At this point, I’ve got a lot of containers already running on my system, all in separate directories in my home directory. They’re each set up with a docker-compose file, and all of the volumes are just directories within those directories.
I don’t really want to change this setup, because it allows me to easily rip it all out and transplant it to a new system.
What I’d like is a web UI to see all of these containers, view their status, and potentially reboot them. It would also be great to be able to spin up VMs (not containers, but actual VMs) with it.
I’ve heard of Portainer, but haven’t had any experience with it.
What are your suggestions, and why do you recommend them?
The answer is proxmox, not portainer
So first, I’m not really looking to change operating systems. I’ve got my system set up the way I like it, where it closely matches the production systems I run for my company.
Second, why do you say the answer is Proxmox? What benefit does that have over other solutions that can be more easily integrated into my existing operating system?
Not many UIs can do containers and VMs
[Sorry for my not really well written reply, you really need to try different options, and in my opinion proxmox is like the only choice because of how many cool things you can do there]
Proxmox I just really good, and if you want to spin up VMs easily you will need to reshape your setup anyway
With proxmox you can do like everything with VMs, containers, etc. Not just managing only containers, or just showing status of the VMs
Also, proxmox is not really an operating system, it’s a service on top of Debian (in many cases you start installing proxmox by installing Debian)
Can proxmox do docker containers? Last I checked it could only do LXC
Yo dawg, I put most of my services in a Docker container inside their own LXC container. It used to bug me that this seems like a less than optimal use of resources, but I love the management - all the VM and containers on one pane of glass, super simple snapshots, dead easy to move a service between machines, and simple to instrument the LXC for monitoring.
I see other people doing, and I’m interested in, an even more generic system (maybe Cockpit or something) but I’ve been really happy with this. If OP’s dream is managing all the containers and VM’s together, I’d back having a look at Proxmox.
I use Docker LXCs. Really just a Debian LXC with Docker and then Portainer as a UI. I have separate LXCs for common services. Arrs on one LXC, Nextcloud, Immich and SearXNG on another, Invidious on a third. I just separate them so I don’t need to kill all services if I need to restart or take down the LXC for whatever reason.
Yes it can, but not out of the box, and yeah, if you want the ui it will be that portainer again 😂
Thanks. I did check it out and it looks like it’s got some really cool benefits, like being able to cluster across two machines and take one down if it needs servicing, with zero down time.
I’m thinking about buying some rack mount servers and bringing everything I’m currently doing in the cloud for my business to on-premises servers. The one thing I was wary about was how I was going to handle hardware maintenance, and this looks like it would solve that issue nicely.
For the system itself I would recommend nixos
Some people like it, some people are against progress and they think work should be manual 🤣
I’m using nixos and all my machines, even integrating my phone in it
You can automate and replicate unbelievable stuff with it. You solve a bunch of problems by using nixos
But it’s a whole big rabbit whole, and it would take a lot of time to learn how to use it, then a lot of time to set everything up
But you could do zero downtime hardware maintenance without VMs or containers, just by using bare metal
Edit: or with VMs, containers, or k8s. Everything would be just cleaner and cooler
Proxmox doesn’t manage docker, it wouldn’t do anything for OP.
Proxmox does VMs and containers (LXC). You can run any docker / podman manager you want in a container.
Benefits of having Proxmox as the base is ZFS / snapshoting and easy setup of multiple boot drives, which is really nice when one drive inevitably fails 😏
Yes but Proxmox doesn’t manage docker, OP wants a webUI to see all their docker containers.
I agree running Proxmox as a base OS is the way to go, but you’ll still need Dockge, Portainer, etc to have a webUI for docker stuff.
Portainer doesn’t manage VMs either
But at least you can do docker inside proxmox, and kinda manage it, or put something else on top of it