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OpenMediaVault

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Developer
  
Volker Theile

Working state
  
Current

OS family
  
Unix-like

Source model
  
Open source

OpenMediaVault

Written in
  
Web interface: PHP, JavaScript (Ext JS)

Initial release
  
17 October 2011; 5 years ago (2011-10-17)

OpenMediaVault (OMV) is a free Linux distribution designed for network-attached storage (NAS). The project's lead developer is Volker Theile, who instituted it in 2009. OMV is based on the Debian operating system, and is licensed through the GNU General Public License v3.

Contents

Background

By the end of 2009, Volker Theile was the only active developer of FreeNAS, a NAS operating system that Olivier Cochard-Labbé started developing from m0n0wall in 2005. m0n0wall is a variation of the FreeBSD operating system, and Theile decided he wanted to rewrite FreeNAS for Linux. The project team had known for months that FreeNAS needed a major rewrite in order to support crucial features. Since Cochard-Labbé preferred to stay with a FreeBSD-based system, he and Theile agreed that Theile would develop his Linux version under a different name; that name was initially coreNAS, but within a matter of days Theile discarded it in favour of OpenMediaVault.

Meanwhile, FreeNAS still needed to be rewritten and maintained. To accomplish this, Cochard-Labbé handed development over to iXsystems, an American company that develops the PC-BSD operating system.

Technical design

Theile chose Debian because the large number of programs in its package management system meant that he wouldn't have to spend time repackaging software himself. OpenMediaVault makes few changes to the Debian operating system. It provides a Web-based user interface for administration and customisation, and a plug-in API for implementing new features. One can install plug-ins through the Web interface.

Features

  • Multi-language, Web-based graphical user interface
  • Protocols: CIFS (via Samba), FTP, NFS (versions 3 and 4), SSH, rsync, iSCSI, AFP and TFTP
  • Software-RAID (levels 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, and 10, plus JBOD)
  • Monitoring: Syslog, Watchdog, S.M.A.R.T., SNMP (v1, 2c, and 3) (read-only)
  • Statistic reports per E-Mail
  • Statistic graphs for the CPU-workload, LAN transfer rates, hard disk usage and RAM allocation
  • GPT/EFI partitioning >2 TByte possible
  • Filesystems: ext2, ext3, ext4, Btrfs, XFS, JFS, NTFS, FAT32
  • Quota
  • User and group management
  • Access controls via ACL
  • Link Aggregation Bonding, Wake On LAN
  • Plug-in system

    • Plug-ins

  • ClamAV - Antivirus software
  • Digital Audio Access Protocol - provides audio files in a local network (also for iTunes)
  • SAN and iSCSI - block based access datastores over the network
  • Sabnzbd
  • Lightweight Directory Access Protocol - Information request and changes of an Directory service
  • Logical Volume Manager - enables the possibility to create and administrate dynamic partitions
  • Netatalk - File-, time- and printserver for Apple Macintosh
  • Plug-in to support the use of an Uninterruptible power supply
  • easy changes to the Routing tables
  • Plug-in, which allows (automatic) backups to external USB hard disks
  • Plex server and webclient
  • Transmission (torrent client)
  • OwnCloud - a suite of client-server software for creating file hosting services
  • and many more

    • Additional plug-ins

    Additional plug-ins are available via additional package repositories. The majority of those Plug-ins are developed by a group called OpenMediaVault Plugin Developers. The status of all Plug-ins can be viewed online. In October 2014 there were around 30 plugins available. In June 2015 there are already more than 70 stable plug-ins available.

    Third-party plug-ins

    Some of the software that is controllable via third-party plug-ins are:

  • Aufs, Greyhole, Union mount, and SnapRAID
  • Transmission, a BitTorrent client
  • BitTorrent Sync
  • Calibre, e-book manager
  • CUPS, print server
  • eXtplorer, Web-based file manager
  • pyLoad / JDownloader, download managers
  • MySQL / MariaDB, database server
  • Nginx, Webserver
  • OpenVPN AS, virtual private networking
  • Plex, media server
  • Syslinux, Preboot Execution Environment
  • Roundcube, Web-based mail client
  • Clonezilla / rsnapshot / SystemRescueCD, backup
  • Sickbeard / SABnzdb / Headphones / Couch Potato, Usenet download managers
  • Subsonic, Web-based media streamer and jukebox
  • Video Disk Recorder
  • VirtualBox, virtual machine host
  • WordPress, blog software
  • ZFS, an advanced file system
  • and many more

    • Minimum System requirements

  • Any Architecture/hardware that is supported by Debian
  • 256 MiB RAM
  • 2 GiB hard drive, solid-state drive, or USB flash drive with static wear leveling support for the OS.
  • 1 hard drive, solid-state drive, or USB flash drive for storing user data

    • Release history

    For each OpenMediaVault release, Thiele chooses a project code name from Frank Herbert's Dune novels.

    References

    OpenMediaVault Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA