Using actual, raw FreeBSD as the OS on TrueNAS hardware?

rwv37

rwv37

I'm looking to replace an old NAS, and started looking into TrueNAS (the OS(es)). I haven't yet come across any compelling reason why I shouldn't just use FreeBSD instead. However, while investigating that, I noticed that TrueNAS also makes actual computers, and I kind of like what I've seen of their Mini line.

I imagine that if I buy a diskless TrueNAS Mini and stick some disks in it, there's no reason why I couldn't just install FreeBSD rather than TrueNAS. But I haven't been able to find anything on the web actually saying so. No matter what search terms I use, the only results I've been able to get are things like "TrueNAS CORE is based on FreeBSD" or "Here's how to install FreeBSD inside a TrueNAS jail". I know TrueNAS CORE is based on FreeBSD. I don't want to run FreeBSD inside a TrueNAS jail. I just want a physical computer that I can stick a bunch of disks in with FreeBSD as its (main) OS, and I'm wondering if there's any reason why a TrueNAS Mini couldn't be that physical computer.

Does anyone have any information or insight on this? Thanks in advance.
 
If TrueNAS boots so should FreeBSD. But you'd probably need to install all NAS apps (enable NFS and install samba) yourself. You'd also need to manage it from the command line as it's doubtful their web based GUI would still work. It may or it may not. Essentially you'd be converting it from a TrueNAS appliance to a FreeBSD computer.

Think of it as akin to replacing Windows on a laptop with FreeBSD.
 
Make sure you take a backup first. The TrueNAS folks may have customized their kernel and/or userland for their appliance. None of this is 100% sure as we don't know all of what they've done to implement their appliance. But in theory this should probably work.

Try booting it off a USB drive first. The proof of concept (POC) should give you the assurance needed to continue with the project. If you already have a FreeBSD machine you can clone the drive to create a test USB drive. Or you could buildworld/buildkernel and installworld/installkernel to DESTDIR=/mountpoint. Cloning an existing machine would be simpler.

Your test USB would be easiest to build if the source machine was a UFS system. In that case you'd need to create a FreeBSD slice using fdisk or gpart, creating FreeBSD partitions using bsdlable or gpart, and using a dump/restore pipe like this -- dump 0f - / | (cd /new_root && restore xf -) -- for each UFS filesystem. If your source machine uses a zroot zpool, the job may be tricker, though you could zfs send | zfs receive to the new device. Then test on your source machine to make sure it boots. Then test it on your TrueNAS appliance. If it boots and you can play around with stuff you're safe to blow away your TrueNAS O/S and install FreeBSD.

Booting FreeBSD from ISO on the TrueNAS would be another way to to test. Just make sure you can mount the TrueNAS filesystems, have a look around to give you the assurance. If any of the above tests pass you're probably good to go.

This BTW is what I do when shopping for a new laptop. Except that I install X on the USB disk to make sure X works. You might want to try that too if you want to use your TrueNAS as an X workstation. If you want to use it as a server, whether X will work on it or not won't matter.

Just tread carfully so you can recover should it go horribly sideways, which I doubt it will, but you never know until you try.
 
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