Napp-it cs web-gui for (m)any ZFS server or servergroups

[gea]

About

Napp-it is a webbased management tool for a ZFS server since the early days of ZFS on Sun Solaris or OpenSolaris. Now ZFS is available on BSD, Illumos (Solaris fork), OSX and Windows where the first release candidate is available now. This gives a unique combination. The original Windows SMB server is not only quite the fastest one, it is also the most Windows compatible one especially regarding ACL permissions where only the Solaris kernelbased SMB server comes close. Combined with ZFS you have a dream team.

Main advantages of napp-it cs (Client-Server edition):
It is a mobile „Copy and Run“ application, no installation required
On Windows, simply download and start. Setup, Update or downgrade is a simple copy action.
It is intended that you can manage any ZFS server on any platform or replicate between any.

Requirements:
Napp-it cs needs a simple webserver with Perl and cgi capability. I decided to use Xampp portable as it offers a whole webserver suite with Apache. You can minimize size by deleting service folders beside Apache and Perl.

Current state:
First beta with basic Disk, Pool, vdev and snap management.


Setup

1. Download Open-ZFS for Windows

Releases · openzfsonwindows/openzfs

OpenZFS on Linux and FreeBSD. Contribute to openzfsonwindows/openzfs development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

2. Download Frontend web-gui Xampp.zip with napp-it (portable app, no installation required, just copy and run)
uncompress to c:\xampp

3. Download Backend Server cs_server.zip
uncompress and copy to any location of your BSD, Illumos, Linux, OSX, Solaris or Windows server

4. Open a Browser on Windows with adress http://localhost
or from a remote client with the ip adress of Windows.

more

napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana and Solaris , ZFS Server for Windows

napp-it.org - ZFS NAS SAN Server with user editable web-gui // All In One server = virtualized ready to run ZFS-Server

www.napp-it.org

Not convinced?
Uninstall Open-ZFS and delete c:\xampp

Discuss napp-it cs for ZFS on Windows:

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?forums/solaris-nexenta-openindiana-and-napp-it.26/

Discuss Open-ZFS on Windows

openzfsonwindows openzfs · Discussions

Explore the GitHub Discussions forum for openzfsonwindows openzfs. Discuss code, ask questions & collaborate with the developer community.

github.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comments/19dpz70

Current state of napp-it cs for ZFS on Windows:

napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana and Solaris , ZFS Server for Windows

napp-it.org - ZFS NAS SAN Server with user editable web-gui // All In One server = virtualized ready to run ZFS-Server

www.napp-it.de

I'll keep this initial thread up to date

 

[gea]

newest nightly:
- download, unzip folder napp-it
- delete c.\xampp\napp-it and copy new napp-it folder to c:\xampp

Jan. 22:
Menu ZFS filesystem with smb share enable/ disable
Jan 23
I have added the option to set driveletters in menu zfs filesytems (no need to set via cli)

https://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/napp-it-win-jan-23.zip

After a Windows reboot you may need to import pools

 

[ericloewe]

So... How well is ZFS on Windows working these days? Like, "run it on my main workstation" sort of reliability?

 

[ano]

could it be WORSE than storage spaces?

 

[pimposh]

Yes.

 

[ericloewe]

could it be WORSE than storage spaces?

Probably not, but "better than storage spaces" is not a high bar to clear and the expectations most people have of ZFS are unlikely to be satisfied by such meager an achievement.

 

[ano]

it was mostly a joke, and also a small bump for TS to get some traction for the thread

 

[lundman]

I look forward to trying it out

 

[gea]

thanks.

I have seen that
- there is a new release candidate 1-3 of Open-ZFS for Windows from today (just install and reboot)
prior installation: create a recovery point (my win 10 crashed after installing the new version, win 11 was ok)
- may be of interest:

If possible, do tests in a VM
https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comments/19dpz70

 

[lundman]

Yep, new version to attempt to address Windows does not honor structure · Issue #316 · openzfsonwindows/openzfs

 

[gea]

prior installation: create a recovery point (my win 10 crashed after installing the new version, win 11 was ok)
Tried the update again in Win10, this time it worked. Best is to do tests in a VM

Create a system restore point - Microsoft Support

Create a system restore point

support.microsoft.com

If Windows crashes after installing of ZFS

Windows bootloop - OpenZFS on OS X

openzfsonosx.org

get newest:

napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana and Solaris , ZFS Server for Windows

napp-it.org - ZFS NAS SAN Server with user editable web-gui // All In One server = virtualized ready to run ZFS-Server

www.napp-it.org

26.1c. newest nightly: SMB sharing with permissions and mountpoints in menue Filesystems: ok

Menue disks and filesystems: quite ok
Menue pools, snaps and fillesystems: ok
menu jobs not ready

 

[gea]

Behaviour of Windows ZFS is different to OmniOS/ Solaris ZFS

On OmniOS only nbmand requires a unmount+mount.
On Windows (and propably Linux) atime and readonly also require a (recursive) unmount/mount cycle.

I have uploaded a new release (feb 03) where this works on Windows.

 

[gea]

A Windows SMB filer with ZFS, why and when?

There was a discussion about this and the answer was:
Windows SMB direct with RDMA can be a powerful option with high performance needs ex for (multiuser) 4k+ video editing
and large (Petabyte) storage that is more secure, feature rich and faster than ntfs/ReFS (but be aware, current Open-ZFS 2.2 for Windows is release candidate/beta).

When it comes to performance over security:

Optimierung von Microsofts TCP-Murks in Windows 10 und 11

[English]Heute mal ein kleiner Beitrag in Sachen "wie man eine Funktion vermurksen kann". Microsoft hat sich in der TCP-Implementierung von Windows 10 und Windows 11 einige Klopper geleistet, die die mögliche Leistung von TCP/IP-Verbindungen arg einschränken. Ein Blog-Leser hat mich darauf...

www.borncity.com

Windows 10/11: Grottige Netzwerktransfer-Leistung, hohe Windows 11 CPU-Last – Teil 1

[English]Beim Datentransfer über ein Netzwerk gibt es bei Windows einen erstaunlichen, aber unschönen Effekt. Kopiert man Daten zwischen Maschinen mit Windows 10 und Windows 11 konsumiert Windows 11 das 2 bis 3 Fache an CPU-Leistung als Windows 10. Zudem hängt die Datentransferleistung einer...

www.borncity.com

Windows 11/Server 2019/2022: Netzwerktransfer-Leistung und CPU-Last optimieren – Teil 2

[English]Windows 11 hat ein Problem mit dem Netzwerkdurchsatz, wenn Dateien empfangen werden sollen. In Teil 1 hatte ich einige Messungen, die ein Blog-Leser bei Tests zur Analyse des schwächelnden Netzwerkdurchsatzes und der hohen CPU-Belastung unter Windows 11 durchgeführt hat, präsentiert...

www.borncity.com

(in German, use Chrome to translate on the fly)

SMB Performance tuning

windowsserverdocs/WindowsServerDocs/administration/performance-tuning/role/file-server/smb-file-server.md at main · MicrosoftDocs/windowsserverdocs

Public content repository for Windows Server content. - MicrosoftDocs/windowsserverdocs

github.com

 

[gea]

There is a new release candidate -5 of Open-ZFS 2.2 for Windows

Releases · openzfsonwindows/openzfs

OpenZFS on Linux and FreeBSD. Contribute to openzfsonwindows/openzfs development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[gea]

If you can read German (or translate via Chrome):

[Sammelthread] - Microsoft Hyper-V Stammtisch

Darf ich fragen warum du den Schritt gehst? Eigentlich brauche ich keine Enterprise Features. Außerdem ist die Treiberlage bei AMD besser für das Client OS. Vielleicht kann ich auch noch ein paar Watt einsparen? Mal sehen.

www.hardwareluxx.de

First impressions with SMB direct (RDMA) and 100G nics under Server 2019 free

 

[gea]

How it started with ZFS on OSX & Windows

https://openzfsonosx.org/wiki/Windows_port

 

[gea]

Napp-it is now portable regarding path and name of napp-it folder. This will allow a online update/downgrade in future similar to the Solaris version. You can now keep versions like /xampp/napp-it and /xampp/napp-it2 or /xampp/web-gui/daten, daten2,daten3. Start the wanted version with /xampp/napp-it[n]/data/start_web-gui_as_admin.bat, A Job background task will allow to start tasks without any modifications in Windows (under development, not ready). Menu Pools shows now state of dedup and special vdevs.

 

[gea]

Feb 12b beta
jobs now working (scrub, snap and other)
new menu System with kstat and registry infos

Pool > Expand Raid-Z (raid-z expansion)
Pool > Create: draid

todo
other jobs
performance ex phys blocksize of ZFS under Windows (512B -> 4K)

 

[gea]

Jorgen Lundman (Maintainer of Open-ZFS on OSX and Windows) has confirmed that 512N blocksize is used for a ZFS pool under Windows. This would explain the lower performance of ZFS vs ntfs.

Let's wait for a faster 4k default

https://github.com/openzfsonwindows/openzfs/discussions/345

 

[gea]

extend napp-it with private menues
If you want to manage Xampp or other services via private napp-it menues (update/downgrade safe):

- create a private menu folder 1nn_xx in /xampp/[napp-it]/_my/menues for example 102_my_first_menue
- place a file action.pl with your menu actions within, see other examples under _my/menues

Typical structure of a napp-it menu script.
1. collect all relevant infos into a Perl hash ex %current
you can display hash state via &print_hash(%current);
like i do in menu ZFS Filesystems > data zfs
2. interact with user to manage settings
3. execute commands via &exe("powershell command"); with admin permissions.

To debug a script, use &mess($x), &print_var($x); &print_array(@x) or &print_hash(%x);

To edit Perl scripts, use the DZsoft Perl editor (now free)
DzSoft's Order Page

Beginner's Introduction to Perl

Editor's note: this venerable series is undergoing updates. You might be interested in the newer versions, available at: A Beginner's Introduction to Perl 5.10 A Beginner's Introduction to Files and Strings with Perl 5.10 A Beginner's Introduction to Regular...

www.perl.com