FreeNAS / News: Recent posts

This release upgrade lot's of FreeNAS components (fupes, netatalk, iSCSI initiator, PHP, etc…), permit to use Asynchronous IO (disabled by default) that improve a lot's samba file transfers and fix lot's of bugs.

All details are available here:
http://freenas.org/changelog

After a long time i'm proud to announce the release of the 0.7 final release. Thanks to all that help to find bugs and improve FreeNAS. Please see the changes below:

Majors changes:
- Add ability to configure the login shell for a user.
- Upgrade Samba to 3.0.37.
- Upgrade transmission to 1.72.
- Local users must join the group 'ftp' to be able to login via FTP if
'Local users only' in 'Services|FTP' is enabled.
- Upgrade lighttpd to 1.4.23.
- Add a user portal. This allows a local user to login and change it's
password. The user must have access permissions to login to the user portal.
This can be configured in the user configuration WebGUI. Please note that
the administrator needs to apply changes done by the local users because
there have to be restarted several services (which is not allowed to be
done by a user).
- Upgrade ProFTPD to 1.3.2a.
- Upgrade iSCSI initiator to 2.2.3.
- Upgrade fusefs-ntfs/ntfs-3g to 2009.4.4.
- Announce AFP shares using Bonjour/ZeroConf (FR 2839592). Thanks to Morton
Jonuschat.
- Add AFP FP_SYNCFORK command support (FR 2836955). Thanks to Morton Jonuschat
for the patch.
- Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.41.8.
- Add Adaptec AACRAID 32/64-bit driver to v5.2.0 Build 17517.
- Upgrade inadyn-mt to 02.14.10.
- Upgrade fuppes to SVN-0.640.... read more

Today i'm proud to announce the release of the first release canditate of version 0.7. It took a really long time to make this version as it is now, but i think it was worth to wait.

Please see the changes in this version below.

Majors changes:
- Upgrade to FreeBSD 7.2.
- Include ZFS support. Thanks to Nelson Silva for doing core coding and Falk
Menzel for testing and giving some tipps and ideas.
- Upgrade iSCSI initiator to 2.1.1.
- Replace iSCSI target by istgt. Thanks to Daisuke Aoyama for the WebGUI
adaption. Please note, if you have used devices with the previous iSCSI target
software you have to recreate your target.
- Add WOL patch for nVidia(nfe(4)) and 3Com(xl(4)). Thanks to Tobias Reber.
- Upgrade mt-daapd/firefly to svn-1696.
- Refactor 'Diagnostics|Log' WebGUI.
- Add kernel patches to get ARTiGO A2000 hardware working. Thanks to
David Davis for the patches.
- Respect the modified log file location (via rc.conf for syslog, fuppes,
mt-daapd, ...) in the WebGUI (FR 2778803/2791772).
- Upgrade transmission to 1.61. Add 'Watch directory' and 'Extra options'
fields to 'Services|BitTorrent' WebGUI.
- Add entry 'FTP - Ban module' to the list of log files in 'Diagnostics|Log'
if the module is enabled (FR 2797652).
- Add 'iperf', a tool to measure maximum TCP and UDP bandwidth (FR 2785038).
- Add 'bsnmp-ucd' module that implements parts of UCD-SNMP-MIB.
- Add SNMP client tools: bsnmpget, bsnmpset and bsnmpwalk
- Add 'Auxiliary parameters' to 'Services|SNMP' that will be added to the end
of the snmpd.config file.
- Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.41.5.
- Upgrade rsync to 3.0.6.
- Upgrade tftp-hpa to 0.49.... read more

This is the latest maintenance release for the 0.69 branch. Please see below what has been improved and fixed in this release.

Regards
Volker Theile

Majors changes:
- Add another WOL patch. It is tested for nfe(4) und xl(4). Thanks to Tobias
Reber.
- Add switch in 'System|Advanced' WebGUI to enable the console screensaver
(FR 2777301).
- Upgrade Adaptec SCSI RAID administration tool to 6.10.18359.
- Add ability to enable or disable rc.conf variables configured via
'System|Advanced|rc.conf'.
- Add danish WebGUI translation. Thanks to all translators.
- Add kernel patches to get ARTiGO A2000 hardware working. Thanks to
David Davis for the patches.
- Add ability to use %d (date) and %h (hostname) in email subjects (e.g.
Services|UPS) (FR 2796141).... read more

This release brings you some new features and improvements, please see a detailed list of changes below.

Regards
Volker Theile

Download:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=151951&package_id=168081&release_id=676839

Changelog:
https://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=676839&group_id=151951

Release name meaning:
http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Omnius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnius... read more

After a long time of development FreeNAS 0.69 Kwisatz Haderach (revision 4276) has been released today.

Below you'll find the following changelog showing all changes since 0.686.4. Please notice that there are some limitations to upgrade to 0.69 because of various changes like increasing the root file system size due adding many new features. This only affect users that are using 'embedded' + DATA partition installations. In this case you have to backup your DATA partition and install FreeNAS completely new. The 'embedded' and 'full' installations are not affected.... read more

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please note, due adding many new features which have blown
up the image size of FreeNAS it is not possible to upgrade
to the latest 0.69RC2 from versions < 0.69b4 if you
have choosen the embedded OS/DATA installation mode.
In this case you have to backup your data from the DATA
partition and do a fresh installation.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... read more

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please note, due adding many new features which have blown
up the image size of FreeNAS it is not possible to upgrade
to the latest 0.69RC1 from versions < 0.69b4 if you
have choosen the embedded OS/DATA installation mode.
In this case you have to backup your data from the DATA
partition and do a fresh installation.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... read more

NAS (Network Attached Storage) server supporting: CIFS/SMB, FTP, NFS, RSYNC, SSH, AFP, Unison, UPnP, Webserver, iSCSI protocols, local and MS AD authentication, SoftRAID (JBOD,0,1,5), disk encryption, S.M.A.R.T, WebGUI. Requires only 32MB on DOM.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please note, due adding many new features which have blown
up the image size of FreeNAS it is not possible to upgrade
to the latest 0.69b3 from previous installations if you
have choosen the embedded OS/DATA installation mode.
In this case you have to backup your data from the DATA
partition and do a fresh installation.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ... read more

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please note, due adding many new features which have blown
up the image size of FreeNAS it is not possible to upgrade
to the latest 0.69b3 from previous installations if you
have choosen the embedded OS/DATA installation mode.
In this case you have to backup your data from the DATA
partition and do a fresh installation.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... read more

NAS (Network Attached Storage) server supporting: CIFS/SMB, FTP, NFS, RSYNC, SSH, AFP, Unison, UPnP, Webserver, iSCSI protocols, local and MS AD authentication, SoftRAID (JBOD,0,1,5), disk encryption, S.M.A.R.T, WebGUI. Requires only 32MB on DOM.

FreeNAS 0.69b2 (Stone burner):

Majors changes:
- Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.41.0.
- Upgrade fusefs-ntfs/ntfs-3g to 1.2531.
- Upgrade Samba to 3.0.30.
- Add 'perms' and 'xattrs' parameter to RSYNC client/local shares (FR 2009300).
- Allow user to add additional parameters to RSYNC client/local shares.
- Modified WebGUI look & feel.
- Add ctorrent client (No WebGUI, only console support).
- Disable splashscreen because it causes reboots on some systems.
- Keep time zone informations up to date (BR 2034132). Thanks to Azguy987.
- Upgrade rsync to 3.0.3.... read more

FreeNAS 0.69b1 (Fedaykin):

Majors changes:
- Upgrade to FreeBSD 6.3. Because of this there are some changes:
- WOL kernel patch has to be removed because there is currently no patch available for this version.
- Add msk (Marvell/SysKonnect Yukon II Gigabit Ethernet) network driver.
- Add pcn (AMD Am79C97x PCI 10/100 (with precedence over 'lnc')) network driver.
- Remove 'kern.hz="500"' from /boot/loader.conf. With FreeBSD 6.3 it is set to 100 by default.
- Add 'lagg' link aggregation and link failover interface support (kernel).
- Switch back to SCHED_4BSD scheduler.
- Add generic webserver service.
- Complete review and typo fixes in sourcecode. Thanks to Jerome Warnier.
- Upgrade rsync to 3.0.2.
- Upgrade smartmontools to 5.38.
- Upgrade lighttpd to 1.4.19.
- Upgrade unison to 2.27.57.
- Upgrade fusefs-ntfs/ntfs-3g to 1.2506.
- Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.40.10.
- Upgrade PHP to 5.2.6.
- Upgrade inadyn-mt to 02.12.04.
- Upgrade nano to 2.0.7.
- Use SAJAX to update misc WebGUI pages every 5 seconds to display current states
(e.g. 'Status/System', 'Status/Processes' or 'Disks/Format').
- Refactor complete S.M.A.R.T. WebGUI + services. It is possible to receive warning emails on failure.
- Refactor diagnostics WebGUI.
- Refactor ActiveDirectory WebGUI + services.
- Add ability to Webserver WebGUI to configure URL's requiring authentication.
- Replace Adaptec SCSI RAID administration tool aaccli with arcconf.
- Upgrade Adaptec AACRAID 32- and 64-bit driver to Ver. 5.2.0 Build 15727.
- Enhance 'Disks/Encryption/Tools' WebGUI to backup/restore metadata of encrypted disks.
- Replace UPnP media player MediaTomb with Fuppes.
- Add 'System: Advanced: rc.conf' WebGUI to add additional options to /etc/rc.conf. This is
useful to overwrite options used by various generic startup scripts.
- Added 'System: Advanced: sysctl.conf' WebGUI to add additional MIB's to /etc/sysctl.conf.
Thanks to Nelson Silva (nsilva@hotlap.org).
- Added DAAP server to support iTunes.
- Update GEOM raid5. Thanks to Arne Wörner.
- Refactor whole interface management code. Replace PHP code with FreeBSD rc scripts.
- Add VLAN and LAGG support.
- Use a memory filesystem for /var on LiveCD and 'embedded' installations. Default size is
32MB. You can modify it through the rc.conf variable 'varsize'.
- Add WEP/WPA support to WLAN interfaces.
- Add user acces restrictions to mount points.... read more

FreeNAS 0.686.4 stable has been released today. It is a maintenance release, so no new features has been included.

The following changes has been done:

Minors changes:
- - Set subnet mask to 24 per default if DHCP is activated, otherwise WebGUI is not accessible in
~ most networks when changing from DHCP to static.
- - Do not validate sync time values when pressing 'Now' on status report page.
- - Add ability to add multiple destination email addresses on status report page (e.g. test@test,com;test2@test.com).
- - Display interfaces with status 'associated' in UPnP services WebGUI, too. Thanks to sea_sbs.
- - Add ability to configure multiple host names for Dynamic DNS service (FR 1952020).
- - Add patch to do a file system check on root if necessary. Thanks to Nelson Silva and Lars Köller.... read more

NAS (Network Attached Storage) server supporting: CIFS/SMB, FTP, NFS, RSYNC, SSH, AFP, Unison, UPnP, Webserver, iSCSI protocols, local and MS AD authentication, SoftRAID (JBOD,0,1,5), disk encryption, S.M.A.R.T, WebGUI. Requires only 32MB on DOM.

FreeNAS 0.69:

Majors changes:
- Upgrade to FreeBSD 6.3. Because of this there are some changes:
- WOL kernel patch has to be removed because there is currently no patch available for this version.
- Add msk (Marvell/SysKonnect Yukon II Gigabit Ethernet) network driver.
- Add pcn (AMD Am79C97x PCI 10/100 (with precedence over 'lnc')) network driver.
- Remove 'kern.hz="500"' from /boot/loader.conf. With FreeBSD 6.3 it is set to 100 by default.
- Add 'lagg' link aggregation and link failover interface support (kernel).
- Switch back to SCHED_4BSD scheduler.
- Add generic webserver service.
- Complete review and typo fixes in sourcecode. Thanks to Jerome Warnier.
- Upgrade rsync to 3.0.2.
- Upgrade smartmontools to 5.38.
- Upgrade lighttpd to 1.4.19.
- Upgrade unison to 2.27.57.
- Upgrade fusefs-ntfs/ntfs-3g to 1.2412.
- Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.40.9.
- Upgrade PHP to 5.2.6.
- Use SAJAX to update misc WebGUI pages every 5 seconds to display current states
(e.g. 'Status/System', 'Status/Processes' or 'Disks/Format').
- Refactor complete S.M.A.R.T. WebGUI + services.
- Refactor diagnostics WebGUI.
- Refactor ActiveDirectory WebGUI + services.
- Add ability to Webserver WebGUI to configure URL's requiring authentication.
- Replace Adaptec SCSI RAID administration tool aaccli with arcconf.
- Upgrade Adaptec AACRAID 32- and 64-bit driver to Ver. 5.2.0 Build 15727.
- Enhance 'Disks/Encryption/Tools' WebGUI to backup/restore metadata of encrypted disks.
- Replace UPnP media player MediaTomb with Fuppes.
- Add 'System: Advanced: rc.conf' WebGUI to add additional options to /etc/rc.conf. This is
useful to overwrite options used by various generic startup scripts.
- Added 'System: Advanced: sysctl.conf' WebGUI to add additional MIB's to /etc/sysctl.conf.
Thanks to Nelson Silva (nsilva@hotlap.org).
- Added DAAP server to support iTunes.
- Update GEOM raid5. Thanks to Arne Wörner.... read more

Good news!

Vault Networks, Inc (http://www.vaultnetworks.com) offert to host a server for the FreeNAS community.
Now we've got an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ with 2Gb of RAM online.

This server will be mainly use by the devel team (using Virtual Machine under FreeBSD 7.0 32bit and 64bit), that will help us to preparing the next major release of FreeNAS.

And this server hosts some FreeNAS Virtual Machine for online demonstration, that you can try here:
http://demo.freenas.org/... read more

NAS (Network Attached Storage) server supporting: CIFS, FTP, NFS, RSYNC, SSH, AFP, Unison, UPnP, iSCSI protocols, local and MS Domain authentication, Software RAID (JBOD,0,1,5), disk encryption with a Full WEB configuration interface. 32MB only.

Majors changes:
- Remove consolehm sensor support because it doesn't work/recognize up-to-date hardware.
Will be replaced with FreeBSD 7.0 sensor framework in FreeNAS 0.7.
- WebGUI uses NiftyCubes for rounded corners with CSS and Javascript.
- Validate minutes/hours/days/months/week days configuration on misc WebGUI pages
(e.g. scheduled shutdown/reboot, RSYNC local, ...).... read more

Majors changes:
- Add ability to set a CIFS/SMB share read only.

Minors changes:
- Add m4a/m4p support in MediaTomb configuration file.
- Add /usr/bin/bc - An arbitrary precision calculator language

Bug fixes:
- GID was not displayed correct on 'Access/Groups' WebGUI page. Thanks to Lars Köller.
- Use inadyn-mt to 02.01.13 because all newer ones causes a core dump (Bugreport has been sent).

Permanent restrictions:
- It is not possible to format a SoftRAID disk with MSDOS FAT16/32.
- It is not possible to encrypt a disk partition, only complete disks are supported.... read more

Majors changes:
- Upgrade Samba to 3.0.28.
- Add attributes 'Guest account' and 'Null passwords' to 'Samba: Settings' advanced section in WebGUI.
- Enhance WebGUI + rc-script to define additional group memberships for user accounts.
- Replace uShare UPnP Mediaserver with MediaTomb 0.10.0. This has been done because ushare's latest version
fails to build on FreeBSD, also new version requires external libs for DLNA support which is not ported
to FreeBSD right at the moment.
You have to reconfigure the UPnP service to get working properly. XBox 360 is not supported, sorry.
- Increase mfsroot size to 54mb for embedded version. So hopefully the OS has enough memory for logfiles,...
Especially with Samba tbd files, which increases rapidely with a huge number of users accessing the system.
- Add kernel patch to support ATi IXP600/700 PATA/SATA.
- Switch back to SCHED_ULE scheduler.
- Upgrade 3ware serial ATA RAID controller driver to 9.4.2 (http://www.3ware.com/download/Escalade9650SE-Series/9.4.2/9.4.2_Release_Notes_Web.pdf).
- Allow creation of users with empty passwords.
- Upgrade ATAidle to 2.3.
- Set 'kern.hz="500"' in /boot/loader.conf for better system and media streaming performance. Thanks to Eyn Ergy for testing.
VMWare users which require this setting have to install in 'full' mode and edit loader.conf by hand.
See http://ivoras.sharanet.org/freebsd/vmware.html or http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/virtualization-guest.html for some tipps.
- Add SSL/TLS support to FTP service.
- Use inadyn-mt instead of inadyn dynamic DNS client.
- Add easyDNS.com and 3322.org support to 'Dynamic DNS' service.
- Upgrade dp.SyntaxHighlighter to 1.5.1.
- Fix install problem "Error: Failed to set partitions on the disk 'xxx'".
- Refactor OS install/upgrade.
- Add NFS share configuration support. Allow configuration of NFS server processes.
- Upgrade netbsd-iscsi (iscsi-target) to 20080207.
- Upgrade fusefs-ntfs to 1.2216.
- Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.40.6.
- Upgrade inadyn-mt to 02.11.88.... read more

Majors changes:
- Upgrade Samba to 3.0.28.
- Add attributes 'Guest account' and 'Null passwords' to 'Samba: Settings' advanced section in WebGUI.
- Enhance WebGUI + rc-script to define additional group memberships for user accounts.
- Replace uShare UPnP Mediaserver with MediaTomb 0.10.0. This has been done because ushare's latest version
fails to build on FreeBSD, also new version requires external libs for DLNA support which is not ported
to FreeBSD right at the moment.
You have to reconfigure the UPnP service to get working properly. XBox 360 is not supported, sorry.
- Increase mfsroot size to 54mb for embedded version. So hopefully the OS has enough memory for logfiles,...
Especially with Samba tbd files, which increases rapidely with a huge number of users accessing the system.
- Add kernel patch to support ATi IXP600/700 PATA/SATA.
- Switch back to SCHED_ULE scheduler.
- Upgrade 3ware serial ATA RAID controller driver to 9.4.2 (http://www.3ware.com/download/Escalade9650SE-Series/9.4.2/9.4.2_Release_Notes_Web.pdf).
- Allow creation of users with empty passwords.
- Upgrade ATAidle to 2.3.
- Set 'kern.hz="500"' in /boot/loader.conf for better system and media streaming performance. Thanks to Eyn Ergy for testing.
VMWare users which require this setting have to install in 'full' mode and edit loader.conf by hand.
See http://ivoras.sharanet.org/freebsd/vmware.html or http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/virtualization-guest.html for some tipps.
- Add SSL/TLS support to FTP service.
- Use inadyn-mt instead of inadyn dynamic DNS client.
- Add easyDNS.com and 3322.org support to 'Dynamic DNS' service.
- Upgrade dp.SyntaxHighlighter to 1.5.1.
- Fix install problem "Error: Failed to set partitions on the disk 'xxx'".... read more

FreeNAS 0.686:

Majors changes:
- Refactor port makefiles.
- Upgrade netbsd-iscsi (iscsi-target) to 20071221.
- Upgrade fusefs-ntfs to 1.1120.

Minors changes:
- Disable firmware upgrade via WebGUI for 'full' installations. Use the 'full' upgrade mode from LiveCD instead.
- Changed boot splashscreen and WebGUI logo images.
- Try to fix AFP Time Machine problem.

Bug fixs:
- Fix bug in 'full' upgrade/install routine (LiveCD).
- Do not delete log files during boot process on 'full' installations.... read more

Majors changes:
- Add file system check support during boot process.
- Add attribute 'Store DOS attributes' to Samba/CIFS WebGUI. It will be enabled by default. Thanks to pascal666.
- Modify idmap syntax in smb.conf. Thanks to Zythan.
- Upgrade Adaptec AACRAID driver to v5.2.0 Build 15317.
- Upgrade WOL patch to version from 25.11.2007.
- Add AFP share support. Thanks to Gerard Hickey.
- Upgrade netbsd-iscsi (iscsi-target) to 20071130.
- Upgrade PHPMailer to 2.0.0.
- Modify rsync client/local WebGUI to define individual source/destination paths.
- Modify rsync server WebGUI and rc-script. Now it is possible to manage rsync shares. Thanks to
Gerard Hickey for sending core code.
- Modify rc scripts. Mount points and GEli providers will be detached correctly during shutdown process.... read more

Majors changes:
- Set correct sysid when formating disks with FAT32(0x0b) and EXT2(0x83).
- Enable user to set volume label when formating disk using EXT2.
- Refactor complete disk/RAID initialization/management/encryption PHP code && WebGUI.
- Refactor API for better maintenance and feature enhancement.
- Upgrade PHPMailer to 2.0.0 rc1.
- Upgrade PHP to 5.2.5.
- Upgrade netbsd-iscsi (iscsi-target) to 20071025.
- Add GNU General Public License (GPL), GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL),
Apple Public Source License and PHP License text (located in /usr/local/www).... read more

Today FreeNAS 0.686b1 has been released. We skipped 0.685RC2 because all its improvements and fixes are also included in 0.686b1.

Majors changes:
- Upgrade fusefs-ntfs to 1.1004.
- Upgrade lighttpd to 1.4.18.
- Upgrade netbsd-iscsi (iscsi-target) to 20070925.
- Refactor GEOM-Eli implementation + WebGUI. Now it is possible to add existing encrypted disks
and change passwords for a encrypted disk.
- Improve device detection for configuration storage when booting from LiveCD.
- Update zoneinfo files.
- Add 'System/Packages' WebGUI page to administrate packages (only available in 'full' install mode).
- Add LDAP Authentication: Thanks to Andreas Neth and David Rush for their help
- Add email status report.
- Add 'Status/Report' WebGUI page to administrate email status report.
- Upgrade iSCSI Target to version 20070925.
- Update 'iSCSI Target' WebGUI + services. Now it is possible to expand existing targets and define
RAID0 and RAID1 devices. It is also possible to use disk devices as extents.
- Refactor complete user/group management (code, services & WebGUI).
- Add scheduled reboot feature.
- Add 'System/Advanced/Cron' WebGUI to administrate additional cron jobs.
- Add new languages: Slovenian, Portuguese, Polish, Hungarian and Norwegian Bokmal.
- Add new SSH settings to WebGUI: Password authentication.
- Add WOL patch for some NIC (http://stsp.name/wol/).
- Add 'Hosts allow' and 'Hosts deny' settings on Samba shares WebGUI page.
- Add 'chroot everyone' setting on FTP WebGUI page (Thanks to Francois Allard).
- Add 'Home directory' support in user management (Thanks to Francois Allard).
- Refactor 'System/Advanced/Startup'. Renamed to 'System/Advanced/Command scripts'. Add ability to define
scripts executed before system shutdown.
- Add SNMP service support.
- Upgrade Samba to 3.0.26a.
- Permit to convert a 'full' release to an 'embedded' (from the CDROM)
- Add proxy support (WebGUI: 'System/Advanced/Proxy').
- Add volume label support when formating disks.
- Modified boot image file system parameter to support USB booting on a greater number of systems.
Maybe some booting problems with LiveCD are also solved.... read more

Bossies: InfoWorld's Best of Open Source Software Awards.

FreeNAS has been named by the InfoWorld Test Center as one of the 2007 Best of Open Source Software winners.

“FreeNAS takes our Bossie for best open source NAS server. FreeNAS is far and away the most mature open source NAS platform, built on a FreeBSD base and backed by an active community. Providing CIFS, NFS, FTP, iSCSI, RSYNC, and AFP (Apple File Protocol) support, not to mention software RAID 0, 1, and 5, FreeNAS covers just about all the bases for storage, and wraps them in an attractive Web management interface. To get in this game, all you need is a server and some disk. Even better, FreeNAS can be easily installed on a Compact Flash drive or a USB key, so none of the core OS actually lives on the storage drives, thus making it far less vulnerable to hardware failure. Its performance is dependent on the hardware used, and it's not likely to beat an EqualLogic iSCSI SAN in a head-to-head, but for free it can't be beat.”... read more

Finally the first release candidate for version 0.685 has been released.

Majors changes:
- Modified build scripts.
- Upgrade PHP to 5.2.4
- Upgrade lighttpd to 1.4.17.
- Make login procedure more FreeBSD style. Now we have 7 consoles available
(via Alt-Fx keys). 'root' is autologin on ttyv0. Environment is now set correct,
so we have a shell history. PATH is also set correct (no dumb absolute paths
are needed anymore).... read more