Currently the full features of ZFS aren’t usable natively in Webmin, people have at times been directed towards “ZFS Manager” (ZFS Manager | A Module for Webmin (wordpress.com)) extension. However there doesn’t seem to have been any work done, on the extension since during Summer 2023. There’s also been no further updates released.
So due to this situation I was wondering whether its possible, for native support to be added to standard modules releases please?
| SYSTEM INFORMATION |
|------------------------------|-------------------------------|
| FreeBSD 13.3 |
| Webmin version | 202.1 |
Gosh! I thought ZFS was put to sleep rest in pieces with the exit of Oracle.
I would doubt if Webmin staff have either the time or budget to keep it alive.
The ZFS Filesystem is still around and being developed! Though FreeBSD is now using the ZFS filesystem by running OpenZFS. This OpenZFS is currently on version 2.2.5. On top of this the iXSystems are also contributing code to the OpenZFS software, for its development.
The event of Oracle leaving ZFS, hasn’t killed the ZFS filesystem. As due to the OpenZFS which has many contributors. It’s still being used in a wide variety of places, so in no way is it put to sleep.
So given that ZFS is still being developed and FreeBSD is also being developed, maintained and supported.
@Ilia Can serious thought please be given to working on implementing native support for ZFS in Webmin?
@Stegan If you were to check out the OpenZFS website and the companies page. Your going to have a real surprise as to how much, that the ZFS Filesystem is still going.
Proxmox and TrueNAS are heavily dependant on this, and in fact my Virtualmin is on a ZVol that is on a TrueNAS running ZFS.
However I could not use Webmin to control it, and I am not sure I would want to either as the development that TrueNAS put into getting ZFS to work correctly is substantial.
everyones setup is different but the resources required to run ZFS are considerable.
P.S. snapshoting on ZFS is very handy and can prevent against Ransomware but should not be used as a backup.
@Ilia What I mean by native support for ZFS is features similar to the module listed above. But part of the standard official code of Webmin’s standard modules.
For instance being able to show and configure the default properties of ZFS pools, also the properties of pools present on the system that Webmin is installed on or connected to.
Additionally being able to create and manage snapshots within Webmin, as well as the same for the ZFS pools. On the matter of managing ZFS pools within Webmin this includes being able to resize the pools.
Additionally be able to monitor the health of the ZFS pools and remediate it where possible within Webmin.
I’m sure Webmin staff would like such a commitment as would anyone else down the chain. I still cannot really see the relevance/significance to the majority of Webmin users
@Stegan Other than Cockpit (for systemd) based Linux distros, using Webmin is the only open source and/or free browser based administration interface for FreeBSD, which is stable and production ready.
So this investment will bring new users and developers to FreeBSD and they’re going to be needing an interface like Webmin for administration, from their web browsers. So having native management, features for ZFS on Webmin will aid those with FreeBSD based servers to administer them. Especially when configuring and manging the ZFS based storage on those servers.
At the moment major parts of the ZFS management outside of the apparently not still being worked on 3rd party module, are all command line console based. This includes managing the ZFS based storage pools, such as resizing them.
So being able to do so within the Webmin interface would really help with remote administration through it.
The improvement to processes of FreeBSD (especially CI/CD) will be an aid to future FreeBSD development and testing. As this means features developed by FreeBSD will be improved, but also likely the interfaces for these tools will also at some point be available for development with FreeBSD.
Thus meaning that Webmin development teams can use them to aid in the development of future versions of the software, when preparing the FreeBSD based releases.
It also will aid in the preparation of SBOM for the Webmin releases, when Webmin is used in relevant environment where such is required.
What I mean is that on a ZFS system if you run df to show local disk space used and available, all filesystems mounted from the same ZFS pool show the same total size. So if they were added up it can look like there’s a lot more disk on the system than there really is.
