Comment on Docker or Proxmox? Something else entirely?

• koala@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Came in here to mention Incus if no one had.

  I love it. I have three “home production” servers running Proxmox, but mostly because Proxmox is one of very few LTS/comercially-supported ways to run Linux in a supported way with root (and everything else on ZFS). And while its web UI is still a bit clunky in places, it comes in handy some times.

  However, Incus automation is just… superior. incus launch --vm images:debian/13 foo, wait a few seconds then incus exec foo – bash and I’m root on a console of a ready-to-go Debian VM. Without –vm, it’s a lightweight LXC container. And Ansible supports running commands through incus exec, so you can provision stuff WITHOUT BOTHERING TO SET UP ANYTHING.

  AND, it works remotely without fuss, so I can set up an Incus remote on a beefy server and spawn VMs nearly transparently. + incus file pull|push to transfer files.

  I’m kinda pondering scripting removal of the Proxmox bits from a Proxmox install, so that I just keep their ZFS support and run Incus on top.

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  • Cyber@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Hmm, I setup a Proxmox machine a while back because, well, all the cool kids seemed to do it - and plenty of “support” on youtube

    I found Incus and it just seemed better, but it was harder to find info on (back then) and seemed a little unready

    Now, I regret not sticking with my gut instinct as I’ve got to basically rip out Proxmox to get Incus in, which means all my VMs are prisoners (and us: 1 VM is Home Assistant!)

    So, do you know if it’s possible to migrate my VMs across to Incus, or is it literally wipe drive, start again?

    (Obviously the data in each VM can be backed up & restored into new VMs)

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    • koala@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I haven’t tested this, but I would expect there to be ways to do it, esp for VMs if they are not LXC containers.

      (I try to automate provisioning as much as possible, so I don’t do this kind of stuff often.)

      The Incus forum is not huge, but it’s friendly, and the authors are quite active.

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• glizzyguzzler@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I’m looking at Opnsense on an Incus VM soon, what was your fight there? Good to know what I’ll hit ;)

  Agreed on that path - some networking (like mimicking proxmox’s bridge connections which give VMs their own MAC/IP) takes effort to find the solution. But the basic LXC/VM-shares-your-IP works super easily and the script ability is great. Plus it doesn’t feel like a yoke on your system that is heavy and drives it, but just another application! I feel it’s close enough, and when you get it where you want it, it’s perf. I assume they’ll get “one click” solutions for the harder stuff baked in as they get more attention and traction.

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  • tofubl@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    “Just” some highly specific VM settings, in the end. I don’t know much about that, and terms like qemu don’t mean anything to me so I followed blog posts until it worked. It’s possible that it is actually trivial.

    It’s been a while, but I can look up what I have when you need it. Feel free to ping me!

    Yes, it was exactly that: Once I got the NICs set up the way I wanted them it was a breeze and everything just works. And I really like that I made every part work myself, no magic. I learned a lot, and wouldn’t have had I relied on Proxmox fiddling with the right parts for me.

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    • glizzyguzzler@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Thanks for the links! I had no idea there were special settings needed

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