I'm a big proponent of having a NAS in your home, even if the setup is rudimentary, as opposed to paying for cloud services. A NAS allows you to keep your files secure in your own network, though it does come with downsides when it comes to file sharing. Setting up access to files on your NAS can be a complicated process if you don't want to risk exposing your entire server to the internet, which is a major security risk.

Thankfully, TrueNAS is here to fix that. Recently, the team behind TrueNAS introduced TrueNAS WebShare, and it's already in testing for TrueNAS 26 in the latest Nightly builds. I took it for a spin, and I'm already looking forward to seeing this feature in stable channels.

Why is TrueNAS WebShare good?

Fixing all the issues with file sharing

The main goal of TrueNAS WebShare is to fix file sharing for users who prefer having their own server but still want to enable sharing over the web, or even make it easier on the local network. One of the main ways to share content from TrueNAS right now is to use either SMB or NFS, and while those solutions work well for local access, they're also dependent on the client, since some devices handle SMB shares better than others, while some may work better with NFS.

WebDAV was another protocol that could be used for web-based, but it was extremely limited for file sharing, and it couldn't interoperate with SMB or NFS shares that used the same data.

WebShare aims to fix all of this by offering a web-based solution that has better performance over the internet, isn't device-dependent, and can be accessed by anyone using just a web browser. And on top of that, it's a secure solution that works for free using TrueNAS Connect. Even if you just have your own free server, this lets you create a certificate and a domain so that you can access your WebShare remotely and securely. Of course, free users can only set up one WebShare connection, but that's all you need for your home server.

Setting up is easy

You just need to handle remote access

Currently, TrueNAS WebShare is still in testing and available only on the nightly builds on TrueNAS 26, which should become more widely available in the next couple of months. I set up an experimental TrueNAS instance in a VM to test it out, and I was pretty impressed with how seamless everything was.

You'll Find WebShare under the Shares section, where options like SMB are also found, and to set it up, you'll want to start by connecting your TrueNAS instance to a TrueNAS Connect account. This is completely free for anyone, so there's no cost to use the feature.

Once you've connected your instance to TrueNAS Connect, you'll be able to create a WebShare to access any dataset or folder on your server. In order for it to work, you'll also need to go into your system settings and set up a user account (or multiple) with WebShare access, a new permission option that can be set at account creation. This user account will be able to sign in to your WebShare remotely to access your files.

The hardest part of all this will be actually routing external traffic to your server, since that part isn't handled by TrueNAS. You'll need something like Tailscale or your own VPN solution to route traffic from WebShare URL generated by TrueNAS to your home server. This part is handled externally to TrueNAS using solutions like Tailscale or your own VPN, and it's the biggest hurdle since it means you still have to carefully consider who can access your network. On the upside, this means no traffic is being routed through public TrueNAS servers, so you can still have full control over the experience.

It works surprisingly well

It's easy to understand

Once you have everything set up, TrueNAS Share works about as well and seamlessly as you could hope. Accessing the WebShare URL prompts you to sign in, at which point the user needs to enter the credentials for one of the accounts with WebShare access on your TrueNAS instance. By only granting WebShare access to an account, you can external users won't be able to mess with your files beyond the WebShare or make any changes to your NAS.

Then, you just see a list of all the files in the dataset that's included in the WebShare. WebShares are recursive, so you can have multiple folders or datasets inside the share. In the current version, at least based on my testing, a WebShare user can't upload or modify the content of the WebShare, only browse the existing files and download them, but there are buttons for uploading files and creating folders already, so you can essentially create a fully shared drive this way. There's also a button for creating a shareable link, but this too, is greyed out in my setup.

Otherwise, the UI is fairly friendly and easy to use, like any cloud service along the lines of Google Drive or OneDrive. It actually feels pretty smooth and performant, too. This is a great alternative for sharing files securely without depending on cloud services, though with the current implementation, it still requires a degree of trust and setup to make it possible for other users to access the WebShare.

I did notice some issues, though, which is to be expected with a nightly build. Sometimes the WebShare will stop refusing to let a user log in, and it needs to be restarted. Also, the Datasets page in the TrueNAS dashboard doesn't load if one of the datasets is in a WebShare. But TrueNAS 26.04 is still a few weeks away, so hopefully things will be polished up for the final release.

TrueNAS 26.04 is coming soon

As the version number suggests, TrueNAS is expected to release in April, and that will most likely be towards the end of the month. The addition of WebShare alone makes this one of the most exciting updates to TrueNAS in a while, but there's a good bit more here, including a new Linux kernel, which will be jumping to version 6.18 (the latest LTS release), plus full support for LXC containers.