Because they want a point-and-click installation experience, which is exactly what iX have been advertising for something like 15 years. This really isn’t hard to understand. Oh, and they presumably have short memories.
Aside from the obvious - this is a service offered, one potentially with security implications (eg no patches for apps in the last ~2 weeks)…. Most concerning is people saying this has happened before.
If true, what lessons from that were applied here? If this happened before, and users went weeks without updates, were any preparations taken before the maintainer(s) went on holiday? Any announcements/warnings made? Any documentation on how to manually apply upgrades?
I see a post by someone who appears to be from TrueNas:
Is this posted in the repo, in an issue, or in a discussion, or even in a README.md file? What qualifications/skills are needed, etc? How would someone know they would be a good (or bad) fit to help? I believe this lack of visibility and clarity in the need will continue to result in no one stepping forward.
I can point you towards the online documentation for the apps.
First, starting with the App Support Definitions.
If you want to gain full control of an app, it can be converted or installed as a custom app. It should be covered in the documentation
You might try reading the Contributing section and see if that answers some of your questions
I was thinking (as a new TrueNas user) why should I use docker stuff instead of normal/built-in apps of the apps I need are already in the normal app list. Is this the reason? For updates? Would you recommend changing from built-in to docker-based?
This might be an unpopular opinion… if the TrueNAS team has made the choice to offer these “apps” instead of steering users toward a more sustainable installation model, they should commit enough resources to properly maintain them. This would mean hiring additional staff to cover PTO, or having a plan to provide some coverage for when the maintainer takes PTO.
Security is an important issue. If you’re going to simplify installation by adopting this pattern you need to help ensure you don’t leave your “customer”/novice users who you’ve simplified this process for in the lurch and vulnerable for prolonged periods of time.
The buildin apps are docker based. But personally i found that they’re somewhat restriceted in the config options that would normally be available by a native docker install. Then some apps i use were not available as truenas apps (e.g. traefik my reverse proxy of choice, blocky and some others that now are available)
And i set my docker stack up before truenas switched to docker. So my install path was borked kubernetes apps → docker run inside a nspawn “jailmaker” jail → docker lxc. And now everything runs inside the lxc managed by portainer… i’m happy with that setup, worked for almost 2 years now without ever having a breaking change on any app where i had to re-install an app.
Yes, they should. But they haven’t for 15 years, so I don’t expect they’re going to start now. They are doing better than they have in the past, at least.
And you pay what for this “Free” product?
Not an excuse, and really a cop-out.
I was coming here to post about this and saw this first. I thought my install was messed up, glad it’s not just me.
Hopefully they resolve whatever the issue is soon, it’s been quite a long time since updates were last ran.
They told you the reason. The person that does the app catalog went on vacation. He probably does the job for free…. There is not a single app out there that you could not install yourself and perform all the maintenance yourself. Apps are just a lazy person’s thing…..
…that iX have been advertising for 15 years, but have never put in the resources to adequately support. That’s a valid criticism of the product/company, and “how much did you pay for it?” is a cop-out in response.
I don’t use the apps, I don’t recommend them, I in fact actively recommend against them, and this is a big part of the reason. But dismissing sound criticism with “you didn’t pay for it, so stop complaining” could just as easily apply to the entire product.
Yea, and QNAP and Synology do the same exact thing. The apps they have in their App center one can get and maintain without their App centers. It is always recommended anyway, that you not use or install or allow to be installed by users random “apps” in a true busisness environment that you your self don’t have full ontrol over.
You and I are in disagreement. I come from a freenas age and have never had a problem with their support. If I was running this in a critical environment where I needed critical support, I would run Truenas Enterprise and pay for support and not be on the community product.
Honestly, this thread is kinda frustrating. The lack of clear information and people just spouting off their random opinions isn’t really helping to resolve this problem.
IS there a lack of maintainers for the community apps? That question was raised, and I see people submitting pull requests for the pending updates, but I also see that this whole process is automated (see linked comment below), and no one in this thread has the permission to accept those changes.
So, what is the real solution here? Others and I can contribute, but we are not authorized to accept pull requests. That means that the “issue” (and I agree, this is not a major issue - this is for the community edition mind you) is that the IX managed app ecosystem is left unattended at times. Is that problem solvable? What is the process?
That being said, there are security vulnerabilities in the existing apps published (n8n specifically. If the fear of publishing apps too quickly that have vulnerabilities, the opposite can also be true.
So it appears, but your persistent refusal to engage the actual issue makes it hard to tell. But you do you, I guess.
That is a pretty weak response. So my use of TrueNAS and experiences with it don’t affect my ability to professionally recommend it?
Frankly the indecision and flip-flopping since Scale became a thing combined with stuff like this is THE reason I don’t dare recommend TrueNAS as an infrastructure and operations professional.
Bear in mind the “Enterprise” version does not have community apps and is an entirely different train than the “Community” train. I would never ever recommend a community based NAS to run as a critical business server.
I do this too, but with Portainer.
I will offer a few reasons why some people either don’t do this, or do a hybrid of both:
1. The way TrueNAS is coded, it is very easy to lose all of your non-TrueNAS app docker containers. For example, if you change which pool you use, it only transfers anything in the “app_mounts” and “app_configs” directories. Anything in the “docker” directory does NOT transfer over, so changing pools is a huge pain, and can lead to major data loss.
This also makes data loss much easier on non TrueNAS installed apps. Backing up is also not easy, since the only way to gain access to the /mnt/.ix-apps directory is to run an app with privileges separately from a TrueNAS app (especially since they changed the app config to only allow UID 568+), which can lead to security vulnerabilities.
Running as an LXC comes with its own set of constraints too.
2. Some apps just function better when installed from the community catalogue because TrueNAS is coded around users only using this and not installing anything via conventional Docker routes like compose, or via apps like Portainer. I run a set of apps from the community store for this exact reason.
3. As others have mentioned, a lot of not experienced users rely on the community store for ease of use. This also becomes even more clear when you consider things like HexOS, whose entire purpose is to tailor to regular, non technical users. Their only option is the community store.