openmediavault - Alternative to FreeNAS, OpenFiler etc

[shaithis]

Just added a couple of new NAS boxes (HP Microserver N40Ls) to my LAN and hit various issues with FreeNAS (stability, bugs)......then looked at OpenFiler.....different issues with that (can't install to USB, wastes an entire HDD).

Then I came across openmediavault. It's based on FreeNAS but uses Debian Linux instead of FreeBSD.

So far, I am seriously impressed with it. Not a single hiccup so far. The install is slightly longer and more convoluted then FreeNAS and there is no AD integration (not that FreeNASes worked properly!) but those are small prices to pay IMO.

Stability has been perfect, performance great. iSCSI, DAAP, LACP all working solidly.

Back to migrating VMs to new datastores!

[Biscuit]

Just added a couple of new NAS boxes (HP Microserver N40Ls) to my LAN and hit various issues with FreeNAS (stability, bugs)......then looked at OpenFiler.....different issues with that (can't install to USB, wastes an entire HDD).

Then I came across openmediavault. It's based on FreeNAS but uses Debian Linux instead of FreeBSD.

So far, I am seriously impressed with it. Not a single hiccup so far. The install is slightly longer and more convoluted then FreeNAS and there is no AD integration (not that FreeNASes worked properly!) but those are small prices to pay IMO.

Stability has been perfect, performance great. iSCSI, DAAP, LACP all working solidly.

Back to migrating VMs to new datastores!

Cheers for the heads up on this one, can you migrate an existing ZFS array or do you have to start from fresh?

[pollaxe]

I'm planning on taking this for a trial run this evening, all being well.

[shaithis]

It doesn't support ZFS (yet) so no migration unfortunately. It does do just about everything else though...including JFS and XFS. I've gone with XFS on my shares (NFS and CIFS/SAMBA) and a raw raid partition for my iSCSI LUNs.

[b0redom]

Looks similar to FreeNAS, but I'm pretty sure it's not based on. FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD rather than a Linux variant which is why they're allowed to use ZFS. ZFS is licensed under the CDDL which has an incompatible with GPL.

I've personally not come across any instability issues with FreeNAS, but I'm only using SMB/CIFS/iSCSI and no AD integration.

The killer thing for me is being able to shuffle all my disks across to new hardware and ZFS import the RAID-Z2 with a single command. I guess Linux is getting there with BTRFS, but last time I looked at that it still wasn't production ready.

[shaithis]

FreeNAS issues I hit (tried current release and a few alphas including yesterdays daily):

Once certain services are enabled.....no service or share "Propeties" dialog will complete....stuck at "loading" whenever you click on anything.
AD integration flakey at best. One in 10 or so attempts it sees the AD....occasionally it will use AD permissions but mostly ignores them.
Oddities with LACP. When using a bonded connection I was finding network utilisation would keep dropping to zero and then start going back up...basically halved network throughput.
Occasionally, disks would disapear and nothing bar a factory reset would make them appear again.

After 3 days of chasing my tail, I had to give up with it or my shiney new Microservers would have been taking a flight out of my window!

On top of that, there is also the lack-ness of:
No DAAP/iTunes server OTTB
No clever repositry-based update system

All my work was on FreeNAS 8 though.....I did attempt a try on FreeNAS 7 but it's version of ZFS is different and therefore I had to copy and detroy data to install.....by the time I reached that point I had had enough of FreeNAS and decided that if I had to wipe the system I would try a different product entirely...especially as they seem to be pushing FreeNAS 8 really hard (even though it appears to have less features!)

[Biscuit]

I dont even use AD and I have had a lot of issues with permissions on FreeNAS. Its infuriating to say the least and anything which actually works as you expect it to would be a breath of fresh air for me. Just not sure if i can back up my entire array and start again.

[b0redom]

I dont even use AD and I have had a lot of issues with permissions on FreeNAS. Its infuriating to say the least and anything which actually works as you expect it to would be a breath of fresh air for me. Just not sure if i can back up my entire array and start again.

Same for me I guess. I don't relish having to backup 6+TB of data.

I'm not using my FreeNAS in a multiuser environment, so I've not hit that problem. I tried a few other solutions before committing to FreeNAS - notably most of the Solaris/OpenSolaris based distributions for ZFS support. I also tried a number of the Linux distributions, but I really liked ZFS having used it in production, and LVM seemed a bit clunky.

At the moment it all seems to be working with no issues for me. As and when I get a problem, I'll re-evaluate the situation.

[spoon_]

Not sure if you guys know but OpenMediaVault is developed by one of the FreeNAS authors Volker Theile... He left some time ago when FreeNAS was about to put on hold.

[shaithis]

Nice bit of trivia thanks

It most definately has some striking similarities in the GUI!

[spoon_]

Not only that:

"The PHP-based user interface borrows code from FreeNAS which in turn is a m0n0wall derivate and includes code originating from pfSense"

[Biscuit]

Right thats it, fed up of freenas and its ****ty not working permissions... im giving openmediavault a try!

[Biscuit]

I tried to install it last night and it failed

After reading some instructions it seems the best approach is to remove all other drives except the one which is going to hold the OS before starting.

I did that this morning, set the install to 'text auto' and i came back half an hour later to find it running. Il post back in a few hours once i have got the shares running.

[Biscuit]

So it seems you need to format the drives separately from the openmediavault web interface as it has no feature accessible in the UI to wipe them and start from scratch?

Seems very odd for a NAS OS, would have thought that would be one of the first features to impliment... anyhoo i might make it easy on myself and just use G-Parted.

I dont fancy doing it but this guy posted a method of getting ZFS in OMV.
http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/op...php?f=16&t=314.

It seems the best approach to take is to:
1. Run G-Parted with all drives installed
2. Delete all partitions from your drives
3. Shut down then remove the data drives
4. Install using the 'text auto' option which (IIRC) will ask for your keyboard layout and password then crack on by itself
5. Once install is complete, shut down and install the data drives
6. Boot back up and you should be able to add filesystems or RAID depending on which you would like to do

[Jonj1611]

I tried installing it too mate, install went ok then on reboot it just fails with :-

Kernel panic - not syncing:VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (0,0)

I installed initially with 2 drives in the machine, then one only and thats the result.

[Biscuit]

Have a go at wiping the various partitions from both using GParted and start from fresh. I know you can probably do this with fdisk or something but if you dont know what you're doing then whats the point?
Do you not have a spare USB stick around you can use as the boot drive? Only needs to be 2GB i think.

It seems to be saying it will take 3 days to build my raid 5 array... wtf?!