OpenMediaVault 8, or OMV8 for shorts, codenamed “Synchrony” has been released, now supporting only 64-bit architectures (AMD64 and ARM64), and dropping 32-bit systems based on the i386, armel, and armhf architectures.
OpenMediaVault is a popular, open-source network-attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux that’s been around for many years. I had my first experience with it in 2017 when I reviewed FriendlyELEC NanoPi NEO NAS Kit based on a NanoPi NEO2 SBC with an Allwinner H5 64-bit Cortex A53 SoC, but sadly not recommended for OMV8 (more on that below). The main reason for killing 32-bit support is that the Salt Project only supports 64-bit builds.
OpenMediaVault 8 highlights:
- Upgrade to Debian 13 (Trixie).
- Replace cpufrequtils with linux-cpupower
- Improve several user and group-related RPCs. Developers should note that the RPCs UserMgmt::enumerateSystemUsers, UserMgmt::enumerateUsers, UserMgmt::enumerateAllUsers and UserMgmt::getUserList now return only basic user information. Set the parameter detail to full to get more detailed user information. This API change was done to improve the RPC response times.
- Display updated modules in notifications after configuration changes have been applied.
- Display old versions of upgradable packages on the update page.
- Use pool instead of server directive in chrony configuration by default. This can be customized via the OMV_CHRONY_SERVER_POOL_DIRECTIVE environment variable.
- Add support for WPA3 (SAE) authentication for wireless connections.
- Prevent scripts/tools from getting stuck when calling mail/sendmail if email notifications are disabled.
- Add ability to SMB shares to limit the reported disk size for Time Machine.
As I write this, I can see a quick fix (8.0.2) was released on Christmas day with improvements to cpupower deployment, and a fix for a postfix issue.
If we look at the list of supported Raspberry Pi boards, any board with a 64-bit processor and OS continues to be supported. But the Raspberry Pi 1 and Zero variants are definitely not supported, and it’s more complicated for the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B: most variants are based on BCM2836 Cortex-A7 SoC, and not supported, but the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B v1.2 is supported since it’s powered by a BCM2837 Arm Cortex-A53 SoC, as long as you installed a 64-bit OS.
What about the NanoPi NEO2 mentioned in the first part of this port? It’s a 64-bit hardware platform, but it’s sadly not recommended for now, since Armbian images used to rely on a 32-bit rootfs as explained on the OMV8 compatibility list:
Armbian may default to a 32-bit bit userland which makes the board incompatible with OMV8. The NanoPi Neo2 is one example and is not recommended for OMV
They say this could be fixed with a custom ARM64 build. However, I can see the NanoPi NEO2 image built on December 26 is already a 64-bit binary, so OMV8 should work:
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jaufranc@CNX-LAPTOP-5:~/Downloads$ sudo mount -o loop,offset=4194304 \ Armbian_community_26.2.0-trunk.130_Nanopineo2_trixie_current_6.12.63_minimal.img \ ~/rootfs jaufranc@CNX-LAPTOP-5:~/Downloads$ file rootfs/bin/bash rootfs/bin/bash: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-aarch64.so.1, BuildID[sha1]=bea6a154d9a9158114ee0a2a439045596615df14, for GNU/Linux 3.7.0, stripped |
As mentioned above, OMV8 works on top of 64-bit Debian 13. On AMD64 targets, it’s very easy to install since the developers provide an ISO file. For 64-bit Arm platforms, you should select a minimal or server Debian 13 64-bit image, as Desktop versions are not supported. The compatibility list linked above provides direct download links to Armbian images for supported single board computers.
A few more details about the release can be found on the project’s website.
Thanks to TLS for the tip.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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