OmniOS 151022 long term stable

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Davewolfs

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Aug 6, 2015
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Dan moving to SmartOS say a lot about the story. He definitely seems like "The Guy" on the emails threads who keeps together all the releases for OmniOS.

I think SmartOS was a bit ahead with respect to LX zones and such. That gives me a bit of hope it might be reasonable migration path.

Does Solaris 11 support LX Zones? I wouldn't even be able to get my data onto it.
 

gea

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Dec 31, 2010
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OmniOS LX zones is a port from SmartOS so SmartOS is compatible.
It may be upstreamed to Illumos so it may appear in OpenIndiana.
 

gea

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I have played a little with SmartOS in the past but gave up because OmniOS/OI was much better suited for storage. SmartOS intends every "non-cloud-(basic)" service to run in a zone, even native Solaris storage services like iSCSI, SMB, NFS or user management that can give troubles in a nonglobal zone.

In the light of the growing demand for virtualisation and the unknown future of OmniOS, maybe SmartOS can become the "ultimate" OmniOS replacement, something ESXi, Hyper-v or Proxmox must fear as it can combine a perfect base for Linux/ Windows/.. virtualisation combined with a perfect storage platform/ general use NAS/SAN, all in one (sadly this is not the business concept of Joyent as general use storage was not the business concept of OmniTi). This is why the question of stable/ lts support remains even with SmartOS as this is/was the unique feature of OmniOS.

SmartOS with a strong commercial background and OpenIndiana as a community option with GUI, let me dream ...Maybe the general use storage part can be added to SmartOS by the community as SmartOS is as free as OmniOS.
 
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Davewolfs

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If I was betting. In a year we will be running either BSD or Linux. After playing around SmartOS seems like a lot of work to make it function like a traditional server.

Not sure if there is any advantage of OpenIndiana over Linux or BSD. Doesn't seem like it.
 

gea

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OmniOS was the Red Hat option for a free Solaris (Illumos).
Beside that, OpenIndiana is quite identical to OmniOS.

The rest is BSD vs Linux vs Illumos, all free, all without special support options
but each with its own advantage/ disadvantages.

Among them Solaris or the free fork Illumos is my choice for storage.
 

Davewolfs

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Aug 6, 2015
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Is anyone using OpenIndiana in a production environment?

OmniOS was the Red Hat option for a free Solaris (Illumos).
Beside that, OpenIndiana is quite identical to OmniOS.

The rest is BSD vs Linux vs Illumos, all free, all without special support options
but each with its own advantage/ disadvantages.

Among them Solaris or the free fork Illumos is my choice for storage.
 

gea

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Dec 31, 2010
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Maybe you should ask the openindiana-discuss maillist where OI users are.

For me and napp-it I can say, that when Oracle closed OpenSolaris (and Nexenta then NexentaCore) I switched to OpenIndiana as a free alternative to Solaris. I use some old OpenIndiana filers running for years although in the beginning OI was not pure Illumos like now but quite the old OpenSolaris build from Sun with GUI and lots of dependencies from the Sun ages. (This is why OmniTi decided not to use OpenIndiana as base but create a new Illumos based minimal distribution)

So OmniOS offered a stripped down and very stable version of an Illumos distribution with stables, long term stables and full commercial system support. I and I suppose many switched to OmniOS even without paying for support as the supported stable/lts version was available for free and the free community support from Dan and Dale from OmniTi was excellent.
 
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DaSaint

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Oct 3, 2015
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Colorado
Was just trying out FreeNAS and i think i hit a snag due to Alternative Data Streams (ADS) with it, i have a program (VMware Mirage) that requires this functionality and FreeNAS just fails at it hard, i have tried their alternative streams_xattr and streams_depot with no success... when i was using OMNIOS i had 0 issues with this.. Whatever the case i now have to figure out an OS to migrate to i am still leary about using OMNI and there were some features that freenas had (support for ConnectX-3 Ethernet Adapters) by far was the biggest plus.

From what i learned reading all the posts on ADS issues with NTFS and FreeBSD i dont think im gonna get a good solution to this at anytime.. it looks like mirage when it does its manifests and data gathering its using >64k blocks which bonks out FreeNAS, hell i even had it crash the SMB Service!

Right now my only way around it is to use an iSCSI Lun to a Windows Share to get around it with FreeNAS.

@gea - Just wondering where Napp-IT's stance is these days... i didn't see much change on the website to the concern in the initial post about Omni, seems like its currently business as usual. Just was wondering what the word is?

Anyone else out there with thoughts? I have considered Nexenta again i have some friends out in that area too but just was wondering what ppl are using these days are they concerned about OMNI's change etc.
 
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gea

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@gea - Just wondering where Napp-IT's stance is these days... i didn't see much change on the website to the concern in the initial post about Omni, seems like its currently business as usual. Just was wondering what the word is?

Anyone else out there with thoughts? I have considered Nexenta again i have some friends out in that area too but just was wondering what ppl are using these days are they concerned about OMNI's change etc.
Nexenta=Illumos+Storage only + closed source add ons like HS/RSF1, SMB3 or VAII + commercial support - nonfree
OmniOS=Illumos+LX Zones + Long Term Stable but with unclear future + free (OSS)
(at the moment the best free Illumos distribution with a focus on storage and general use server)
OpenIndiana=Illumos+Mate GUI + active development + free (OSS) - no commercial support
SmartOS=Illumos + add-ons regarding cloud and virtualiasation. For a storage server, some work need to be done as SmartOS runs readonly from RAM with limited global zone features but with a strong commercial background (Samsung)
plus some more distributions based on Illumos

Its too early for a final decision about a general use free Solaris distribution.
For my own installations a stay with OmniOS at least for this year but for new setups I revert to OpenIndiana, the true successor of OpenSolaris. While there is currently no commercial support available as OpenIndiana is more or less ongoing pure Illumos with a snapshot every 6 months, it is a very stable option with newest Illumos features. If you need full system support, Nexenta is the only option now but the situation with OpenIndiana is similar to an average OpenBSD or Linux OpenSource distribution - mostly OpenSource without support unless you use RedHat etc.

Oracle Solaris 11 remains always an option as it is the fastest and most feature rich ZFS server
- nonfree - not compatible with OpenZFS
 
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Davewolfs

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I don't see how OpenIndiana is even an option. Where is the stability?

If you are having issues with FreeNAS submit the bugs and stay on them. It's likely where we are all going to end up - either that or some Linux variant.

Rsync.net is running FreeBSD. That could easily be an option as well. But at that point might as well wait for FreeNAS to catch up to the 11 release. The FreeNAS dev team seems to be going through some tough times.
 

ekke

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Nov 16, 2015
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If you are having issues with FreeNAS submit the bugs and stay on them. It's likely where we are all going to end up - either that or some Linux variant.

Rsync.net is running FreeBSD. That could easily be an option as well. But at that point might as well wait for FreeNAS to catch up to the 11 release. The FreeNAS dev team seems to be going through some tough times.
It's sad to see OmniOS stopped. I got my new NAS/Home server here finally finished, but I can't decide if I'm gonna run OmniOS (love lx zones with dataset mounting and fast CIFS) or FreeNAS (Like the usb install option and easy of use)
 

gea

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I don't see how OpenIndiana is even an option. Where is the stability?
OpenIndiana is more or less pure Illumos so it is as stable as Illumos and development is done and bugs are fixed at Illumos, the free Solaris fork. OpenIndiana adds the Mate GUI that is maintained at MATE Desktop Environment . Only the integration is done at OI (like on BSD or Linux). As Illumos is the common development base of NexentaStor, OI, OmniOS, SmartOS and a couple of more distributions, you can count on it.

OpenIndiana adds a lot of services and applications (webserver, databases, media tools, office apps). Their stability and updates depend on Openindiana efforts. If you compare it to OmniOS that is based on a minimal pure Illumos (and ignore LX zones as a OmniOS addon) you miss the commercial support option and the long term stable that is a freeze of development with backporting of bugfixes.

For a pure storage server without the desktop apps available at OpenIndiana, Openindiana=Illumos is a very stable storage platform especially the OmniOS alike Textedition (while I really prefer the GUI option with Timeslider, local filemanagement, a local firefox browser for management and VNC). I avoid the other desktop Office/ Media apps. For them I would always use a VM and do not install on a critical storage server. The Redhat alike OmniOS with a very expensive full commercial support option - too often offered for free from Dan is gone, thats true but how many have used and paid for, only very very few.

Nearly all alternatives like FreeNAS, OMV, Nas4Free come also without commercial support. If you want you must buy (for a general use OS like Solaris or storage appliances like Nexenta, TrueNAS or the really expensive ones like NetApp)
 
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Bronko

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May 13, 2016
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The next OmniOS 151022
seem the last OmniOS releaseBSDLoader

(expected Mai 2017) is available as a public beta.
ReleaseNotes/r151022

For an update from a version prior the current stable 151020 (up from last LTS 151014),
- check Upgrade_to_r151022
- and napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana, Solaris and Linux : Downloads
- If you use napp-it, you must first update to newest v 17 free, pro or dev (April edition)

You must mainly care about number of BEs (<30) and the switch of SunSSH to OpenSSH in 151018 stable and a current napp-it to avoid problems with the Perl module Expect


Update from a current default stable OmniOS 151020

If you want to update from current stable 151020 setup, you must update napp-it, switch the repository and update. The easiest way is using Putty as root as you can copy/paste commands with a mouse right click

Code:
pkg unset-publisher omnios
pkg set-publisher -P --set-property signature-policy=require-signatures -g https://pkg.omniti.com/omnios/r151022/ omnios
pkg update
reboot
As the setup creates a bootenvironment, you can go back to the former OS release when needed.
Some additional hints for the Grub replace by illumos Loader:
BSDLoader (very interesting!)

May be it is a good decision for an upgrade path to stay with Grub after Update:
Code:
echo "BE_HAS_GRUB=true" > /etc/default/be
Reason:
An old BE CAN be booted from the new Loader menu, but beadm will not work properly in that pre-Loader boot environment once booted.
Additionally I have had to re-enable TLS EMail:
napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana, Solaris and Linux : Downloads

Code:
perl -MCPAN -e shell
o conf urllist
o conf urllist shift
o conf urllist unshift http://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/cpan/
o conf commit
notest install Net::SSLeay
notest install IO::Socket::SSL
notest install Net::SMTP::TLS
exit
cpan.netbot.org is currently down ( the status of CPAN mirrors ), therefore some "o conf urllist" commands.
 
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ekke

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Nov 16, 2015
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Gea what would you recommend today for a new installation, omniOS or OI minimal?
 

gea

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Dec 31, 2010
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The commercial paid support of OmniOS is gone and there is no sign that newer Illumos fixes and improvements find their way to OmniOS.

I revert to OI now (where I was two years ago) for new setups as this is an 1:1 replacement (when LX zones are not needed). If you use the minimal, you must add some tools for a working setup. You can use the textversion directly as this includes them. This is quite identical to OmniOS. I use mostly the GUI version with Mate but without additional GUI apps due Timeslider, the local data management option, the local Firefox browser for napp-it management and the remote vnc option. If you use the last snapshot (2017.04) you can update single packages on problems. A pkg update gives you the whole current Illumos similar to OmniOS bloody.

http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/setup_napp-it_os.pdf
 
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wildchild

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Feb 4, 2014
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I concure..
As i send to the mailing list yesterday,"slow descent to a sure death"

Seems no one is picking up or omni it isnt releasing the sign keys, nor is omni releasing any urgent patches, not even to their customers
 

ekke

Member
Nov 16, 2015
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The commercial paid support of OmniOS is gone and there is no sign that newer Illumos fixes and improvements find their way to OmniOS.

I revert to OI now (where I was two years ago) for new setups as this is an 1:1 replacement (when LX zones are not needed). If you use the minimal, you must add some tools for a working setup. You can use the textversion directly as this includes them. This is quite identical to OmniOS. I use mostly the GUI version with Mate but without additional GUI apps due Timeslider, the local data management option, the local Firefox browser for napp-it management and the remote vnc option. If you use the last snapshot (2017.04) you can update single packages on problems. A pkg update gives you the whole current Illumos similar to OmniOS bloody.

http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/setup_napp-it_os.pdf
Thanks for the info. Is there any date for Linux zones on oi?

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