Those who are hosting on bare metal: What is stopping you from using Containers or VM's? What are you self hosting?
Curious to know what the experiences are for those who are sticking to bare metal. Would like to better understand what keeps such admins from migrating to containers, Docker, Podman, Virtual Machines, etc. What keeps you on bare metal in 2025?
Containers run on "bare metal" in exactly the same way other processes on your system do. You can even see them in your process list FFS. They're just running in different cgroup's that limit access to resources.
Yes, I'll die on this hill.
But, but, docker, kubernetes, hyper-scale convergence and other buzzwords from the 2010's! These fancy words can't just mean resource and namespace isolation!
In all seriousness, the isolation provided by containers is significant enough that administration of containers is different from running everything in the same OS. That's different in a good way though, I don't miss the bad old days of everything on a single server in the same space. Anyone else remember the joys of Windows Small Business Server? Let's run Active Directory, Exchange and MSSQL on the same box. No way that will lead to prob... oh shit, the RAM is on fire.
…oh shit, the RAM is on fire.
The RAM. The RAM. The 🐏 is on fire. We don’t need no water let the mothefuxker burn.
Burn mothercucker, burn.
(Thanks phone for the spelling mistakes that I’m leaving).
Oh for sure - containers are fantastic. Even if you're just using them as glorified chroot jails they provide a ton of benefit.
Learning this fact is what got me to finally dockerize my setup
Move over, bud. That's my hill to die on, too.
Speak english doctor! But really is this a fancy way of saying its ok to docker all the things?
"What is stopping you from" <- this is a loaded question.
We've been hosting stuff long before docker existed. Docker isn't necessary. It is helpful sometimes, and even useful in some cases, but it is not a requirement.
I had no problems with dependencies, config, etc because I am familiar with just running stuff on servers across multiple OSs. I am used to the workflow. I am also used to docker and k8s, mind you - I've even worked at a company that made k8s controllers + operators, etc. I believe in the right tool for the right job, where "right" varies on a case-by-case basis.
tl;dr docker is not an absolute necessity and your phrasing makes it seem like it's the only way of self‐hosting you are comfy with. People are and have been comfy with a ton of other things for a long time.
Question is totally on purpose, so that you'll fill in what it means to you. The intention is to get responses from people who are not using containers, that is all. Thank you for responding!
Honest response - respect.
What is stopping you from running HP-UX for all your workloads? The question is totally in purpose so that you'll fill in what it means to you.
I've been self-hosting since the '90s. I used to have an NT 3.51 server in my house. I had a dial in BBS that worked because of an extensive collection of .bat files that would echo AT commands to my COM ports to reset the modems between calls. I remember when we had to compile the slackware kernel from source to get peripherals to work.
But in this last year I took the time to seriously learn docker/podman, and now I'm never going back to running stuff directly on the host OS.
I love it because I can deploy instantly... Oftentimes in a single command line. Docker compose allows for quickly nuking and rebuilding, oftentimes saving your entire config to one or two files.
And if you need to slap in a traefik, or a postgres, or some other service into your group of containers, now it can be done in seconds completely abstracted from any kind of local dependencies. Even more useful, if you need to move them from one VPS to another, or upgrade/downgrade core hardware, it's now a process that takes minutes. Absolutely beautiful.
Hey, you made my post for me though I've been using docker for a few years now. Never, looking, back.
Have done it both ways. Will never go back to bare metal. Dependency hell forced multiple clean installs down to bootloader.
The only constant is change.
My NAS will stay on bare metal forever. Any complications there is something I really don’t want. Passthrough of drives/PCIe-devices works fine for most things, but I won’t use it for ZFS.
As for services, I really hate using Docker images with a burning passion. I’m not trusting anyone else to make sure the container images are secure - I want the security updates directly from my distribution’s repositories, and I want them fully automated, and I want that inside any containers. Having Nixos build and launch containers with systemd-nspawn solves some of it. The actual docker daemon isn’t getting anywhere near my systems, but I do have one or two OCI images running. Will probably migrate to small VMs per-service once I get new hardware up and running.
Additionally, I never found a source of container images I feel like I can trust long term. When I grab a package from Debian or RHEL, I know that package will keep working without any major changes to functionality or config until I upgrade to the next major. A container? How long will it get updates? How frequently? Will the config format or environment variables or mount points change? Will a threat actor assume control of the image? (Oh look, all the distros actually enforce GPG signatures in their repos!)
So, what keeps me on bare metal? Keeping my ZFS pools safe. And then just keeping away from the OCI ecosystem in general, the grass is far greener inside the normal package repositories.
A NAS as bare metal makes sense.
It can then correctly interact with the raw disks.
You could pass an entire HBA card through to a VM, but I feel like it should be horses for courses.
Let a storage device be a storage device, and let a hypervisor be a hypervisor.
I feel like this too. I do not feel comfortable using docker containers that I didn't make myself. And for many people, that defeats the purpose.
Why would I want add overheard and complexity to my system when I don't need to? I can totally see legitimate use cases for docker, and work for purposes I use VMs constantly. I just don't see a benefit to doing so at home.
All my services run on bare metal because its easy. And the backups work. It heavily simplifies the work and I don't have to worry about things like a virtual router, using more cpu just to keep the container...contained and running. Plus a VERY tiny system can run:
Without a single docker container. Its using around 10-20% of the RAM and doing a dd once in a while keeps everything as is. Its been 4 years-ish and has been working great. I used to over-complicate everything with docker + docker compose but I would have to keep up with the underlining changes ALL THE TIME. It sucked, and its not something I care about on my weekends.
I use docker, kub, etc...etc... all at work. And its great when you have the resources + coworkers that keep things up to date. But I just want to relax when I get home. And its not the end of the world if any of them go down.
Assuming you run Synapse, that uses more than 1.5GB RAM just idling, your system has at the very least 16GB of RAM... Hardly what I'd call "very tiny"
...ok so Im lying about my system for...some reason?
Synapse looks like its using 200M right now. It jumps to 1 GB when being heavily used, but I only use it for piefed and a couple of other local rooms. Honestly its not doing so much for us so we were thinking of getting rid of it. Its irritating to keep having to set up new devices and no one is really using it.
Peertube is much bigger running around 500MB just doing its thing.
Its a single family instance.
# ps -eo user,pid,ppid,cmd,pmem,rss --no-headers --sort=-rss | awk '{if ($2 ~ /^[0-9]+$/ && $6/1024 >= 1) {printf "PID: %s, PPID: %s, Memory consumed (RSS): %.2f MB, Command: ", $2, $3, $6/1024; for (i=4; i<=NF; i++) printf "%s ", $i; printf "\n"}}'
PID: 2231, PPID: 1, Memory consumed (RSS): 576.67 MB, Command: peertube 3.6 590508
PID: 2228, PPID: 1, Memory consumed (RSS): 378.87 MB, Command: /var/www/gotosocial/gotosoc 2.3 387964
PID: 2394, PPID: 1, Memory consumed (RSS): 189.16 MB, Command: /var/www/synapse/venv/bin/p 1.1 193704
PID: 678, PPID: 1, Memory consumed (RSS): 52.15 MB, Command: /var/www/synapse/livekit/li 0.3 53404
PID: 1917, PPID: 645, Memory consumed (RSS): 45.59 MB, Command: /var/www/fastapi/venv/bin/p 0.2 46680
what do you run for RSS?
also, I hope you are not doing backups by dding an in use filesystem
Freshrss. Sips resources.
The dd when I want. I have a script I tested a while back. The machine won't be on yeah. Its just a small image with the software.
Do you use any tools for management, such as Ansible or similar?
Couple of custom bash scripts for the backups. Ive used ansible at work. Its awesome, but my own stuff doesn't require any robustness.
Every time I have tried it just introduces a layer of complexity I can't tolerate. I have struggled to learn everything required to run a simple Debian server. I don't care what anyone says, docker is not simpler or easier. Maybe it is when everything runs perfectly but they never do so you have to consider the eventual difficulty of troubleshooting. And that would be made all the more cumbersome if I do not yet understand the fundamentals of Linux system.
However I do keep a list of packages I want to use that are docker-only. So if one day I feel up to it I'll be ready to go.
Did you try compose scripts as opposed to docker run
I don't know. both? probably? I tried a couple of things here and there. it was plain that bringing in docker would add a layer of obfuscation to my system that I am not equipped to deal with. So I rinsed it from my mind.
If you think it's likely that I followed some "how to get started with docker" tutorial that had completely wrong information in it, that just demonstrates the point I am making.
pff, you call using an operating system bare metal? I run my apps as unikernels on a grid of Elbrus chips I bought off a dockworker in Kamchatka.
and even that's overkill. I prefer synthesizing my web apps into VHDL and running them directly on FPGAs.
until my ASIC shuttle arrives from Taipei, naturally, then I bond them directly onto Ethernet sockets.
/uj not really but that'd be sick as hell.
I just imagine what the output of any program would be. Follow me, set yourself free!
Curious to know what the experiences are for those who are sticking to bare metal. Would like to better understand what keeps such admins from migrating to containers, Docker, Podman, Virtual Machines, etc. What keeps you on bare metal in 2025?
If it aint broke, don't fix it 🤷
I consider them unnecessary layers of abstraction. Why do I need to fiddle with Docker Compose to install Immich, Vaultwarden etc.? Wouldn't it be simpler if I could just run sudo apt install immich vaultwarden, just like I can do sudo apt install qbittorrent-nox today? I don't think there's anything that prohibits them from running on the same bare metal, actually I think they'd both run as well as in Docker (if not better because of lack of overhead)!
Both your examples actually include their own bloat to accomplish the same thing that Docker would. They both bundle the libraries they depend on as part of the build
That I've yet to see a containerization engine that actually makes things easier, especially once a service does fail or needs any amount of customization. I've two main services in docker, piped and webodm, both because I don't have the time (read: am too lazy) to write a PKGBUILD. Yet, docker steals more time than maintaining a PKGBUILD, with random crashes (undebuggable, as the docker command just hangs when I try to start one specific container), containers don't start properly after being updated/restarted by watchtower, and debugging any problem with piped is a chore, as logging in docker is the most random thing imagineable. With systemd, it's in journalctl, or in /var/log if explicitly specified or obviously useful (eg. in multi-host nginx setups). With docker, it could be a logfile on the host, on the guest, or stdout. Or nothing, because, why log after all, when everything "just works"? (Yes, that's a problem created by container maintainers, but one you can't escape using docker. Or rather, in the time you have, you could more easily properly(!) install it bare metal) Also, if you want to use unix sockets to more closely manage permissions and prevent roleplaying a DHCP and DNS server for ports (by remembering which ports are used by which of the 25 or so services), you'll either need to customize the container, or just use/write a PKGBUILD or similar for bare metal stuff.
Also, I need to host a python2.7 django 2.x or so webapp (yes, I'm rewriting it), which I do in a Debian 13 VM with Debian 9 and Debian 9 LTS repos, as it most closely resembles the original environment, and is the largest security risk in my setups, while being a public website. So into qemu it goes.
And, as I mentioned, either stuff is officially packaged by Arch, is in the AUR or I put it into the AUR.
Personally I have seen the opposite from many services. Take Jitsi Meet for example. Without containers, it's like 4 different services, with logs and configurations all over the system. It is a pain to get running, as none of the services work without everything else being up. In containers, Jitsi Meet is managed in one place, and one place only. (When using docker compose,) all logs are available with docker compose logs, and all config is contained in one directory.
It is more a case-by-case thing whether an application is easier to set up and maintain with or without docker.
For logs dozzle is also fantastic, and you can do "agents" if you have multiple docker nodes and connect them togetherb
Do you host on more than one machine? Containerization / virtualization begins to shine most brightly when you need to scale / migrate across multiple servers. If you're only running one server, I definitely see how bare metal is more straight-forward.
This is a big part of why I don't use VMs or containers at home. All of those abstractions only start showing their worth once you scale them out.
One main server, with backup servers being very easy to get up and running, either by full-restoring the backup, or installing and restoring specific services. As everything's backed up to a Hetzner Storage Box, I can always restore it (if I have my USB sticks with the keyfiles).
I don't really see the need for multiple running hosts, apart from:
especially once a service does fail or needs any amount of customization.
A failed service gets killed and restarted. It should then work correctly.
If it fails to recover after being killed, then it's not a service that's fully ready for containerisation.
So, either build your recovery process to account for this... or fix it so it can recover.
It's often why databases are run separately from the service. Databases can recover from this, and the services are stateless - doesn't matter how many you run or restart.
As for customisation, if it isn't exposed via env vars then it can't be altered.
If you need something beyond the env vars, then you use that container as a starting point and make your customisation a part of your container build processes via a dockerfile (or equivalent)
It's a bit like saying "chisels are great. But as soon as you need to cut a fillet steak, you need to sharpen a side of the chisel instead of the tip of the chisel".
It's using a chisel incorrectly.
Exactly. Therefore, docker is not useful for those purposes to me, as using arch packages (or similar) is easier to fulfill my needs.
You can customize and debug pretty easily, I’ve found. You can create your own Dockerfile based on one you’re using and add customizations there, and exec will get you into the container.
For me the learning curve of learning containers does not match the value proposition of what benefits they're supposed to provide.
I really thought the same thing. But it truly is super easy. At least just the containers like docker. Not kubernetes, that shit is hard to wrap your head around.
Plus if you screw up one service and mess everything up, you don’t have to rebuild your whole machine.
100% agree, my server has pretty much nothing except docker installed on it and every service I run is always in containers.
Setting up a new service is mostly 0% risk and apps can't bog down my main file system with random log files, configs, etc that feel impossible to completely remove.
I also know that if for any reason my server were to explode, all I would have to do is pull my compose files from the cloud and docker compose up everything and I am exactly where I left off at my last backup point.
I started hosting stuff before containers were common, so I got used to doing it the old fashioned way and making sure everything played nice with each other.
Beyond that, it's mostly that I'm not very used to containers.
Ok I’m arguing for containers/VMs and granted I do this for a living… I’m a systems architect so I build VMs and containers pretty much all the time time at work… but having just one sorta beefy box at home that I can run lots of different things is the way to go. Plus I like to tinker with things so when I screw something up, I can get back to a known state so much easier.
Just having all these things sandboxed makes it SO much easier.
I started self hosting in the days well before containers (early 2000's). Having been though that hell, I'm very happy to have containers.
I like to tinker with new things and with bare metal installs this has a way of adding cruft to servers and slowly causing the system to get into an unstable state. That's my own fault, but I'm a simple person who likes simple solutions. There are also the classic issues with dependency hell and just flat out incompatible software. While these issues have gotten much better over the years, isolating applications avoids this problem completely. It also makes OS and hardware upgrades less likely to break stuff.
These days, I run everything in containers. My wife and I play games like Valheim together and I have a Dockerfile template I use to build self-hosted serves in a container. The Dockerfile usually just requires a few tweaks for AppId, exposed ports and mount points for save data. That paired with a docker-compose.yaml (also built off a template) means I usually have a container up and running in fairly short order. The update process could probably be better, I currently just rebuild the image, but it gets the job done.
Yes containers have made everything so easy.
I've always done things bare metal since starting the selfhosting stuff before containers were common. I've recently switched to NixOS on my server, which also solves the dependency hell issue that containers are supposed to solve.
I use Raspberry Pi 4 with 16GB SD-card. I simply don't have enough memory and CPU power for 15 separate database containers for every service which I want to use.
Databases on sd cards are a nightmare for sd card lifetimes. I would really recommend getting at least a USD SSD stick instead if you want to keep it compact.
Your SD card will die suddenly someday in the near future otherwise.
Thank you for your advice. I do use an external hard drive for my data.
So, are you running 15 services on the Pi 4 without containers?
In my own experience, certain things should always be on their own dedicated machines.
My primary router/firewall is on bare metal for this very reason.
I do not want to worry about my home network being completely unusable by the rest of my family because I decided to tweak something on the server.
I could quite easily run OpnSense in a VM, and I do that, too. I run proxmox, and have OpnSense installed and configured to at least provide connectivity for most devices. (Long story short: I have several subnets in my home network, but my VM OpnSense setup does not, as I only had one extra interface on that equipment, so only devices on the primary network would work)
And tbh, that only exists because I did have a router die, and installed OpnSense into my proxmox server temporarily while awaiting new-to-me equipment.
I didn't see a point in removing it. So it's there, just not automatically started.
Same here. In particular I like small cheap hardware to act as appliances, and have several raspberry pi.
My example is home assistant. Deploying on its own hardware means an officially supported management layer, which makes my life easier. It is actually running containers but i don’t have to deal with that. It also needs to be always available so i use efficient “right sized” hardware and it works regardless whether im futzing with my “lab”
Erm. I'd just say there's no benefit in adding layers just for the sake of it.
It's just different needs. Say I have a machine where I run a dedicated database on, I'd install it just like that because as said there's no advantage in making it more complicated.
Are you concerned about your self-hosted bare metal machine being a single point of failure? Or, are you concerned it will be difficult to reproduce?
Considering I have a full backup, all services are Arch packages and all important data is on its own drive, I'm not concerned about anything
Im a hobbiest who just learned how to self host my own static website on a spare laptop over the summer. I went with what I knew and was comfortable with which is a fresh install of linux and installing from the apt package manager.
As im getting more serious im starting to take another look at docker. Unforunately my OS package manager only has old outdated versions of docker I may need to reinstall with like ubuntu/debian LTS server something with more cutting edge software in repo. I don't care much for building from scratch and navigating dependency roulette.
I'm using proxmox now with lots of lxc containers. Prior to that, I used bare metal.
VMs were never really an option for me because the overhead is too high for the low power machines I use -- my entire empire of dirt doesn't have any fans, it's all fanless PCs. More reliable, less noise, less energy, but less power to throw at things.
Stuff like docker I didn't like because it never really felt like I was in control of my own system. I was downloading a thing someone else made and it really wasn't intended for tinkering or anything. You aren't supposed to build from source in docker as far as I can tell.
The nice thing about proxmox's lxc implementation is I can hop in and change things or fix things as I desire. It's all very intuitive, and I can still separate things out and run them where I want to, and not have to worry about keeping 15 different services running on the same version of whatever common services are required.
Actually docker is excellent for building from source. Some projects only come with instructions for building in Docker because it’s easier to make sure you have tested versions of tools.
I use k3s and enjoy benefits like the following over bare metal:
These are just some of the benefits just for one server. Add more and the benefits increase.
Edit:
Sorry, I realize this post is asking why go bare metal, not why k3s and containers are great. 😬
It's so simple that it takes so much less time, one day I may move to Podman but I need to have the time to learn. I host Jellyfin
It's just another system to maintain, another link in the chain that can fail.
I run all my services on my personal gaming pc.
The fact that I bought all my machines used (and mostly on sale), and that not one of them is general purpose, id est, I bought each piece of hardware with a (more or less) concrete idea of what would be its use case. For example, my machine acting as a file server is way bigger and faster than my desktop, and I have a 20-year-old machine with very modest specs whose only purpose is being a dumb client for all the bigger servers. I develop programs in one machine and surf the internet and watch videos on the other. I have no use case for VMs besides the Logical Domains I setup in one of my SPARC hosts.
In my case it’s performance and sheer RAM need.
GLM 4.5 needs like 112GB RAM and absolutely every megabyte of VRAM from the GPU, at least without the quantization getting too compressed to use. I’m already swapping a tiny bit and simply cannot afford the overhead.
I think containers may slow down CPU<->GPU transfers slightly, but don’t quote me on that.
Can anyone confirm if containers would actually impact CPU to GPU transfers
To be clear, VMs absolutely have overhead but Docker/Podman is the question. It might be negligible.
And this is a particularly weird scenario (since prompt processing literally has to shuffle ~112GB over the PCIe bus for each batch). Most GPGPU apps aren’t so sensitive to transfer speed/latency.
I've not cracked the docker nut yet. I don't get how I backup my containers and their data. I would also need to transfer my Plex database into its container while switching from windows to Linux, I love Linux but haven't figured out these two things yet
An easy option is to add the data folders for the container you are using as a volume mapped to a local folder. Then the container will just put the files there and you can backup the folder. Restore is just put the files back there, then make sure you set the same volume mapping so the container already sees them.
You can also use the same method to access the db directory for the migration. Typically for databases you want to make sure the container is stopped before doing anything with those files.
Anything you want to back up (data directories, media directories, db data) you would use a bind mount for to a directory on the host. Then you can back them up just like everything else on the host.
All your docker data can be saved to a mapped local disk, then backup is the same as it ever is. Throw borg or something on it and you're gold.
Look into docker compose and volumes to get an idea of where to start.
You would leave your plex config and db files on the disk and then map them into the docker container via the volume parameter (-v parameter if you are running command line and not docker-compose). Same goes for any other docker container where you want to persist data on the drive.
I would always run proxmox to set up docker VMs.
I found Talos Linux, which is a dedicated distro for kubernetes. Which aligned with my desire to learn k8s.
It was great. I ran it as bare-metal on a 3 node cluster. I learned a lot, I got my project complete, everything went fine.
I will use Talos Linux again.
However next time, I'm running proxmox with 2 VMs per node - 3 talos control VMs and 3 talos worker VMs.
I imagine running 6 servers with Talos is the way to go. Running them hyperconverged was a massive pain. Separating control plane and data/worker plane (or whatever it is) makes sense - it's the way k8s is designed.
It wasn't the hardware that had issues, but various workloads. And being able to restart or wipe a control node or a worker node would've made things so much easier.
Also, why wouldn't I run proxmox?
Overhead is minimal, get nice overview, get a nice UI, and I get snapshots and backups
What hardware are you running it on?
3x minisforums MS-01
TrueNAS is on bare metal has I have a dedicated NAS machine that's not doing everything else and also is not recommended to virtualize. Not sure if that counts.
Same for the firewall (opnsense) since it is it's own machine.
Have you tried running containers on Truenas?
No because I run my containers elsewhere, not on the NAS
There’s one thing I’m hosting on bare metal, a WebDAV server. I’m running it on the host because it uses PAM for authentication, and that doesn’t work in a container.
@kiol I mean, I use both. If something has a Debian package and is well-maintained, I'll happily use that. For example, prosody is packaged nicely, there's no need for a container there. I also don't want to upgrade to the latest version all the time. Or Dovecot, which just had a nasty cache bug in the latest version that allows people to view other peoples' mailboxes. Since I'm still on Debian 12 on my mail server, I remain unaffected and I can let the bugs be shaken out before I upgrade.
@kiol On the other hand, for doing builds (debian packages and random other stuff), I'll use podman containers. I've got a self-built build environment that I trust (debootstrap'd), and it's pretty simple to create a new build env container for some package, and wipe it when it gets too messy over time and create a new one. And for building larger packages I've got ccache, which doesn't get wiped by each different build; I've got multiple chromium build containers w/ ccache, llvm build env, etc
@kiol And then there's the stuff that's not packaged in Debian, like navidrome. I use a container for that for simplicity, and because if it breaks it's not a big deal - temporary downtime of email is bad, temporary downtime of my streaming flac server means I just re-listen to the stuff that my subsonic clients have cached locally.
I run my NAS and Home Assistant on bare metal.
Both of those are much easier to manage on bare metal. Everything else runs virtualized on my Proxmox cluster, whether it's Docker stacks on a dedicated VM, an application that I want to run separately in an LXC, or something heavier in its own VM.
I'm curious why you feel these are easier to run on bare metal? I only ask as I've just built my first proxmox PC with the intent to run TrueNAS and Home Assistant OS as VMs, with 8x SAS enterprise drives on an HBA passed through to the TrueNAS VM.
Is it mostly about separation of concerns, or is there some other dragon awaiting me (aside from the power bills after I switch over)?
Anything I run on Proxmox, per my own requirements, needs to be hardware-agnostic. I have a 3-node cluster set up to be a "playground" of sorts, and I like being able to migrate VMs/LXCs between different nodes as I see fit (maintenance reasons or whatever).
Some services I want to run on their own hardware, like Home Assistant, because it offers more granular control. The Lenovo M710q Tiny that my HA system runs on, even with its i7-7700T, pulls a whopping 10W on average. I'll probably change it to the Pentium G4560T that's currently sitting on my desk, and repurpose the i7-7700T for another machine that could use the horsepower.
My NAS is where Im more concerned about separation of duties. I want my NAS to only be a NAS. OMV is pretty simple to manage, has a great dashboard, spits out SMART data, and also runs a weekly rsync backup command on my RAID to a separate 8TB backup drive. I'm currently in the process of building a "new" NAS inside a gutted HP server case from 2003 to replace the Mac mini/USB 4-bay drive enclosure. New NAS will have a proper HBA to handle drives.
or is there some other dragon awaiting me (aside from the power bills after I switch over)?
My entire homelab runs about 90-130W. It's pulled a total of ~482kWh since February (when I started monitoring it). That's 3x tiny/mini/micro PCs (HP 800 G3 i7, HP 800 G4 i7, Lenovo M710q i7), an SFF (Optiplex 7050 i7), 2014 Mac mini (i5)/loaded 4-bay HDD enclosure/8TB USB HDD, Raspberry Pi 0W, and an 8-port switch.
I generally abstract to docker anything I don't want to bother with and just have it work.
If I'm working on something that requires lots of back and forth syncing between host and container, I'll run that on bare metal and have it talk to things in docker.
Ie: working on an app or a website or something in language of choice on framework of choice, but postgres and redis are living in docker. Just the app I'm messing with and it's direct dependencies run outside.
I don't host on containers because I used to do OS security for a while.
Say more, what did that experience teach you? And, what would you do instead?
What are you doing running your vms on bare metal? Time is a flat circle.
for work I have a cloud dev VM, in which I run WSL2. so there's at least two levels of VMs happening, maybe three honestly.
I have a single micro itx htpc/media server/nas in my bedroom. Why use containers?
Do you back it up?
My raid is rsync :)
For me it's lack of understanding usually. I haven't sat down and really learned what docker is/does. And when I tried to use it once I ended up with errors (thankfully they all seemed contained by the docker) but I just haven't gotten around to looking more into than seeing suggestions to install say Pihole in it. Pretty sure I installed Pihole outside of one. Jellyfin outside, copyparty outside, and I something else im forgetting at the moment.
I was thinking of installing a chat app in one, but I put off that project because I got busy at work and it's not something I normally use.
I guess I just haven't been forced to see the upsides yet. But am always wanting to learn
containerisation is to applications as virtual machines are to hardware.
VMs share the same CPU, memory, and storage on the same host.
Containers share the same binaries in an OS.
My servers and NAS were created long before Docker was a thing, and as I am running them on a rolling release distribution there never was a reason to change anything. It works perfectly fine the way it is, and it will most likely run perfectly fine the next 10+ years too.
Well I am planning, when I find the time to research a good successor, to replace my aging HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 that I use as Homeserver/NAS. Maybe I will then setup everything clean and migrate the services to docker/podman/whatever is fancy then. But most likely I will only transfer all the disks and keep the old system running on newer hardware. Life is short...
My file server is also the container/VM host. It does NAS duties while containers/VMs do the other services.
OPNsense is its own box because I prefer to separate it for security reasons.
Pihole is on its own RPi because that was easier to setup. I might move that functionality to the AdGuard plugin on OPNsense.
My reasons for keeping OpnSense on bare metal mirror yours. But additionally I don't want my network to take a crap because my proxmox box goes down.
I constantly am tweaking that machine...
Mainly that I don't understand how to use containers... or VMs that well... I have and old MyCloud NAS and little pucky PC that I wanted to run simple QoL services on... HomeAssistant, JellyFin etc...
I got Proxmox installed on it, I can access it.... I don't know what the fuck I'm doing... There was a website that allowed you to just run scripts on shell to install a lot of things... but now none of those work becuase it says my version of Proxmox is wrong (when it's not?)... so those don't work....
And at least VMs are easy(ish) to understand. Fake computer with OS... easy. I've built PCs before, I get it..... Containers just never want to work, or I don't understand wtf to do to make them work.
I wanted to run a Zulip or Rocket.chat for internal messaging around the house (wife and I both work at home, kid does home/virtualschool).... wanted to use a container because a service that simple doesn't feel like it needs a whole VM..... but it won't work...
I would give docker compose a try instead. I found Proxmox to be too much, when a simple yaml file (that can be checked into a repo) can do the job.
Pay attention to when people say things can be improved (secrets/passwords, rootless/podman, backups), etc. And come back to them later.
Just don't expose things to the internet until you understand the risks and don't check in secrets to a public git repo and go from there. It is a lot more manageable and feels like a hobby vs feeling like I'm still at work trying to get high availability, concurrency and all this other stuff that does not matter for a home setup.
I would give docker compose a try instead. I found Proxmox to be too much, when a simple yaml file (that can be checked into a repo) can do the job.
Proxmox and Docker serve different purposes. They aren't mutually exclusive. I have 4 separate VMs in my Proxmox cluster dedicated specifically to Docker; all running Dockge, too, so the stacks can all be managed from one interface.
It depends on the service and the desired level of it stack.
I generally will run services directly on things like a raspberry pi because VMs and containers offer added complexity that isn't really suitable for the task.
At work, I run services in docker in VMs because the benefits far outweigh the complexity.
All I have is Minecraft and a discord bot so I don't think it justifies vms
Obviously, you host your own hypervisor on own or rented bare metal.
I'm running Kube on baremetal.
Well, that is how I started out. Docker was not around yet (or not mainstream enough, maybe). So it is basically a legacy thing.
My main machine is a Frankenstein monster by now, so I am gradually moving. But since the days when I started out, time has become a scarce resource, so the process is painfully slow.
Anything you want dedicated performance on or require fine tuning for a specific performance use cases. Theyre out there.
This reminds me of a question I saw a couple years ago. It was basically why would you stick with bare metal over running Proxmox with a single VM.
It kinda stuck with me and since then I've reimaged some of my bare metal servers with exactly that. It just makes backup and restore/snapshots so much easier. It's also really convenient to have a web interface to manage the computer
Probably doesn't work for everyone but it works for me
Here’s my homelab journey: https://bower.sh/homelab
Basically, containers and GPU is annoying to deal with, GPU pass through to a VM is even more annoying. Most modern hobbyist GPUs also do not support splitting your GPU. At the end of the day, it’s a bunch of tinkering which is valuable if that’s your goal. I learned what I wanted, now I’m back to arch running everything with systemd and quadlet
