Problems with DHCP network configuration

We encountered a strange bug in systemd-networkd that causes some troubles on systems which are using DHCP to configure the network interfaces. Because of unknown reasons the systemd-networkd service may crash, e.g. when a new network configuration is applied.

You can workaround by rebooting the system or by running

systemctl restart systemd-networkd.service

several times until

systemctl status systemd-networkd.service

reports the service is running. You can alternatively run the command

omv-salt deploy run systemd-networkd

If everything fails, use static IP addresses until the bug has been fixed upstream by the Debian project.

The bug has been reported upstream at https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/27854 and https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1036949.

What is wrong with some Open-Source-Software (OSS) users?

A few days ago I received another email which made me wonder what is going on with some Open-Source-Software (OSS) users.

… Try fresh install as I described to you and do your job and fix this ridiculous bug.

First of all, the writer here has quite the wrong tone. Secondly, I have already done my job by extensively testing the functionality before publishing. Of course, it always happens that things run differently at the user than in the development or test environment.

What always saddens me is the fact that some users think they can make demands on software that is created by developers in their spare time and then provided to them for free. How can you make claims on a software and its developers that is free? With paid software I can understand that, but with OSS? In my opinion, many users do not see the difference between commercially driven OSS and those created by volunteers in their spare time. Projects like Linux, Kubernetes, Ceph or OpenOffice, to name a few, are supported by vendors who have a commercial interest and have paid developers working on these projects for this purpose. Such projects have naturally set the bar pretty high for users. It is clear that many users then apply this bar to other OSS projects. However, users should not forget how open source works and where it comes from. In most cases, OSS is driven by enthusiastic developers in their spare time and made available to the community for free.

Release of openmediavault 6 (Shaitan)

After a long development phase i am happy to announce the release of openmediavault 6 (Shaitan).

A big thank you goes to all translators, forum moderators and bug reporters for their contributions and support.

The main new features of openmediavault 6:

  • Based on Debian 11 (Bullseye).
  • Completely new user interface written from scratch.
  • Add some new plugins that are based on containers. These are e.g. S3, OwnTone, PhotoPrism, WeTTY, FileBrowser, Onedrive. Please note that not all platforms are supported because the upstream base containers are only available for specific CPU architectures.
  • Enhanced ISO installer. Ensure that /media is unmounted to allow installation to USB devices. This will allow the installation from USB to USB device.
  • /dev/disk/by-label filesystem device files are not supported anymore because they are not unique and predictable.
  • The file system page will only show file systems configured by openmediavault from now on. This is the standard behavior of the user interface that all other pages use.
  • openmediavault can’t be installed side-by-side with graphical environments anymore.
  • Replace pam_tally2 by pam_faillock.
  • Replace CLI tool omv-update by omv-upgrade.
  • Use systemd watchdog instead of separate daemon.
  • Add option to FTP settings to display the home directory of the user in the browse list.
  • Enhance the SMART temperature monitoring configuration. Global settings can be overwritten per device. Please check your settings whether the migration was correct or reconfigure them if necessary.
  • Remove ability to cleanup system logs. This is no longer possible because the data is now fetched from the systemd journal, which cannot be cleaned per unit.
  • Support ed25519 SSH public keys in the user settings dialog.
  • Add recycle bin support for SMB home directories.
  • Add the ability to copy and apply the permissions of a shared folder to its ACL page.
  • Disable the ‘Access control list’ button on the shared folder page if the selected entry is located on a non-POSIX compliant file system.
  • Enhance the configuration of times of scheduled jobs.
  • Disable SMB NetBIOS support by default. You can enable it via the OMV_SAMBA_NMBD_ENABLE environment variable.
  • Statically DNS servers will take precedence over the DNS servers received from the DHCP server.
  • Force avahi-daemon to only use ethernet, bond and wifi network interfaces that are configured via the UI.

The whole changelog for openmediavault 6 can be viewed here.

More information about the omv-extras.org plugins can be found here.

WARNING … Upgrading from openmediavault 5 might cause problems on systems that are using USB hardware based on JMicron controllers. Have a look here and here for more information.

WARNING … Side-by-side installation with graphical environments will be prevented technically.

The ISO image can be downloaded here. You can also install openmediavault 6 on every Debian 11 based distribution, e.g. using the Netinst ISO images, Raspbian or … if your platform is not supported. You will find a guide here how you can do that.

Existing openmediavault 5 installations can be migrated by running the omv-release-upgrade command in the CLI.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the forum or have a look into our troubleshooting section.

New updates available

openmediavault 5.5.14
openmediavault-clamav 5.0.11
openmediavault-usbbackup 5.0.6

  • Issue #812: Cron script erroneously reports success though failed.

Release of openmediavault 5 (Usul)

After a long development phase i am happy to announce the release of openmediavault 5 (Usul).

A big thank you goes to all translators, forum moderators and bug reporters for their contributions and support.

The main features at a glance:

  • Using Debian 10 (Buster).
  • Use SaltStack to deploy configuration settings. Using ‘omv-salt stage run all’ will deploy the whole system according to the configuration database.
  • The omv-salt CLI command superseds omv-mkconf. Note, the command will not only create the configuration files, it will also take care about to start/stop/restart the services.
  • The omv-initsystem command has been replaced by ‘omv-confdbadm populate’. This command discovers the current system settings and synchronizes them into the database.
  • Add Time Machine support to SMB/CIFS shares.
  • Use systemd-logind to handle power button action.
  • Use systemd to reboot/shutdown/standby the system.
  • Use chrony instead of ntpd.
  • Use systemd to configure the network.
  • Use periodic filesystem trim instead of online.
  • Add storage backend for Areca RAID controllers.
  • Disable the ‘/sharedfolder/’ feature by default on new installations because it makes too much problems. It can be enabled by setting the environment variable to ‘OMV_SHAREDFOLDERS_DIR_ENABLED=”YES”‘. Finally run the command ‘omv-salt stage run prepare’ to apply the modified default values and ‘omv-salt deploy run systemd’ to create the unit files.
  • Fix ‘Subject Alternative Name missing’ error in self signed SSL certificates.
  • Add right-to-left (RTL) support.
  • Remember size and position of windows.
  • Display ‘Updates available’ status in dashboard widget.
  • Display reboot notification.

Current issues:

  • Blanks in filesystem labels are not supported.

The whole changelog for openmediavault 5 can be viewed here. The ISO image can be downloaded here.

You can also install OMV5 on every Debian 10 based distribution, e.g. using the Netinst ISO images, Raspbian or … if your platform is not supported. You will find a guide here how you can do that.

Because of the huge changes in this version there is no official migration path from OMV4 to OMV5, which does not mean that it is not possible.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the forum or have a look into our troubleshooting section.