NAS4Free

NAS4Free is a network-attached storage (NAS) server software with a dedicated management web interface (written in PHP). It is free software under the terms of the Simplified BSD license.^[1]

NAS4Free is the new brand name of the original FreeNAS code which was developed between 2005 and late 2011. It was released under the name NAS4Free on 22 March 2012.^[2][3]

Technology

NAS4Free is an embedded open source NAS software distribution based on FreeBSD,^[4] which developed from original FreeNAS 7 code and updated to work with the current latest FreeBSD releases.^[2]

NAS4Free supports sharing across Windows, Apple, and UNIX-like systems. It includes ZFS v5000, Software RAID (0,1,5), disk encryption, S.M.A.R.T. and email reports etc., with the following protocols: CIFS (samba), Samba Active Directory Domain Controller AD, FTP, NFS, TFTP, AFP, rsync, Unison (file synchronizer), iSCSI (initiator and target), HAST, CARP, Bridge, UPnP, and Bittorent. All of this is configurable by its web interface.

Features

• All NAS4Free versions
  • Multiple architectures: i386 or amd64 and ARM-based versions
  • Full Web Management Interface (WebGUI)
• Hard drive and volume management
  • Software RAID
  • Disk encryption (using cryptographic accelerator card if present)
  • Partition
    • MBR, GPT
  • iSCSI initiator
  • Filesystems
    • ZFS v5000, UFS
    • Ext2, Ext3
    • FAT, NTFS
• Networking
  • 802.1q vlan tagging
  • Wireless
  • network link aggregation
  • Wake On Lan
  • Network Bridge
  • CARP (Common Address Redundancy Protocol)
  • HAST (Highly Available Storage)
• Network Protocols
  • Server Message Block (|SMB, formerly known as CIFS) (Samba)
  • Active Directory Domain controller (Samba)
  • Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) (Netatalk)
  • Network File System (NFS)
  • FTP (ProFTPD)
  • TFTP (tftp-hpa)
  • rsync (client/server)
  • Unison
  • SCP (SSH)
  • iSCSI target
• Extra services
  • UPnP server (FUPPES)
  • UPnP server (MiniDLNA)
  • iTunes/DAAP server (Firefly)
  • Lighttpd (Webserver)
  • Iperf Iperf3 Network Bandwidth measure
  • Syncthing File synchronization application
  • Transmission BitTorrent client
  • VirtualBox Virtualbox included and managed by phpVirtualBox and noVNC on GUI
• Monitoring
  • S.M.A.R.T (smartmontools)
  • Alert by E-mail
  • SNMP
  • Syslog
  • UPS (NUT)

Installation

The NAS4Free status page of the WebGUI

NAS4Free is installable on almost any boot media including LiveCD optionally with a small USB flash drive for config storage if necessary, both for x86-64 and x86-32 computer platforms up to version 10.3.^[5] As of version 11.0, NAS4Free no longer supports x86-32, but version 10.3 is still getting updates.^[6] NAS4Free can be installed on Compact Flash, USB flash drive, SSD, Hard drive or other bootable devices, and supports advanced formatted drives using 4kb sectors. It can be booted from LiveCD or LiveUSB. The software distribution is currently distributed as in ISO image (.iso, ~370MB) or USB flash drive image (.img, ~320MB) format, and in source form.

Preferred Embedded Install

A special small footprint embedded image is also available (.img, ~150MB).^[6] The preferred method is the embedded installation onto a USB stick, Compact Flash card (CF), or hard disc HDD/SSD, for which NAS4Free was designed. The NAS4Free OS will load into system memory, eliminating system writes to a drive. Flash devices are more energy efficient, and the updating process can be done by WebGUI in the browser, downloading and installing a new firmware image.

History

The original FreeNAS project derives from m0n0wall.^[7]

The FreeNAS 0.7 branch was end-of-life'd in late 2011 after the FreeNAS name was legally acquired by iXsystems, Inc. Starting with version 8.x, new iXsystems developers rewrote FreeNAS and legacy FreeNAS 0.7 was no longer available for download.

The legacy FreeNAS 0.7 code was unable to be developed any longer under the same name, and a name change was necessary. The founder of FreeNAS (Olivier Cochard-Labbé) donated the original FreeNAS source code to the NAS4Free project. With the support of the former developers, namely Daisuke Aoyama and Michael Zoon, it carries on the original FreeNAS code base. FreeNAS 8.x.y and up is a software fork of the original FreeNAS with a new rewritten code-base, continuing the old branded name.^[8]

Awards

• SourceForge.net — Project of the Month, August 2015^[9]

• SourceForge.net — Project of the Week, May 2015^[10]

The awards listed are legacy FreeNAS ones.

• VMware — "Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge, Consumer" (2008)^[11]
• SourceForge.net — Project of the Month, January 2007^[12]
• InfoWorld — Best of open source in storage (2008)^[13]

See also

References

Further reading

Further readings prior to 2012 are referring to the legacy FreeNAS .07 precursor branch.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to NAS4Free.

• Official website