XigmaNAS is

network-attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level storage) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. The term "NAS" can refer to both the tech ...

(NAS) server software with a dedicated management web interface (written in PHP). It is

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...

under the terms of the

Simplified BSD license BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD li ...

. XigmaNAS is a continuation of the original

FreeNAS TrueNAS is the branding for a range of free and open-source network-attached storage (NAS) operating systems produced by iXsystems, and based on FreeBSD and Linux, using the OpenZFS file system. It is licensed under the terms of the BSD ...

code, which was developed between 2005 and late 2011. It was released under the name ''NAS4Free'' on 22 March 2012. The name was changed to XigmaNAS in July 2018. On

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirroring ...

, it was elected “'Community Choice' Project of the Month” twice, in August 2015 and March 2017.

Technology

XigmaNAS is an embedded

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

NAS software distribution based on the latest release of

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

. It developed from original FreeNAS 7 code and updated to work with the current latest FreeBSD releases. However, "XigmaNAS preserves FreeNAS’s original m0n0wall/PHP architecture and introduces experimental support for the ARM architecture." XigmaNAS supports sharing across Windows, Apple, and UNIX-like systems. It includes ZFS v5000, Software

RAID Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...

(0,1,5),

disk encryption Disk encryption is a technology which protects information by converting it into unreadable code that cannot be deciphered easily by unauthorized people. Disk encryption uses disk encryption software or hardware to encrypt every bit of data that ...

, S.M.A.R.T. and email reports etc., with the following protocols: SMB, Samba Active Directory Domain Controller AD, FTP, NFS,

TFTP Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a simple lockstep File Transfer Protocol which allows a client to get a file from or put a file onto a remote host. One of its primary uses is in the early stages of nodes booting from a local area netwo ...

, AFP,

rsync rsync is a utility for efficiently transferring and synchronizing files between a computer and a storage drive and across networked computers by comparing the modification times and sizes of files. It is commonly found on Unix-like opera ...

, Unison (file synchronizer),

iSCSI Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...

(initiator and target), HAST,

CARP Carp are various species of oily freshwater fish from the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish native to Europe and Asia. While carp is consumed in many parts of the world, they are generally considered an invasive species in parts of ...

, Bridge,

UPnP Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other's presence on the n ...

, and BitTorrent. All of this is configurable by its web interface.

Features

*All XigmaNAS versions **Multiple architectures:

i386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors amd64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging m ...

and ARM-based versions **Full Web Management Interface ( WebGUI) *Hard drive and volume management **Software

Disk encryption Disk encryption is a technology which protects information by converting it into unreadable code that cannot be deciphered easily by unauthorized people. Disk encryption uses disk encryption software or hardware to encrypt every bit of data that ...

(using cryptographic accelerator card if present) **Partition *** MBR, GPT **

initiator **Filesystems *** ZFS v5000, UFS ***

Ext2 The ext2 or second extended file system is a file system for the Linux kernel. It was initially designed by French software developer Rémy Card as a replacement for the extended file system (ext). Having been designed according to the same ...

Ext3 ext3, or third extended filesystem, is a journaled file system that is commonly used by the Linux kernel. It used to be the default file system for many popular Linux distributions. Stephen Tweedie first revealed that he was working on ext ...

*** FAT,

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...

*Networking **

802.1q IEEE 802.1Q, often referred to as Dot1q, is the networking standard that supports virtual local area networking (VLANs) on an IEEE 802.3 Ethernet network. The standard defines a system of VLAN tagging for Ethernet frames and the accompanying pro ...

VLAN tagging **

Wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...

**Network

link aggregation In computer networking, link aggregation is the combining ( aggregating) of multiple network connections in parallel by any of several methods, in order to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, to provide redunda ...

** Wake On Lan **

Network Bridge A network bridge is a computer networking device that creates a single, aggregate network from multiple communication networks or network segments. This function is called network bridging. Bridging is distinct from routing. Routing allows ...

(Common Address Redundancy Protocol) ** HAST (Highly Available Storage) *Network Protocols **

Server Message Block Server Message Block (SMB) is a communication protocol originally developed in 1983 by Barry A. Feigenbaum at IBM and intended to provide shared access to files and printers across nodes on a network of systems running IBM's OS/2. It also provide ...

(SMB, one never used version was known as CIFS) (Samba) **

Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralize ...

Domain controller A domain controller (DC) is a server computer that responds to security authentication requests within a computer network domain. It is a network server that is responsible for allowing host access to domain resources. It authenticates users, stores ...

(Samba) **

Apple Filing Protocol The Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), formerly AppleTalk Filing Protocol, is a proprietary network protocol, and part of the Apple File Service (AFS), that offers file services for macOS and the classic Mac OS. In Mac OS 9 and earlier, AFP was ...

(AFP) (Netatalk) **

Network File System Network File System (NFS) is a distributed file system protocol originally developed by Sun Microsystems (Sun) in 1984, allowing a user on a client computer to access files over a computer network much like local storage is accessed. NFS, lik ...

(NFS) ** FTP (ProFTPD) **

(tftp-hpa) **

(client/server) **

Unison In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm. Definition Unison or per ...

SCP SCP may refer to: Organizations Political parties * Soviet Communist Party, the leading political party in the former Soviet Union * Syrian Communist Party * Sudanese Communist Party * Scottish Christian Party Companies * Seattle Computer Produ ...

(SSH) **

target *Extra services **

server (FUPPES) **

server (MiniDLNA) ** iTunes/DAAP server (Firefly) **

Lighttpd lighttpd (pronounced "lighty") is an open-source web server optimized for speed-critical environments while remaining standards-compliant, secure and flexible. It was originally written by Jan Kneschke as a proof-of-concept of the c10k problem � ...

(Webserver) **

Iperf Iperf is a tool for network performance measurement and tuning. It is a cross-platform tool that can produce standardized performance measurements for any network. Iperf has client and server functionality, and can create data streams to measure ...

Iperf3 Network Bandwidth measure **

Syncthing Syncthing is a free, open-source peer-to-peer file synchronization application available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, Solaris, Darwin, and BSD. It can sync files between devices on a local network, or between remote devices over the Intern ...

File synchronization application **

Transmission Transmission may refer to: Medicine, science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual transmission ** ...

BitTorrent client **

VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox) is a type-2 hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by Innotek GmbH, which was acquired by S ...

Virtualbox included and managed by phpVirtualBox and noVNC on GUI *Monitoring ** S.M.A.R.T. (smartmontools) **Alert by E-mail **

SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet Standard protocol for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks and for modifying that information to change device behaviour. Devices that typically ...

Syslog In computing, syslog is a standard for message logging. It allows separation of the software that generates messages, the system that stores them, and the software that reports and analyzes them. Each message is labeled with a facility code, i ...

** UPS (NUT)

Installation

XigmaNAS is installable on almost any boot medium including LiveCD optionally with a small USB flash drive for config storage if necessary, both for

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...

and

x86-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnatio ...

computer platforms up to version 10.3. As of version 11.0, XigmaNAS no longer supports x86-32, but version 10.3 is still getting updates. XigmaNAS can be installed on Compact Flash, USB flash drive, SSD, hard drive or other bootable devices, and supports advanced formatted drives using 4 kB sectors. The software distribution is currently distributed as in

ISO image An optical disc image (or ISO image, from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media) is a disk image that contains everything that would be written to an optical disc, disk sector by disc sector, including the optical disc file system. ...

(.iso, ~370 MB) or USB flash drive image (.img, ~320 MB) format, and in

source Source may refer to: Research * Historical document * Historical source * Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence * Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute o ...

form.

Preferred embedded installation

A special small footprint embedded image is also available (.img, ~150 MB). The preferred method is the embedded installation onto a USB stick, Compact Flash card (CF), or HDD/

SSD A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It is a ...

, for which XigmaNAS was designed. The XigmaNAS OS will load into system memory, eliminating system writes to a drive except for configuration changes written to an archive. Flash devices are more energy efficient, and the updating process can be done by WebGUI in the browser, downloading and installing a new firmware image.

History

The original FreeNAS project derives from

m0n0wall m0n0wall was an embedded firewall distribution of FreeBSD, one of the BSD operating system descendants. It provides a small image which can be put on Compact Flash cards as well as on CD-ROMs and hard disks. It runs on a number of embedded pla ...

. The FreeNAS 0.7 branch was end-of-life'd in late 2011 after the FreeNAS name was legally acquired by

iXsystems iXsystems, Inc. is a privately owned American computer technology company based in San Jose, California that develops, sells and supports computing and storage products and services. Its principal products are customized open source FreeBSD dis ...

, Inc. Starting with version 8.x, new iXsystems developers rewrote FreeNAS and legacy FreeNAS 0.7 was no longer available for download. The legacy FreeNAS 0.7 code was unable to be developed any longer under the same name, and a name change was necessary. The founder of FreeNAS (Olivier Cochard-Labbé) donated the original FreeNAS source code to the NAS4Free project. With the support of the former developers, namely Daisuke Aoyama and Michael Zoon, it carries on the original FreeNAS code base. FreeNAS 8.x.y and up is a software

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

of the original FreeNAS with a new rewritten code-base, continuing the old branded name. In 2018, the project applied for the XigmaNAS trademark in order to protect the brand prior to the release of v11.2.

Awards

* SourceForge.net — Project of the Month, March 2017 * SourceForge.net — Project of the Month, August 2015 * SourceForge.net — Project of the Week, May 2015 *

VMware VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture. VMware's desktop software ru ...

— "Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge, Consumer" (2008) * SourceForge.net — Project of the Month, January 2007 *

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

— Best of open source in storage (2008)

References

External links

* {{FreeBSD Free file transfer software Free software FreeBSD Home servers Network-attached storage Software using the BSD license