Which Boot Environments can I delete?

TrueNAS General
1

Hi

I have recently updated my TrueNAS version to 25.04.2.6 and have never deleted any boot environments.

  • My understanding is that each new version is installed, as a snapshot, on the boot drive so they are all independent.
  • You cannot delete the currently loaded TN version which makes sense.
  • I think I should keep the immediate previous version that I had installed.

Below is a list of my current Boot Environments which I have a few questions leading to which ones can I delete.

TN-Boot-Environments
TN-Boot-Environments1291Ă—725 94.6 KB

  • Initial-Install
    • Is this the initial file system on the ZFS that all snapshots are based on and as such it should never be deleted?
    • Do people delete this one?
    • I notice it is set to keep but the delete icon is still available.
  • keep only comes into play when TN automatically prunes Boot Environments when the boot drive runs out of space. It does not prevent manual deletion?
  • Which ones are safe to delete?
    • I am after a methodology so when this issue arises again I know what to do.

Thanks for any help

[Closed] Documentation - Boot Environments - Management Policy required
2

Do you still have the ix-application dataset? Or did you delete it after the migration from kubernetes to docker?
If you’ve deleted it i’d say anything older then 24.10 can be removed since you’d “loose” your docker apps if you rolled back to a version with the kubernetes backend…

3
  • I have never run apps on my TrueNAS. I will do.
  • I waited until that silly VM setup was removed before migrating so my VMs were only ever on libvirt

Do you know why I have a record called intial-install and it is 8kb?

4

No sorry i don’t know, and since i usually only keep the last 2 boot environments of the previous release and the boot environments of the current release i can’t remember if my install also had that initial-install. If it did it was removed around 2 years ago.

5

I usually keep all snapshots in the current version, in your case 25.04. When upgrading to the next major release I delete the previous one if couple next upgrades and dot releases haven’t had any problems.

6

Soooo, it looks like you never delete the previous one…

1 Like
7

What makes you say that?

1 Like
8

IMO explaining jokes is not the best idea. So let’s just agree that my sense of humour is far from perfect.

9

It’s hard to tell with a few users. I caught it was a joke but you might consider adding an emoji or something to help give a hint of a Joke or something. I guessed you were joking about upgrades and releases without problems.

10

Insightful discussion from another topic