Well, I didn’t manage to blog every month in 2024, but I did manage more than 12, so I think that’s not a bad effort, given the two-year break!
I know that I have another TrueNAS blog to start this year (after not blogging for so long) here and here, but it has become a bit of an annual event to blog about my server and the services running on it. Better not mess with that balance, so here’s what my boss would call a ‘state of the nation’ or a ‘view from the bridge’ for my TrueNAS server going into 2025…
The biggest change was upgrading TrueNAS from 13.0-U6 to 13.3, which updated the version of FreeBSD from 13.1 to 13.3. This allowed the jails to be updated from 13.1 (which was no longer supported) to 13.3, or for most of my jails to 13.4, which is supported until the middle of 2025. I think there will be a 13.5, which should also be compatible and supported into 2026, hopefully! I blogged about all that here. Although it was quite a challenge at the time, I managed to get the FEMP stack updated for most of the jails running this, which is a good place to start the year:
Airsonic
This is probably running the same version as it was when I did the blog at the end of 2022, as Airsonic hasn’t been updated! As it was back then, it’s rarely used, and I’m now pretty much exclusively listening to music on Apple Music or occasionally through emby. It’s a handy backup, and picks up music from the same place I save it for emby, so it takes zero effort to update.
emby
emby is still my media server of choice and something I (and several family and friends) would be lost without. It’s running 4.8.10.0 (from 4.7.14.0 at the beginning of the year), which is the latest stable release, and I’ve not tested the beta releases at all this year.
Nextcloud
This has become the most crucial jail for me, and while emby gives it a run for its money, I’d struggle without Nextcloud now. I suppose I could migrate everything to Onedrive or iCloud, but the point is to keep my data local. There isn’t an option to do this for emby, so I’d be equally lost without that, but I also have other people using Nextcloud, so this would be the most difficult to replace. The integration with ONLYOFFICE makes it a genuine Office 365 alternative running from my micro-data centre! I’m bang up to date, running the latest 30.0.4 (from 27.1.5), with MariaDB 10.6 and PHP 8.3 upgraded in 2024.
Limesurvey
This is the problem, child, as I’m struggling to update the version of PHP beyond 7.4, which hasn’t been supported for some time. Everything else is up to date (Limesurvey 6.6.6 from 6.4.0 and MariaDB 10.6), and I’m not really using it in anger anymore as I’m no longer a Trustee for my daughter’s Out of School Club. It’s handy to have running, though, so I keep it updated. I might try to rebuild the jail to see if I can get PHP onto something supported.
MediaWiki
I rebuilt this during 2024, more to test how to upgrade MariaDB than anything else. I still haven’t found a use for this; it wasn’t even listed in the previous update! Perhaps one day…
OpenVPN
I was always quite nervous about updating this, and I don’t do it all that often, but it’s never been a problem. I still use it when I’m away from home, so I update it every 3-4 months. It’s currently running 2.6.12 (from 2.5.3).
WordPress
This is just running my blog now, as the company (and website) are no more! I keep this pretty much up to date, so it’s running WordPress 6.7.1 (from 6.4.2), MariaDB 10.6, and PHP 8.3. The test instance on Docker hasn’t been updated for way too long, and I really should think about taking that down. It was built when I was thinking about starting up a web development company, but that didn’t happen, and I suspect it never will.
I still haven’t deleted my old calibre jail, but everything else (plex, Bitwarden, Minecraft and Photoprism) is gone.
Given all the changes to TrueNAS and the jails, the Virtual Machines have been a little neglected, at least from an OS perspective. I run application updates and security patches but haven’t updated the OS. I think Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is supported until the middle of 2025, so 2025 might be the year of the VM. I’m cheating here with a table very similar to the one used at the beginning of the year:
| Name | OS 2024 | OS 2025 | Application(s) |
| cplan | ubuntu-desktop 22.4.3 | ubuntu-desktop 22.4.3 | This runs Crashplan exclusively, and I forget it’s there, other than the weekly e-mail to remind me it’s backing up my TrueNAS server and the monthly invoice for $11.99! It’s still the cheapest I can find for offsite backup, which is especially important as my onsite backup no longer runs 24×7, given the rising electricity costs and a remodelled home office with no space for two large workstations/servers. It does get updated every few months, but it’s nice to know that Crashplan has a much more up-to-date backup. I’m using about 2.5TB of storage! |
| mattermost | ubuntu server 20.4.2 | ubuntu server 20.4.3 | I should upgrade the OS for this one, but it is still supported until 2025 and will be updated whenever I update the LTS release of Mattermost. It was running 8.1.0 and is now running 9.11.0. |
| oedocs | ubuntu server 22.4.3 | ubuntu server 22.4.3 | I should have called this oodocs, as it’s running ONLYOFFICE Document Server, which I use with Nextcloud, but it just works, so I have left things alone. I’m getting wiser in my old age! It’s updated every few months and is currently running 8.2.0 (from 7.5.0). |
| pihole | ubuntu server 22.4.1 | ubuntu server 22.4.1 | Another one I update regularly has worked brilliantly to hide most advertising when web browsing, but also speed up DNS searches using unbound. The version of PHP is lagging a little behind on 8.1, but Pi-hole is running the latest 5.8.3, although it must be due for an update soon. |
| portainer | ubuntu server 20.4.4 | ubuntu server 20.4.4 | It’s another with the wrong name, as it’s running all my Docker containers, although one is Portainer. It is hard to cover them all in detail here. Still, the main ones are Bitwarden, Calibre-web, Teslamate/Grafana, Uptime Kuma, WordPress (a development version), and other web tools (LEMP stack, phpmyadmin, etc.) |
I guess you’d summarise the year as ‘updated jails, maintained VMs,’ but most things are running supported versions of the app, database and supporting stack, other than a few exceptions. Storage is starting to become more of a concern. I am down to 12.2TB on FreeNAS0 (70%), my HDD pool, and 228GB on FreeNAS0s (75%), my SSD pool. Both of these are higher than I like, and while I still have another year or so, I really need to give some thought to my future strategy in 2025. FreeNAS1 is my backup server, which I no longer run 24×7 due to energy costs and space. It comes out every month or so, and I back up the really important stuff from FreeNAS0(s), but that’s now over 90%, so I’m not backing up everything. CrashPlan is still doing the offsite stuff, so my backup strategy is still robust, and it’s good I’ve never needed it, touch wood!
I’m still running a Raspberry Pi 4 from an SSD, which runs a pretty up-to-date version of the Home Assistant Operating System (14.1) and an equally up-to-date version of Home Assistant Core (2025.1.0). In addition to providing all the home automation for my Philips Hue lighting and TP-Link switches, I have various integrations for my Tesla and Octopus Energy. Still, the most important is probably the Addon for NGINX Proxy Manager, which controls all access to my network and the Certbot certificate renewals every three months. This has worked brilliantly since I switched from doing this semi-manually in a jail, which I blogged about here!
Anyway, that was my New Year TrueNAS update! It feels like a while since I’ve wished anyone reading this a happy New Year! I’m hoping to keep blogging through 2025, as enjoyed my return in 2024. It wasn’t perhaps as regular as I’d planned, but I think I managed an average of a blog month which will be the target again for 2025.
Let’s finish with a gallery of logos, which I think helps to show the scale (pun intended) of what I’m running on my TrueNAS Core server. I hope you have a wonderful 2025…
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