extending the embedded version

[mark0x01]

Nas4free has come a long way since I first evaluated freenas a few years ago, and has fixed what I considered the major flaw - corrupt config making data hard to recover.
It is now my preferred NAS OS, since it now includes ZFS and has better driver support than the Solaris based ZFS variants.

The benefits of the embedded version are too good to ignore, but it does have it's limitations.
Increasing the size isn't really desirable, but enhancing the base options is really a must.

A compromise would be useful, hence my idea.

Create an "extended" framework to link in at boot time, using additional partitions to store the files.

USB and CF devices don't come much smaller than 1G nowdays, so they tend to have a lot of wasted space begging for something to fill them up.

By using an "embedded extention" configuration option, to point to the additional partition, and linked into the embedded install at boot time.

With a few configuration options in the standard embedded configuration file - just load/no load and where to look, and using the same startup methods to parse an extension config file and initialise each of the extensions or not.

If a suitable framework was there, addon's would be far simpler, and upgrades much easier.
Disable extensions, upgrade embedded, and then upgrade extensions.

Does anyone else think this idea could be useful ?


Mark.

[jandegr]

Hi Mark,
Since I am involved in the VirtualBox extension for almost a year now, I thought about this issue a lot.

The benefits of the embedded version are too good to ignore, but it does have it's limitations.
Increasing the size isn't really desirable, but enhancing the base options is really a must.

The very well functioning embedded install options is one of the primary reasons I use Nas4free.

Create an "extended" framework to link in at boot time, using additional partitions to store the files.

USB and CF devices don't come much smaller than 1G nowdays, so they tend to have a lot of wasted space begging for something to fill them up.

By using an "embedded extention" configuration option, to point to the additional partition, and linked into the embedded install at boot time.
With a few configuration options in the standard embedded configuration file - just load/no load and where to look, and using the same startup methods to parse an extension config file and initialise each of the extensions or not.

This is more or less what we do for the Virtualbox Extension, personally I have approx. 20 additional non-phpvirtualbox related packages installed in the
same subdir. We do load/no-load by enabling/disabling the postinit startup script, only disadvantage is it enables / disables all my extensions together.

If a suitable framework was there, addon's would be far simpler, and upgrades much easier.
Disable extensions, upgrade embedded, and then upgrade extensions.
Does anyone else think this idea could be useful ?

Yes, very usefull, we can install almost any extension right now, but we are missing some flexibility in upgrading/removing because we can not use the
current pkg suite. FreeBSD 9.2 will have a new pkg system, so I am not spending time in customising the old one.
Jails is a little overkill for most apps.

regards,
Jan

[raulfg3]

Jails is a little overkill for most apps

well a little, but in near future jails can be easy managed in Nas4Free, see :

viewtopic.php?f=79&t=1654&start=50


So there will be no problems for users to have jails in embeded or full install and a little overkill is a cheap pay for a easy and supported system to install packages in Nas4Free.

[alexey123]

mark0x01 , you want have simple webgui extension for reformat system USB flash to 4 partitions, such
1. system
2. data1
3. data2
4. data3
?

[mark0x01]

The extension mechanism ideally would allow specification of partition(s) and mount point(s) or paths on existing mounted file systems.

The ability to have more partitons on the boot device would be useful.

Mark.