FreeNAS as a scriptable system with a 'current' package repo

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Hi all,

My WD MyBook is old and I want to solve a problem with my next NAS.

The WD is configured for nightly rsync with an AWS cold volume. The distro is a flavor of debian-arm that is not kept well up-to-date in my experience, and any time I need a package that requires heavy updates to the system I usually opt-out of that approach and find a workaround, instead of potentially bricking the device.

My question is whether the system included with a FreeNAS Mini/Mini XL will be a different story. Simple requirements are being able to install standard scripting environments and associated package managers, like ruby/gem, python/pip and node/npm.

Also, to what package repo is FreeNAS tied, and who maintains it?

Finally, what's it like recovering a FreeNAS Mini if you accidentally screw up an important config file? Is there an alternate to TCP/IP for configuration console in such a case?

Thanks so much,
Brandon
 

SweetAndLow

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Nov 6, 2013
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1. Always leave the base freenas install alone
2. install everything in a jail, if it exists in the bsd port system you can install it(currently 26,151 ports). So yes what you call 'scripting environments' can be installed. You should test before you buy though.
3. To recover you reinstall the OS and upload your config file. You can always hook up a monitor and use the console to configure things or use ipmi remotely if you don't have access to the webui.

here are some helpfull links:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...home-freenas-setup-cost-me.28936/#post-190394
 

SweetAndLow

Sweet'NASty
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Nov 6, 2013
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6,421
Make sure to give it 6GB+ in the VM. When I try with less it crashes when creating jails.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
 
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