FreeNAS 9.2.1.8-RELEASE is now available

Time for another FreeNAS release! This one fixes a number of issues in 9.2.1.7 as well as addressing the “shellshock” security vulnerability in bash (to which FreeNAS is not generally vulnerable as bash is not the system shell, but it was still worth fixing).

The list of bugs fixed in 9.2.1.8-RELEASE can be found here. The release notes for 9.2.1.8:

• Fix bug where use of NONE cipher in replication erroneously reported an error on a successful replication.
• Don’t enable lz4 compression on replication by default if upgrading from a pre-9.2.1.7 release.
• Multiple kernel iSCSI / CTL improvements. This includes VMWare VAAI and Microsoft ODX acceleration support, improved performance and fixes for number of bugs. Kernel iSCSI can be activated by checking the experimental target checkbox under services -> iSCSI.
• Improve performance of viewing snapshots when replication tasks are set up.
• Allow binding CIFS to specific IPs.
• Fix LDAP bind URL when using TLS.
• Validate AD advanced settings. If the GC or DC are manually specified make sure they are reachable.
• Set UNIX permissions when the Mac permissions radio button is selected. Netatalk does not play nicely with ACLs.
• Fix a bug in the mail sending routines used by FreeNAS. With some mailserver configurations the To: address could’ve been set to root instead of the address specified in the root user.
• Fix a bug that prevented the system from showing the replicated status of a snapshot if the remote path differed from the local path.
• “Shellshock” security vulnerability in bash (which is not the system shell FreeNAS or FreeBSD) proactively closed.

http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/2014/09/freenas-9-2-1-8-release-is-now-available.html

New FreeNas release

I love FreeNas but they don't half release on an almost too regular basis.

They are planning a auto-update feature in their next major update which might be nice as long as they put some good QA in place before releases.

Anyway:

Release announcement:
http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/2014/04/announcing-freenas-9-2-1-5-waking-up-edition.html

Bug fixes:
https://bugs.freenas.org/projects/freenas/issues?query_id=75

FreeNAS 9.2.1-RELEASE announced

Seems to get better and better with every update! The plugins are also being well maintained.

I've not fully played with Plex yet but that looks pretty capable as well.

http://www.freebsdnews.net/2014/02/08/freenas-9-2-1-release-announced/

A new major release of FreeNAS is out!

First link for the news, second for the user manual.

http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/2013/08/ixsystems-announces-revolutionary-freenas-9-1-0-release.html

http://www.freenas.org/images/resources/freenas9.1.0/freenas9.1.0_guide.pdf

HP ProLiant G7 N54L 2.2GHz MicroServer deal on @ eBuyer

eBuyer has their next HP micro server promotion up. Its a slight upgrade over what I think was the N40L (Could be N45L).  The price is currently £209 with a £100 cashback (you'll be waiting a month or so for this).

The specs are pretty basic, but this is ideal for my intended purpose of it being a NAS box to share all my videos and music across multiple devices. I haven't bought any upgrades for it as of yet. I want to experiment with it first as it'll be my first NAS box. The 250GB hard disk should suffice for the mean time until I am ready to use it properly. Its interesting to see what people have done in terms of running the OS off a flash drive on the internal USB port or their set-ups with RAID arrays.

I'll also need some sort of Dynamic DNS service as I'm on a residential Sky broadband line with a dynamic IP. Free ones can be had from www.no-ip.biz, but there is also dyndns.com which is $25 a year. Then again with the O2 purchase, Sky has been hinting at rolling out a static IP address to some customers. My guess is probably at an extra cost which is fair enough as it isn't a business service I guess.

Other concerns are noise. I want it to be dead quiet as its going to sit in the living room. I recently upgraded my Shuttles graphics card (a whole different beast) and it's noticeably louder these days.

http://www.freenas.org/ is looking like the OS of choice from what my colleague suggested.
From what the site says it looks pretty versatile which is what I need running a variety of OS's in my household.

I've not used a Windows server in a long while now, but it might be worth a download of the trail version to have a look. I've heard some good things about Windows Server 2012.

Link to the product is here:
http://www.ebuyer.com/430446-proliant-microserver-turion-2-2-2gb-250gb-nhpl-sata-lff-in-704941-421