Can TrueNAS be a NFS client?

[vinod8cu]

Can TrueNAS be a NFS client to another NFS server?

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

TrueNAS is not supposed to be a client for any file sharing protocol, only a server.

Would you please take the time to answer a simple question: why did you post in the FreeNAS legacy section of the forum? This is for years old outdated and unsupported releases, not for any current version of TrueNAS.
Look at the top of this thread, it reads:

Forums > TrueNAS > FreeNAS (Legacy Software Releases) > FreeNAS Help & support > General Questions and Help

When you look at the forum home page, there are separate sections for TrueNAS CORE, TrueNAS SCALE, and legacy releases. Nobody should be creating new threads in the legacy section, yet a lot of people do. The question is "why?". How can the forum be improved to avoid this? Something's going really wrong, here ...



Thanks!
Patrick

 

[vinod8cu]

Patrick, sorry for posting the original question in the wrong section and thanks for bringing the discussion here.

I get it that TrueNAS is a server but I have a specific need it to be a client to copy data from another non-TrueNAS NFS server. Doing it via another machine mounting both servers is a possibility but will be slower as it involves additional hop, which is significant as we need to copy large (3 PB) from old NFS server and every bit of performance change matters.

Just as ssh server can be a ssh client, a web server can also run http client CLIs, please help me understand why TrueNAS cannot be a client to make a direct connection with the other NFS servers.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

It's simply not a supported feature. You can try to do a temporary mount for your purpose on the command line. The mount.nfs command is still present. But there is no supported way in the UI and neither a supported way to create a permanent mount.

I did not want you to apologize - I want to understand what lead you to this section of the forum. Would you mind to explain? There must be something fundamentally wrong/confusing/difficult. Lots of people new to the forum post in the legacy section instead of - like in your case - the one for TrueNAS SCALE. I want to understand why.

Thanks,
Patrick

 

[Arwen]

...
I did not want you to apologize - I want to understand what lead you to this section of the forum. Would you mind to explain? There must be something fundamentally wrong/confusing/difficult. Lots of people new to the forum post in the legacy section instead of - like in your case - the one for TrueNAS SCALE. I want to understand why.

Thanks,
Patrick

I suspect 2 main reasons:

1. The word FreeNAS became well known, and people are not aware that TrueNAS is no longer just Enterprise.
2. The FreeNAS forum link comes before TrueNAS Core & SCALE, (seems to be alphabetical)

For the 2nd reason, if their was a way to put the FreeNAS forums below Virtualization, that may help. Or just in a category by it's self, with more clear comments about it being the old version.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

I disagree about #1, but I might be wrong. We are talking about people new to the forum and new to TrueNAS. It clearly says e.g. "TrueNAS CORE" in the upper left of the UI, on the download pages, etc. At least my impression is that the FreeNAS brand is gone for good from "the Internet".

Agree about #2. The forums should be sorted after actual or desired frequency, so TN CORE and TN SCALE at the top or close to it after Guidelines, Announcements, News.

 

[Redcoat]

The forums should be sorted after actual or desired frequency, so TN CORE and TN SCALE at the top or close to it after Guidelines, Announcements, News.

Yes. How about after the two "boxes" Guidelines, Annoucements and News. have a box with just two listings - Core and Scale - requiring one or the other to be picked before anything further is displayed? Once a selection is made there, open a further set of boxes with appropriate topics from the balance of the existing listings.

 

[Arwen]

Yes. How about after the two "boxes" Guidelines, Annoucements and News. have a box with just two listings - Core and Scale - requiring one or the other to be picked before anything further is displayed? Once a selection is made there, open a further set of boxes with appropriate topics from the balance of the existing listings.

Then have the FreeNAS legacy under TrueNAS Core... We still do have people using FreeNAS 11.x. Even saw a 9.3 posting as recently as within 2 weeks.

 

[Redcoat]

Then have the FreeNAS legacy under TrueNAS Core...

Exactly!

 

[vinod8cu]

It was my first post and I don't know how I ended up in FreeNAS Forum. I saw a TrueNAS in big bold title on the top and thought it is the right furum.

That said, I am still missing the answer to my question:
I get it that TrueNAS is a server but I have a specific need it to be a client to copy data from another non-TrueNAS NFS server. Doing it via another machine mounting both servers is a possibility but will be slower as it involves additional hop, which is significant as we need to copy large (3 PB) from old NFS server and every bit of performance change matters.

Just as ssh server can be a ssh client, a web server can also run http client CLIs, please help me understand why TrueNAS cannot be a client to make a direct connection with the other NFS servers.

 

[Arwen]

TrueNAS SCALE is not designed as a NFS client. TrueNAS is a targeted firmware like package of software. Not a general purpose OS. NFS client mounts may or may not work. What we are saying is that you can try it, but it is not supported.

If direct mounts don't work, you can also try an App or VM. Then allow the App or VM access to the local storage as well as the other server's NFS mount.


Their are 2 ways with RSync to copy the data if that other server supports RSync, (and possibly SSH);

• RSync over SSH, if the other server is not local
• RSync protocol, (aka un-encrypted), if the other server is local