability to send collectd data to a remote graphite server.

Hardware Support:
Added Support for Intel I219-V & I219-LM Gigabit Ethernet Chipset
Added Support for Intel Skylake architecture
Improved support for USB devices (like network adapters)
USB 3.0 devices now supported.

Filesharing:
Samba (SMB filesharing) updated from version 4.1 to 4.3.4
Added GUI feature to allow nfsv3-like ownership when using nfsv4
Various bug fixes related to FreeBSD 10. For more in-depth information,
see the ChangeLog file.

Ports:
FreeBSD ports updated to follow the FreeBSD 2016Q1 branch.

Jails:
FreeBSD Jails now default to a FreeBSD 10.3-RC2 based template.
Old jails, or systems on which jails have been installed, will still
default to the previous FreeBSD 9.3 based template. Only those machines
using jails for the first time (or deleting and recreating their jails
dataset) will use the new template.

bhyve:
In the upcoming 10 release, the CLI will offer full support for managing
virtual machines and containers. Until then, the iohyve command is
bundled as a stop-gap solution to provide basic VM management support -
see https://github.com/pr1ntf/iohyve for more information.

Trains:
Nightlies branch now gets you FreeNAS-9.10-Nightlies
This release, and all future updates to it, are on the FreeNAS-9.10-STABLE
train.

 

[Deebs]

Hi,

I do not see 9.10-STABLE as a dropdown, I am running the 9.10-Nightlies if that makes a difference. Also, where are the upgrade files as I need to upgrade a test box without internet access and I cannot find them at the URL above.

Many thanks

 

[jkh]

I do not see 9.10-STABLE as a dropdown, I am running the 9.10-Nightlies if that makes a difference. Also, where are the upgrade files as I need to upgrade a test box without internet access and I cannot find them at the URL above.

I have no idea why it doesn't show up in the drop-down; it does on all my test machines. Perhaps a proxy or some other networking issue on your end getting in the way? You also use the ISO image to upgrade now - we have simplified the process in that respect (just 2 upgrade methods, as noted in the announcement: Update server and ISO).

 

[jdong]

Is there much of an advantage to nuking the jails dataset to get to 9.10 based jail templates?

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

so current plugins (compiled on freebsd 9.3) will install and work on 10 based templates?

if not, any idea how long 9.10 will be around until 10.X is released (im probably the 100th person to ask =P )?

and when should we expect insight on the 10.X plugin system?=]

 

[Deebs]

I have no idea why it doesn't show up in the drop-down; it does on all my test machines. Perhaps a proxy or some other networking issue on your end getting in the way? You also use the ISO image to upgrade now - we have simplified the process in that respect (just 2 upgrade methods, as noted in the announcement: Update server and ISO).

I will look into this further if you are not seeing any issue on your end. As for using the ISO, that now requires physical access or IPMI to upgrade which is something I would rather do as a last resort as my machines are headless. I've just noticed that the Manual Update button has been completely removed :(

 

[ThreeDee]

I will look into this further if you are not seeing any issue on your end. As for using the ISO, that now requires physical access or IPMI to upgrade which is something I would rather do as a last resort as my machines are headless. I've just noticed that the Manual Update button has been completely removed :(

Just another ".. it popped up for me" reply .. 9.10 STABLE showed up and installed just fine here.

 

[jkh]

so current plugins (compiled on freebsd 9.3) will install and work on 10 based templates?

Yes, FreeBSD 10 is backwards compatible with 9 (I should put that in an auto-responder :) ).

if not, any idea how long 9.10 will be around until 10.X is released (im probably the 100th person to ask =P )?

and when should we expect insight on the 10.X plugin system?=]

9.10 will be supported for at least a year after 10 goes to RELEASE status, if not even longer. The 10.X plugin system will be based on Docker and we will be pointing at a lot of relevant Docker documentation when the time comes. :)

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Yes, FreeBSD 10 is backwards compatible with 9 (I should put that in an auto-responder :) ).


9.10 will be supported for at least a year after 10 goes to RELEASE status, if not even longer. The 10.X plugin system will be based on Docker and we will be pointing at a lot of relevant Docker documentation when the time comes. :)

by docker, does that mean freebsd ports will no longer be used and everything will be running through the Linux layer?
or is docker going to be supporting freebsd ports?
I really hope we can have the latter as I like the ports system and don't want to learn something new, lol. plus native performance vs the Linux layer

##EDIT##
did some searching, I guess you can have freebsd docker images too! though I think it's really early days, because I haven't found much. but this makes me happy, I won't need to learn how systemd works and can stick to my freebsd rc.d scripts =P

 

[nadrojylloh]

So I have an OpenVPN jail and a Plex server running perfectly right now (*knocks on wood), and I have a couple concerns regarding the statement below:

A note on jails for 9.10: As you will see in the release notes, the FreeNAS jail templates have also been updated to FreeBSD 10.3. Due to the way templates are cached, however, anyone currently using jails (including plugins) will continue to use the cached (already fetched) 9.3 jail templates. This is not really a problem since FreeBSD 10 is backwards compatible with 9.3 and all existing plugins and jails should continue to function normally after the upgrade, but should you create any new jails or plugins, you may be surprised to note that they're also using the 9.3 templates. This is a limitation of the jails architecture in FreeNAS which is being addressed differently in 10, and for now the only way around this is, unfortunately, to nuke your jails dataset completely (to delete all cached templates) along with any jails in it, and start over with a new jails dataset.

1) What is the likelihood that upgrading to 9.10 will break either of these (I'm guessing it's pretty low)?

2) What would be the limitations down the line if I were to keep using the 9.3 templates for future jails. In other words, if I did not blow away my current jails and start fresh on FreeBSD 10.3, what complications/restrictions might I run into when adding new jails down the road?

3) What are the chances that my OpenVPN jail won't work if I blow the current one away and recreate it on the 10.3 template?

If anyone can shed some light on this, that would be awesome. Thanks!

 

[dan3408]

Thanks for an easy and mundane upgrade! I think that I have a broken cronjob, but everything else just works.

It would be helpful to understand more about the caveats on jail templates. Do you have a pointer to the best location on github to look at diffs? Will the templates be updated from 10.3-RC2-based to 10.3-RELEASE, and will that require again deleting and recreating the jails/plugins?

 

[niclas]

Thanks for an easy and mundane upgrade! I think that I have a broken cronjob, but everything else just works.

It would be helpful to understand more about the caveats on jail templates. Do you have a pointer to the best location on github to look at diffs? Will the templates be updated from 10.3-RC2-based to 10.3-RELEASE, and will that require again deleting and recreating the jails/plugins?

I already asked about the templates being updated again in the Nightlies thread and got this answer:

We're not going to update the jail templates again for 9.10, no - there's no need to. That FreeBSD branch is already frozen and we anticipate few, if any, relevant changes to be made to it.

 

[Middling]

Under 10.3 jails pkg doesn't seem to work.

Here's the process i used for switching to 10.3 jails:

1) Create new dataset
2) Stop running jails
3) Under Jails/Configuration set "Jail root" to new dataset
4) Under Jails/Configuration/Advanced mode set "Collection URL" to http://download.freenas.org/jails/10/x64/
5) Save Jails config
6) Create new jail (10.3 template is downloaded and jail correctly created)

Logging in and attempting a pkg upgrade results in:

Code:

# pkg upgrade
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up-to-date.
All repositories are up-to-date.
Checking for upgrades (0 candidates): 100%
Processing candidates (0 candidates): 100%
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
Your packages are up to date.

Trying to install a package:

Code:

# pkg install nano
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up-to-date.
All repositories are up-to-date.
pkg: No packages available to install matching 'nano' have been found in the repositories

Maybe FreeNAS needs a reboot to ensure everything is correctly set to the new location (i've a vague recollection that i might have needed to do this when i previously moved my jails to SSD). I'll try it later once the server isn't being used.

Incidentally, if you remove the "Collection URL" completely and save it as an empty field it gets repopulated with "http://download.freenas.org/latest/RELEASE/x64/jails" which results in a 404 error.

 

[kjp4756]

So I have an OpenVPN jail and a Plex server running perfectly right now (*knocks on wood), and I have a couple concerns regarding the statement below:


1) What is the likelihood that upgrading to 9.10 will break either of these (I'm guessing it's pretty low)?

2) What would be the limitations down the line if I were to keep using the 9.3 templates for future jails. In other words, if I did not blow away my current jails and start fresh on FreeBSD 10.3, what complications/restrictions might I run into when adding new jails down the road?

3) What are the chances that my OpenVPN jail won't work if I blow the current one away and recreate it on the 10.3 template?

If anyone can shed some light on this, that would be awesome. Thanks!

You may want to wait to upgrade until you are ready to destroy your jails and re-create them using the 10.3 template. I just upgraded to 9.10 and found 1 problem so far with my jails; netstat no longer works in any of the jails. I get 'netstat: no namelist'. This is likely due to the kernel and the base files in the jail being mismatched versions. I don't know if there are any other problems. I destroyed my jails dataset and am currently re-creating using the new template.

 

[nadrojylloh]

You may want to wait to upgrade until you are ready to destroy your jails and re-create them using the 10.3 template. I just upgraded to 9.10 and found 1 problem so far with my jails; netstat no longer works in any of the jails. I get 'netstat: no namelist'. This is likely due to the kernel and the base files in the jail being mismatched versions. I don't know if there are any other problems. I destroyed my jails dataset and am currently re-creating using the new template.

Thanks for the input. I spent so much time trying to get OpenVPN to work, so I think I'll wait on upgrading for the time being. Although, I could probably reconfigure it fairly easily. I would need to make new keys and all that though, and my client users will not be happy about the downtime.

 

[wondercow]

Under 10.3 jails pkg doesn't seem to work.

Here's the process i used for switching to 10.3 jails:

1) Create new dataset
2) Stop running jails
3) Under Jails/Configuration set "Jail root" to new dataset
4) Under Jails/Configuration/Advanced mode set "Collection URL" to http://download.freenas.org/jails/10/x64/
5) Save Jails config
6) Create new jail (10.3 template is downloaded and jail correctly created)

Logging in and attempting a pkg upgrade results in:

Code:

# pkg upgrade
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up-to-date.
All repositories are up-to-date.
Checking for upgrades (0 candidates): 100%
Processing candidates (0 candidates): 100%
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
Your packages are up to date.

Trying to install a package:

Code:

# pkg install nano
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up-to-date.
All repositories are up-to-date.
pkg: No packages available to install matching 'nano' have been found in the repositories

Maybe FreeNAS needs a reboot to ensure everything is correctly set to the new location (i've a vague recollection that i might have needed to do this when i previously moved my jails to SSD). I'll try it later once the server isn't being used.

Incidentally, if you remove the "Collection URL" completely and save it as an empty field it gets repopulated with "http://download.freenas.org/latest/RELEASE/x64/jails" which results in a 404 error.

For me, rebooting was an option but didn't work. I'm getting:

Code:

root@owncloud:/ # pkg upgrade
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
Repository FreeBSD has a wrong packagesite, need to re-create database
[owncloud] Fetching meta.txz: 100% 968 B 1.0kB/s 00:01
[owncloud] Fetching packagesite.txz: 100% 5 MiB 2.8MB/s 00:02
Processing entries: 0%
pkg: wrong architecture: freebsd:9:x86:64 instead of FreeBSD:10:amd64
pkg: repository FreeBSD contains packages with wrong ABI: freebsd:9:x86:64
Processing entries: 100%
Unable to update repository FreeBSD
All repositories are up-to-date.
Checking for upgrades (0 candidates): 100%
Processing candidates (0 candidates): 100%
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
Your packages are up to date.

The problem is here:

Code:

root@owncloud:/ # pkg -vv

...snip...

Repositories:
FreeBSD: {
url : "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/freebsd:9:x86:64/latest",
enabled : yes,
priority : 0,
mirror_type : "SRV",
signature_type : "FINGERPRINTS",
fingerprints : "/usr/share/keys/pkg"
}

The fix is:

vi /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf
and change freebsd:9:x86:64 to ${ABI}

EDIT: Looks like someone already reported this bug: https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/14211

EDIT2: My previous advice was not good advice...don't do that. You need to delete your entire jails dataset in the storage tab and then things will work correctly. My previous solution was just a band-aid hiding further problems.

 

[m0nkey_]

Everything appears to be working as expected for me. Already have a bug ticket open for the iohyve tool, since I had a couple of config issues. Got a Debian VM to boot without issue after a linking /mnt/iohyve to /iohyve as suggested.

 

[toadman]

Upgrade worked, no problem. My only issue was on a VM instance using some vmxnet3 interfaces, I had to reconfigure each interface. The 9.3 interface names were vmx3f0 - vmx3fN. In 9.10 they are just vmx0 - vmxN. Once that was done, all good so far.

 

[wondercow]

Just updated my post above...further research indicates it was not the best solution.

 

[diskdiddler]

Let me clarify this, I can upgrade from 9.3.1 to 9.10 through the GUI, but it's containing a huge amount of code from FreeNAS 10, right?
Would I be right in thinking that this may cause issues at a driver / support level though, for certain chunks of hardware?
It sounds like a potentially hugely risky upgrade to me. (Also the version numbering, 9.3.1 to 9.10 is .... odd)