NAS Storage Server

Mr SecaGuy has put together a very useful step-by-step tutorial showing how you can set up a iSCSI target in OpenFiler: Create iSCSI target in OpenFiler.

“If you have a SAN storage, or a dedicated server to serve as file and storage service to other server, I am suggesting you to use Openfiler. This operating system is specifically built to manage and deliver file-based Network Attached Storage and block-based Storage Area Networking in a single framework.

I will not showing you on how to install Openfiler in this tutorial. I will show you on how to setup iSCSI target to be mounted in another server.”

By following these 9 steps you’ll have a iSCSI target up an running in a matter of minutes:

• Review the block drive layout
• Ensure iSCSI services are turned on
• Specify which host can connect to the storage server
• Create a physical volume
• Create a volume group
• Add volume
• Perform iSCSI mapping
• Allo whost to access target
• iSCSI target ready.

About OpenFiler: Openfiler is an operating system that provides file-based network-attached storage and block-based storage area network. It was created by Xinit Systems, and is based on the rPath Linux distribution. It is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2. Its software stack interfaces with open source third-party software.

This video, created by the FreeNAS Team, shows how to configure FreeNAS for backups on Windows, Mac OSX, and PC-BSD.

YouTube Direkt

FreeNAS 8.0.2 has been released, fixing some problems with the email subsystem: Announcing FreeNAS 8.0.2-RELEASE

After two years of hard work, or should we say, after two years of teasing the community with videos, project founder Volker Theile has now made the first development release available to the community: OpenMediaVault 0.2 (lx).

Volker used to be one of the main contributors to FreeNAS, but decided that instead of FreeBSD, Debian would be a better base for the NAS operating system that he had in mind, and OpenMediaVault was born. The development of FreeNAS was then taken over by iXsystems.

The new NAS operating system is mainly aimed at home users and small businesses, but its use is not limited to these. When the code and the development have matured OMV can be used in enterprises as well.

OMV 0.2 is based on Debian 6.0 “Squeeze” and features a modular plug-in system for additional, community developed extensions. Three optional plug-ins are currently available for the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), BitTorrent and an iTunes/DAAP server; iSCSI-Target, UPS and LVM plugins later.

More information about the release can be found on the OpenMediaVault Features page, on the OMV wiki and in the release announcement.

You can download the ISO image from SF.

Great job, Volker!

OpenMediaVault is a free network-attached storage server, supporting: CIFS (Samba), FTP, NFS, rsync, AFP protocols, iSCSI, S.M.A.R.T., local user authentication, and software RAID (0,1,5), with a web-based configuration interface. OpenMediaVault is currently distributed as an ISO image and in source form. OpenMediaVault needs to be installed on a Compact Flash, USB, or dedicated hard drive. (wikipedia)

The ZFS file system didn’t get ported to Linux for a long time as its source-code is distributed under the CDDL license, which is incompatible with the GNU GPL, therefore making it impossible to integrate it into the mainline Linux kernel.

However, KQ Infotech, and Indian tech company, ported the ZFS file-system to Linux as an out-of-tree kernel module. It performed relatively well and didn’t depend upon FUSE, (file system in user space), though performances hadn’t matched ‘native ZFS’.

Now it seems that KQ Infotech has abandoned the project, and it is not clear for what reasons. Did they receive a cease and desist letter from Oracle, and choose rather to halt development instead of going through courts? What are your thoughts?

Since the code was available online,  it was copied over and is now actively maintained at github.com/behlendorf/zfs and ZFS on Linux.

Andrew Gillis has announced the release of VortexBox 1.10, a Fedora-based distribution that turns an (old) PC into a network connected music server:

It has been a while since we released a new version of VortexBox and there are a lot of small fixes and tweaks in this new version. There are the usual updates such as a new Linux kernel and SqueezeBox server 7.6.1. There are also a lot of small updates such as increased UPnP player support. VortexBox now supports the latest Samsung TVs and the BeoSound 5 from Bang & Olufsen. We added a lot of user-requested features such as a one click restore button in the USB backup manager. We also added faster MP3 mirroring at the request of VortexBox users. This version has been tested with new products from Sonos and Logitech, including the new Play:3, to ensure these devices are fully supported. VortexBox 1.10 supports the new VortexBox Orbiter, a fanless player that automatically finds your VortexBox.