TrueNAS 25.04 drops FreeBSD: "Fangtooth" only with GNU/Linux base

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With TrueNAS 25.04 "Fangtooth", iXsystems is taking a far-reaching step in the development of the open storage platform. It is the first release of the NAS operating system to merge the previously separate TrueNAS CORE (FreeBSD-based) and TrueNAS SCALE (Linux-based) lines into a single base. By "merging" it is meant that there will no longer be a choice between a FreeBSD or a GNU/Linux base: TrueNAS will only be delivered as a monoculture with a Linux kernel and toolset.

Updated Linux kernel and OpenZFS 2.3

TrueNAS 25.04 is based on the Linux kernel 6.12 and integrates OpenZFS 2.3.0. The current OpenZFS 2.3.1 would have been better, as it fixes a number of sometimes annoying bugs. Among other things, OpenZFS 2.3 brings "Fast Deduplication", a function for fast deduplication that enables storage space savings, especially for NVMe-based systems such as the TrueNAS H30 and F100 series. At some point, every NAS runs out of storage space, so users can look forward to OpenZFS' new ability to expand RAID-Z arrays on the fly.

The FreeBSD version of TrueNAS, with its superfast jails (operating system containers) and the completely newly developed native hypervisor Bhyve, also offers the option of running virtual applications or operating systems on the NAS. With "Fangtooth", iXsystems is now introducing support for LXC containers and QEMU/KVM virtualization via Incus.

Incus was created by Aleksa Sarai as an alternative to Canonical's LXD and is a framework for the joint management of Linux containers, apps and VMs. The handling of apps has been significantly improved in the WebGUI. According to iXsystems, the enhanced networking features allow the TrueNAS administrator to configure IP addresses for newly added apps in the App Catalog/TrueCharts, which improves network segmentation and security control.

More enterprise features

Especially for enterprise users, "Fangtooth" offers exciting additional functions: Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) makes it possible to transfer data directly between the main memories of two systems – without the detour via CPU, caches and operating system kernels. In "Fangtooth", this technology is now also supported for iSCSI and NFS, which should bring significant performance benefits in latency-critical networks –, for example, for memory access by hyper-converged clusters or data-intensive applications. There is also NFS-over-RDMA support.

Another new feature is support for iSCSI block cloning, particularly in VMware environments. Here, new virtual machines are no longer created using complete copies of existing VMDK files, but using so-called "clones" based on shared blocks. This not only saves storage space, but also significantly reduces provisioning time. Multipath I/O (MPIO) enables fail-safe access to iSCSI targets with redundancy and load balancing.

Exclusively in the Enterprise Edition, TrueNAS SCALE now also supports Fibre Channel (FC). Administrators can now deploy block-based storage over FC HBAs – with low latency, high bandwidth and the ability to integrate TrueNAS as a centralized storage backend into existing enterprise SANs. Further details on "Fangtooth" can be found in the release notes.

What the discontinuation of the FreeBSD base means for TrueNAS

As iXsystems itself states, there were roughly the same number of FreeBSD/CORE and Linux/SCALE users at the end of 2024, with SCALE showing significant growth. This is logical, as only since TrueNAS 24.04 "Dragonfish" has SCALE technically caught up with CORE, according to its statements. According to iXsystems, SCALE 24.10 "Electric Eel" offered a better app infrastructure thanks to the integration of Docker and was also technically more up-to-date. This is not surprising, as TrueNAS CORE is still based on FreeBSD 13. The current version of FreeBSD is 14.2, with 14.3 coming soon.

CORE users have long criticized the fact that CORE is ultimately based on the ancient FreeBSD 13.0 with a few fixes from 13.3 and has hardly received any updates up to FreeBSD 13.5 or even the upgrade to 14. It is obvious that CORE had to fall behind technically as a result. FreeBSD users will have no choice but to familiarize themselves with GNU/Linux and its management tools (systemd, LXC/Docker instead of Jails, QEMU/KVM instead of Bhyve). Those who already live in the Linux universe will be pleased to have more developer resources available due to the elimination of FreeBSD at iXsystems.

For long-time users and FreeBSD enthusiasts, the transition to a pure Linux-based platform with "Fangtooth" marks not only a technical update – but the end of an era. For decades, TrueNAS (formerly FreeNAS) was inextricably linked to FreeBSD. The stability, the network stack, the jail system, and of course ZFS – were all maintained, tested and perfected on FreeBSD. The decision by iXsystems to consolidate development completely on GNU/Linux feels like a farewell to many. A piece of FreeBSD history is lost – especially for those who deliberately chose FreeBSD as their platform because they wanted to differentiate themselves from Linux.

(vbr)