Good morning, after several years of using FreeNAS 11.2, I would like to upgrade to Truenas. I want to transfer my main NAS to my backup NAS via replication. I will first upgrade the backup NAS to Truenas. I have been trying to create a replication task all night. I have already sought help from AI, but nothing has gotten me where I want to be. Could someone perhaps help me?
What versions of FreeNAS or TrueNAS are you working with? Complete details on your two systems could help. Are you planning on copying or moving data? Have you read the documentation section for the version of FreeNAS or TrueNAS you are using? FreeNAS will be under Legacy options
To elaborate a bit on what @SmallBarky said: Youāll first need to update FreeNAS 11.2 up to the latest CORE version 13.0U6.8 (afaik the built in updater should still work? Iād suggest first updating to 11.3, then 12.0, then 13.0 although I donāt have much experience with these old versions). Should the updater not work anymore on these old versions you can update the manual update files here: https://download-core.sys.truenas.net/
Then you can either update from 13.0 to 24.04 from the GUI, then to 24.10, to 25.04 and to 25.10 or you can backup your 13.0 config and do an ISO install to 25.04 and update to 25.10 afterwards.
I have two computers running FreeNAS 11.2 U7. The data and snapshots from one are mirrored on the other via replication. I had considered updating to Truenas 25.04.2.6. I also need to set up all the pools again because I want more storage and I wanted a metadata SSD mirror and an SSD cache. What is the best way to do the upgrade? I had initially planned to set up the backup system with Truenas. Then I would do the backup via replication, update the main system, and then restore the data via replication. I have read through the documentation and done many of the steps. I have created an admin user with SSD rights, etc. on both systems, but the replication task is still not working. Perhaps you have another idea on how best to do the migration. I have always tried push from the old NAS. I will test pull from Truenas again.
Could you elaborate a bit what you mean by ānot workingā? Do you see any errors or does it seem to be working and then fails? Do you see anything in the logs?
Please provide as much information as you can, as Barky already hinted to. āIt doesnāt workā is not enough information for troubleshooting, unfortunately. No-one can guarantee that you someone from this forum will be able to solve your issue, but youād increase your chances by a lot by providing any information you think could help someone help you.
I receive the following alert on FreeNAS 11.2āU7: Replication data/daten ā truenas.local:moinsen/backup failed: Failed: truenas_@truenas.localtruenas.local: Permission denied (publickey,password,keyboard-interactive).
When I try to do a ZFS send via the shell, it works. So it does send data, even though I cannot see the dataset on the target system. I created a separate user for this process. The user has the same name on both systems. On both systems he has permissions to read and write. I have added a public SSH key
The error indicates that there is an issue with the SSH key or password. How did you generate the key? And more importantly, I guess: Do the users you created have the same passwords on both machines?
Also, have you tried pulling from the TrueNAS installation instead if pushing from the FreeNAS one?
I have no FreeNAS systems any more but it might be that TrueNAS is expecting newer SSH versions or ciphers. I might be wrong about that and it should theoretically throw a different error.
if I try a pull, the scan of public key works. after that I get an error, while choosing the source: [EACCES] AuthenticationException(āAuthentication failed.ā)
Do note that a lot of changes happened since 11.2, with quite a few radical and possibly breaking changes! Read the release notes / change logs of each version with maximum attention!
Iāve already tried to take everything into account. Is there maybe something that isnāt mentioned in the documentation that could help? Maybe my whole approach just isnāt feasible? Or perhaps thereās a better method altogether? After the migration, both systems will be on the TrueNAS level, but I first need to get there. With FreeNAS 11.2 I never had any issues or missing features, which is why I never updated. Now Iād like to use a specialādev SSD for the metadata, and for that I need the current system. Itās not necessarily about solving this exact problem ā maybe thereās simply a better approach. In the worst case, I could copy the data in Windows from one NAS to the other, but Iād really like to avoid that because I also want to keep the snapshots.
Likely a fresh install on one of the systems, followed by a replication would be the easiest way to migrate both systems.
Thatās exactly what Iām trying to do. But itās not working because of some kind of permission issue. Maybe one of you would be interested in helping me set it up? Via Discord or Teams or something like that?
I would even pay for it. Not much, but at least something.
I donāt think that FreeNAS had pool export yet, so the usual way of exporting and importing on a different installation - a very early TrueNAS version - might not work.
Before you resort to copying from Windows or a different device try scp (Secure Copy Protocol). It should work in my opinion. I would try from the new system.
Have a look at that, maybe it solves your issue. The link should explain scp quite well. You only need the local shell and a user which has the appropriate rights. scp should be available on TrueNAS and FreeNAS.
Edit: Maybe this link is easier:
So you upgraded both systems, already?
If one is still on 11.2 - there where quite a few changes in security relevant aspects of SSH and I suspect, 11.2 and 13.x are simply incompatible, now.
You should upgrade both, then please come back with screen shots of the replication configuration, credentials, etc.
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We are going back many years now however I do recall having to run this on the receive side in order to get my FreeNAS system to replicate to TrueNAS ln -s /usr/local/sbin/zfs /sbin/zfs
Note that would have been FreeNAS to TrueNAS CORE not SCALE
As others have mentioned it may be trying to use some very old ciphers that are not longer supported.
You could try dropping this into the Auxillary Paramters of your SSH config under āServicesā on the receive machine. PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms +ssh-rsa save and restart the SSH service.
So you suggest updating both systems to Truenas Scale. Importing the old pool and then replicating it first to the backup device and then back again?
I had only updated the backup system for testing purposes before I destroyed my main system.
Why back again?
Because I want to completely rebuild my pool with an SSD RAID for metadata and a cache. I also need to add another HDD for more storage.
Ah - missed that part. I thought you only wanted to update to TrueNAS CE.
Yes, update the main system, make sure replication works, then start rebuilding it. Thatās probably easier than fixing replication from 11.2 to CE.
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I now have a current Truenas running on the backup system. I also have a current Truenas on the main system. I imported the old pool there. Everything seems to have worked fine. I am currently doing the backup via replication. That also seems to be running smoothly.
Even my snapshot tasks were imported.
However, I had assumed that lz4 compression would be activated when I wrote it to a new drive. I had always kept it off because it hardly makes any difference to my data anyway.