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Exciting Licensing Changes

Kjeld Schouten
Kjeld Schouten
Ops and R&D Lead

We’ve made some important updates regarding the licensing of our Chart Repository and associated Helm-charts. After careful consideration, we have made decisions that we believe will better align with the needs of our OpenSource user base and contribute to the continued growth of the TrueCharts ecosystem.

Transition to AGPL Licensing

One of the primary changes involves transitioning the licensing of the majority of our Chart Repository from BSD-3 to AGPL. This shift reflects our commitment to fostering open collaboration and ensuring that derivative works are also open-source. We believe that this move will contribute to a more vibrant and participatory community around TrueCharts.

Open-Sourcing Charts Under AGPL

In addition to the change in repository licensing, we are excited to announce that many of the charts, previously licensed under the Business-Software-License, are now open-sourced under AGPL as well. This decision is in line with our dedication to open-source principles and providing the community with greater access and freedom.

Commercial Licensing Options

Recognizing the diverse needs of our users, especially our commercial friends, we are introducing a commercial licensing option. This AGPL-less license is designed for use in or with a single cluster. This commercial license comes with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that includes guaranteed response times, ensuring a reliable and responsive experience for our valued commercial users.

How to Explore Commercial Licensing

If you are interested in exploring our commercial licensing option, please reach out to us at [email protected]. Our team will be happy to discuss your specific requirements and work with you to find a solution that fits your needs.

We believe that these changes will contribute to the continued success and sustainability of TrueCharts. As we evolve, we are more-than-ever committed to open communication and transparency. We value the continued support greatly and look forward to a future of collaboration and innovation within the TrueCharts community.

Thank you all for being part of the TrueCharts journey!

The future of SCALE Apps

Kjeld Schouten
Kjeld Schouten
Ops and R&D Lead

In recent weeks, there has been considerable speculation regarding the future of TrueCharts Apps for TrueNAS SCALE, particularly following comments from iX-Systems staff that were interpreted as suggesting a potential shift away from Kubernetes.

Acknowledging the concerns and uncertainties raised by users, we want to clarify our commitment to providing a reliable experience over the next year.

Our primary focus is to enhance the reliability of our Charts and Apps. While there is apprehension about iX-Systems’ stance on Kubernetes, our thorough analysis leads us to believe that a complete removal of Kubernetes-based SCALE Apps from TrueNAS SCALE is unlikely to occur within 2024. We understand the importance of transparency regarding the direction we are headed.

Recognizing the desire among SCALE users for a user-friendly GUI for deploying Helm-Charts as Apps, without grappling with intricate networking and storage issues, we are addressing this gap. Currently, there is a void for such users, and we acknowledge the legitimacy of their concerns.

To address this, we are actively working on supporting another “Helm as Apps” platform by the end of this year. Additionally, we are developing fail-safe solutions to facilitate smooth migration between different Kubernetes backends, with or without Apps, in the event of unexpected disruptions. This includes investments in standardized backup and restore technologies.

Looking beyond 2024, our vision is to continue supporting our robust SCALE Apps for as long as practical. To achieve this, we plan to replace some iX-Systems solutions with more standardized alternatives. Simultaneously, we aim to offer valid alternatives for SCALE Apps without imposing a specific direction on users, fostering a diverse and user-centric ecosystem.

Introducing our AI bot: TrueAI

Kjeld Schouten
Kjeld Schouten
Ops and R&D Lead

As 2023 comes to a close, we’re excited to introduce TrueAI, our new support AI for TrueCharts, TrueNAS, and HeavyScript users. This is our way of stepping into 2024 with a focus on enhancing user support through technology.

TrueAI is now available on our Discord server for everyone to use. To interact with the bot, simply mention @TrueAI in your message. The bot is programmed to create a thread in the channel where it’s mentioned, or reply within an existing thread.

Here are some tips for interacting with TrueAI:

  • Indicate whether you’re using TrueNAS or HELM, and mention the version you’re using.
  • Clearly describe what you’re trying to achieve.
  • Mention any specific issues you’re facing.
  • If applicable, include any error messages you’ve encountered.

Please note that TrueAI cannot interact with images or files sent in messages.

If you need more help after using TrueAI, we encourage you to open a support ticket. Our team is ready to assist you.

We hope TrueAI will be a valuable resource for you all. Wishing everyone a happy and successful 2024!

Introducing Homepage Integration

Jeff M.
Jeff M.
Support Team

We are delighted to announce the successful integration of Homepage into our charts.

To fully utilize this new feature, there are two initial steps that need to be performed: installing Homepage on your system and enabling integrations for Homepage in application deployments for the apps you want to show. Our comprehensive Homepage Integration Guide provides detailed instructions for both of these processes, ensuring a smooth setup.

Once these steps are completed, you can activate Kubernetes support in Homepage. This allows you to view your applications and their statuses on a customizable dashboard. Additionally, the code-server addon can be used to organize and arrange applications by editing various YAML files.

Don’t forget to check out the Homepage project site.

Here’s a small example showcasing a mix of manually defined options and TrueCharts integration features for Homepage:

Homepage

Changes to Storage, Persistence, and PostgreSQL

Kjeld Schouten
Kjeld Schouten
Ops and R&D Lead

We’re glad to announce that shortly we will release a big update to all our Apps. This will be a complex update that technically includes a few changes that might break some specific features for some users. While we do not foresee any data loss, it’s imperative to back up your data.

Standardization of PVC Storage

A number of new storage options are being released. These are all optional and should be considered somewhat experimental.

Redesign of Cloudnative-PG

Our Cloudnative-PG backend has been completely rewritten. This should provide more stability, but also carries the risk of introducing new bugs.

Required Migration Steps

If you want to update, here are the instructions:

All Platforms

  • We strongly advise upgrading all charts and not just a select few as the new version of ClusterIssuer might not be fully compatible with charts on old versions.
  • Ingress: In some cases it might be prudent to disable ingress prior to update and enable it again afterwards.
  • Statefulsets: Be sure to remove any statefulsets made by TrueCharts Helm Charts before or after update. See instructions below.

Helm

SCALE

  • Ingress: Most of the cert-manager settings have been moved to “integrations” and they are reset.
  • Ingress: All of the Traefik settings have been moved to “integrations” and they are reset.
  • Ingress: This means you likely will lose TLS and security middlewares after the update, until adapted.
  • CNPG: If present in the old GUI, Instance number and storage size have been moved and reset to defaults.
  • Traefik: After updating, you will need to check a checkbox at the bottom, with a warning confirmation, before you will be able to do any further updates or edits.

Stateful Set Instructions

The charts with statefulsets have a manual step. but it wont require reinstall. make sure to refresh your catalog. We do not have many statefulsets in our catalog, so expect it to be mostly OpenLDAP and/or Redis related.

SCALE

To check which have statefulsets:

Terminal window
k3s kubectl get statefulsets -A | grep "ix-"

Then to delete the statefulset:

Terminal window
k3s kubectl delete statefulset STATEFULSETNAME -n ix-APPNAME

Example:

Terminal window
k3s kubectl delete statefulset blocky-redis -n ix-blocky

Once deleted you can attempt the update (or if you were already updated to latest versions, then edit and save without any changes)

Helm

To check which have statefulsets:

Terminal window
kubectl get statefulsets -A

Then to delete the statefulset:

Terminal window
kubectl delete statefulset STATEFULSETNAME -n APPNAME

Example:

Terminal window
kubectl delete statefulset blocky-redis -n blocky

Once deleted you can attempt the update (or if you were already updated to latest versions, then edit and save without any changes)