[deleted]
Weeeell, since they switched to a semi-subscription model, I’d recommend looking into TrueNAS (inb4 they start locking down their stuff)
[deleted]
Submitted 3 weeks ago by jobbies@lemmy.zip to selfhosted@lemmy.world
Comments
chaotic_disorganizer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
jobbies@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
[deleted]nagaram@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
Are you using truenas as the entire homelab?
I also love messing with stuff until it breaks and I learn something, but I’ve decided I just want my files to be accessible.
So I actually have truenas virtualized with a passed through HBA so I can run proxmox to host all my breakable VMs while leaving truenas alone.
glizzyguzzler@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Reading that is wild
Why are you doing Arch on a server? You want to tinker forever and read the update notes like a hawk lest the server implode forever?
Arch isn’t gonna be noticeably leaner than Debian.
Get Debian, install docker and/or podman, set unattended upgrades, and then install Incus if you need VMs or containers down the line. You can stick on ZFS and it’ll be fine, you already have BTRFS for basic mirrors. Install Cockpit and you’ll have a nice GUI. Try not to think you have to fiddle with settings, the maintainers for each package/service have set it so it works for most people (and we’re most people!); you’ll only need to intervene on an handful of package configs. All set and it’s not proprietary.
paper_moon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
There was a thread yesterday where most people were choosing arch for their server, I didn’t get it either. Like you, I’d much rather Debian or something else with smoother updates.
handsoffmydata@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
It’s probably because tech influencers on insert your fav video scrolling app love choosing arch as their flavor of the month Linux distro
Vorpal@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Agreed, I run arch on my desktop and laptop, because it is more stable (in the sense of fewer bugs, things like suspend/resume works reliably for example) than any other distro I have used.
But on my VPS and my Pi I run Debian because it is more stable (in the sense of fewer upgrades that could break things). I can enable unattended upgrades there, which I would never do ok my Arch system (though it is incredibly rare for those to break).
Also: if someone said they were a (self proclaimed) “semi noob” I would not recommend Arch. I have used Linux since 2002, and as my main OS since 2006.(Furthermore I’m a software developer in C/C++/Rust.) While Arch is a great distro, don’t start with Arch.
glizzyguzzler@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Arch’s design is key for user devices - it gets you the fixes you need now with good enough guard rails that usually it’s all good!
But that’s not the design you want for a 24/7 server that’s likely headless. You want that server to have the security updates and to get them installed asap without worry about stability. Literally for years now I’ve never had unattended upgrades cause any issue, and I’ve taken that system from 11 to 13 now. And I’ll look at in a month (maybe) while it continues to do DNS and serve up vidz
Debian on a laptop would be akin to a skeleton waiting on food/water; you’ll get that fix for sleep in 14 (maybe). It’s workable - just like Arch is workable for a server - but it’s just not the ideal role.
Both designs exist for a reason though, and that’s cause they both have their strengths!
shrugs@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s the way you to go
hddsx@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Debian?
Overspark@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Yeah I wouldn’t call Arch a server OS. I run Arch on my laptop, but Debian on my docker/file/self-hosting server. Best tool for the job etc. Never even been tempted by Unraid, the whole point of running Linux is that I control what goes where.
refreeze@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Arch on the desktop, Debian on the server is the way to go. Both solid, community (non-corporate) distros that fit each use case.
hddsx@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I’m not sure what the benefits of unraid are but for better or worse, I’ve been running Linux servers since 2007 or so, so……
I also used arch now and full time for a few years in the 2010s. I like it, but they put in breaking changes occasionally that I don’t want to have to deal with for a server.
I was on CentOS and switched to Debian because of IBM/RH
PlexSheep@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
It just works, I love Debian. Never even thought about getting unraid
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Not at all.
OK, I got some missing bells and whistles in my current setup, which is just a poor man’s NAS made of ZFS and samba, plus a nextcloud for convenience.
But I fell so much in love with ZFS that I would never replace it with unraid. For my next box I am looking forward to use TrueNAS instead.
Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Unraid supports ZFS
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Ahh… excuses ;-)
jobbies@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
[deleted]non_burglar@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What parts are “a bitch” to work with?
Flamekebab@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I have given up on ZFS entirely because of how much of a pig it was.
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Why would I pay for Unraid when I already have a smooth-running Proxmox cluster and a NAS?
tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden 3 weeks ago
Same, just TrueNAS instead of OMV. I’m not thinking about unraid at all.
Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
UnRaid doesn’t provide anything in interested in, at all. Currently running TrueNAS for main storage and proxmox for virtualization, both ZFS based. If TrueNAS ever enshittifies, I’d run some bare metal Linux with ZFS. My workstations also win ZFS, making backups trivial. VM snapshots and backups of any system are trivial and take seconds (including network transfers).
I never understood why I’d even consider UnRaid for anything.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
How are you sharing the storage to PVE? NFS?
roofuskit@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I already did, no regrets. The way it handles storage is the killer feature for me. Being able to upgrade my drives or add one with very little effort is worth every penny.
Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I went to look at buying a second license and saw its all subscription now for updates… much sad
roofuskit@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I thought you could still buy the highest tier and get no subscription, just that they raised the price?
MudMan@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
I'm sidetracking a bit, but am I alone in thinking self hosting hobbyists are way too into "lightweight and not bloated" as a value?
I mean, I get it if you have a whole data center worth of servers, but if it's a cobbled together home server it's probably fine, right? My current setup idles at 1.5% of its CPU and 25% of its RAM. If I turned everything off those values are close to zero and effectively trivial alongside any one of the apps I'm running in there. Surely any amount of convenience is worth the extra bloat, right?
Illecors@lemmy.cafe 3 weeks ago
Gentoo/Arch guy checking in. It’s more about having fewer codepaths to go wrong after some update. At least in my case.
MudMan@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
After a OS update? I mean, I guess, but most things are going to be in containers anyway, right?
The last update that messed me up on any counts was Python-related and that would have got me on any distro just as well.
Once again, I get it at scale, where you have so much maintenance to manage and want to keep it to a minimum, but for home use it seems to me that being on an LTS/stable update channel would have a much bigger impact than being on a lightweight distro.
jobbies@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
[deleted]atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
squeezing every last drop of resource form tired old hardware
This is such a myth. 99% of the time your hardware is doing there doing nothing. Even when running “bloated” services.
Nextcloud, for example, uses practically zero cpu and a few tens on mb when sitting around yet people avoid it for “bloat”.
MudMan@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
I suppose it makes more sense the less you want to do and the older your hardware is. Even when repurposing old laptops and stuff like that I find the smallest apps I'd want to run were orders of magnitude more costly than any OS overhead. This was even true that one time I got lazy and started running stuff on an older Windows machine without reinstalling the OS, so I'm guessing anything Linux-side would be fine.
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
I use Unraid. It’s great and a lot less hassle than back when I used just a regular distro for everything.
Know_not_Scotty_does@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Setup was easy, it just works, its stable, and if you want the regular updates, just get the lifetime model on sale. I bought it becaue I didn’t want to spend time screwing with setup and just wanted to get my data moved snd running.
hamsda@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
To me it seems like:
- you want to do a lot of stuff yourself on arch
- but there’s quite some complicated stuff to learn and try
I’d try Proxmox VE and, if you’re also searching for a Backup Server, Proxmox Backup Server.
I recommend these because:
- Proxmox VE is a Hypervisor, you can just spin up Arch Linux VMs for every task you need
- Proxmox VE, as well as Proxmox BS are open source
- you can buy a license for “stable updates” (you get the same updates, but delayed, to fix problems before they get to you)
- includes snapshots, re-rolls, full-backups, a firewall (which you can turn on or off for every VM), …
I personally run a Proxmox VE + Proxmox BS setup in 3 companies + my own homelab.
It’s not magic, Proxmox VE is literally Debian 13 + qemu + kvm with a nice webui. So you know the tech is proven, it’s just now you also get an easy to use interface instead of
virshconsole commands orvirt-manager.I personally like a stable infrastructure to test and run my important and experimental tuff upon. That’s why I’m going with this instead of managing even the hypervisor myself with Arch.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
My tech stack is a NUC running PVE that uses an NFS disk served by a TrueNAS server. That is getting backed up by a Veeam B&R server because I am using that at work.
Brunette6256@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I bout unraid years ago… Mostly because I was just married and just started my career and wanted a solution that was already baked. It’s been great. I think it’s helped me get to under stand docker more. I’d often want to run a docker that’s not in their app store (yet).
The problem I kept running into is I wanted go check out and do everything which often broke things or something weird would happen… Lol. So I have two know. One that’s “production” and another for checking things out.
jobbies@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
[deleted]Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
For me I need to have stuff I actually use break to have the motivation to figure it out
hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
maybe try zVault (freenas fork)? heard it’s great.
tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden 3 weeks ago
I found all that TrueNAS back and forth a bit confusing but I’m glad they ended up on Debian as a base. This seems to value FreeBSD but I can’t find their reasoning.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
BSD was good at one point
These days however…
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Ive been using Unraid for years.
I am fully capable of running a Docker solution and setting up drives in a raid configuration. It’s more or less one of my job duties so when I get home I’m not in a hurry to do a lot more of that.
But Unraid is not zero maintenance, and when something goes wrong, it’s a bit of a pain in the ass to fix even with significant institutional knowledge.
Running disks in JBOD with parity is wonderful for fault tolerance. But throughput for copying files is very slow.
You could run it with zfs and get much more performance, but then all your discs need to be the same size, and there’s regular disk maintenance that needs to happen.
They have this weird dedication to running everything is root. They’re not inherently insecure, but it’s one of those obvious no-nos that you shouldn’t do that they’re holding on to.
If you want to make it a jellyfin/arr server and just store some docs on the side, it’s reasonable and fairly low maintenance.
I’m happy enough with them not to change away. And if you wait till a black Friday they usually have a pretty good sale.
I’ll probably eventually move to a ProxMox and a Kubernetes cluster as I’ve picked up those skills at work. I kind of want to throw together a 10-inch rack with a cluster of RPI. But that’s pretty against what direction you’re looking to head :)
GottaHaveFaith@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
I think most selfhosters already know/use Linux, so management issues are already known. About the ease of use, if you manage services with docker it's really easy to bring them up/down, and if you want some GUI there's portainer.
shrugs@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Self hosting on a rolling release platform? No way. Give me Debian, 4 hours work every 2 1/2 years. Arch is crazy and only doable if you only have a few single server
smashing3606@feddit.online 3 weeks ago
Openmediavault + mergerfs + snapraid is very similar to unraid storage in that you can add different disk sizes just like unraid. Admittedly it’s not as ‘plug and play’ as unraid, but it’s free, so can’t really complain. Disk speeds using this config are also much faster if that matters.
I have considered truneas for if/when I need to rebuild, but this works for my jellfyin/arr stack needs.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Nah. I have everything in containers so maintenance is a non-issue, since I can upgrade the host separately from the containers. I’m using openSUSE Leap with a BTRFS mirror for the storage and I never have to think about it. I’ll probably move to openSUSE MicroOS when I get a new boot drive so I don’t have to do the release upgrade every other year.
eleitl@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
zfs has been working nicely for me for many years, for diverse operating systems including zfs all-in-one for internal NFS mount.
anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I’ve never tried Arch but my debian server with kvm/qemu/cockpit running mdraid1 and smb/nfs file sharing - works well enough and I enjoy the tinkering and setting it all up. I’m writing this from a virtual Fedora KDE workstation that I’ve setup vfio and pcie passthrough of my dgpu and a usb controller on (both connected to my monitor that acts as a usb hub).
A friend runs a Proxmox VE Community Edition with physical disk passthrough to a virtual Nextcloud server and that seems to work well too.
I guess my answer is no, I don’t look at UnRAID and think “fuck this shit I’m done”, I enjoy the tinkering that makes you frustrated.May I ask what kind of brick walls you’re hitting and what software you run on Arch that makes it so frustrating?
jobbies@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
[deleted]anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
What I like about running a hypervisor and true vms is that I can fool around with some vms in my server without risk of disrupting the others.
I run most of my dockers in one VM, my game servers in another and the Jellyfin instance on a third. That allows me to fool around with my portainer instance or game servers without disrupting Jellyfin and so on.
Part of it is that I’m more used to and comfortable in managing vms and their backup/recovery compared to LXCs and Dockers.
Image
olivier@lemmy.fait.ch 3 weeks ago
Why not something like NAS4Free or OpenMediaVault, then? You don’t have to chose between DIY and paid-for, there is a middle-ground
hperrin@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I use Ubuntu Server -> dm-integrity -> mdadm -> ext4. Super easy to set up (it just takes forever to do dm-integrity on the drives, but you don’t need to watch it), works great, easy to maintain. Everything I run on it is dockerized with docker compose and sits behind nginx-proxy-manager, so it’s also super easy to maintain.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I wouldn’t recommend that as it doesn’t do a lot to protect data. Instead go ZFS or Btrfs.
hperrin@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
That’s what dm-integrity is for. Also, absolutely do not use Btrfs for RAID5/RAID6.
Steamymoomilk@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
At times i have felt that my distro was so not worth the flak.
But the thing that keeps me on it is i write it once and never half to dick with it again.
NixOS is really powerful, but the learning curve will push you to the edge!
I currently self host alot of stuff on my server which runs NixOS, theres some services that are as simple as ollama.service = true;
And others that you spend hours cussing at. But i feel the declarative nature is what makes switching to any other distro feel so unintuitive.
My linux journey had been,
Manjaro > ubuntu > arch > fedora > silverblue > opensuse tumbleweed > gentoo > nixos > opensuse tumbleweed > nixos.
I kept coming back to nix because i wrote what i wanted it to do and it didnt it that way every time. Its been a godsend for ZFS, although its not super bad to use ZFS on debian just mostly time consuming. The fact i dont half to worry about a update breaking DKMS and making my filesystem not work. I SWEAR SUN IF YOU COULD HAVE JUST DONE THE GPL INSTEAD OF CDL!!!
I have recently been exploring Guix, purely because of the NixOS drama. But i think nix is my main server OS
blarghly@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Here, you lost this
u
dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Already bought the lifetime license. It’s great, I don’t miss rolling my own bare metal arch servers.
(Because I still do that too)
mirisgaiss@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
the ‘point and shoot’ is why I ended up with it too. I’ve gotten very tired of spending hours upon hours to make computers work exactly like I want over the years, especially after realizing I’m only actually using 2 or 3 of the dozen+ containers I’ve installed. I can still tinker and break shit on pis and old laptops when I want.
dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yep. My home assistant production deploy is on a separate rpi, same as my pihole, and I’ve promoted out a few other services out of unraid. As an almost 40 father of 2 with a full time gig, I don’t want to dick around with experiments that interrupt the rest of the family and I also don’t want to spend a year of “30 mins before bed” to figure out how to deploy a service I’m not even sure I want to use long term.
jobbies@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
[deleted]dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Exactly. I like doing clever scripting and neat one off projects, I don’t like having to become a networking expert, a containerization expert, a hardware expert, and an integration expert so my wife can reliably watch law and order.
I can roll a custom arch build no problem, but I can not set up custom vlan or nat rules or easily swap to a new file system with baked in snapshots or tell you anything about how my GPU compares to anything on the market or how to make it reliably perform hardware acceleration. I would be happy to learn those skills, but sometimes it’s all just too much.
If I’m gonna do it, I want to do it. If I need to verbatim copy someone’s YouTube video where I use proxmox to use someone’s Ubuntu KDE VM to set up couch potato, I’d rather just use unraid and not pretend I’m a FOSSing haxor :).
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
I just use TrueNAS for my storage layer. I don’t love the idea of a proprietary OS running my storage system. It’s just a bunch of ZFS under the hood which a competent data recovery company should be able to handle, if I don’t have backups of my 3TB of clown porn. The proportion of FreeBSD that’s a mystery to me is slightly less than it was in 2015 when I built it but it’s still pretty high.
My recommendation is to KISS with the fundamental layers and play higher in the stack with less critical workloads. Build a web server and a DNS server and reverse proxy and get a feel for how it works before
mucking withoptimizing the VM host.skozzii@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Switched years ago and now things just work, no looking back for me and I am as happy as a clam.
Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com 3 weeks ago
Not too close. My Proxmox server is basically set up, I can’t fit anything more on it, so it’s just back end and tinkering now. I’m comfortable with Proxmox.
That said, new box and a large windfall I’d have a look at Unraid. After donating to Proxmox at least that much first.
If Proxmox didn’t exist (and TTeck didn’t exist) I think I would have at least tested Unraid. I was comfy in Debian with Docker as a virtualisation host before moving to Proxmox anyways.
I’m sure it’s good, I would like to give it a go. I’m happy where I am though.
bluetardis@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Experimented with various approaches, looking to replace an older Pegasus set of 6 drives and a file server.
Unraid just worked. Lots of support and tutorials to get started. Look up Spaceinvader on YouTube as a starter
HelloRoot@lemy.lol 3 weeks ago
Extremely far. Maximum distance. My self updating debian with an sftpgo container and some HDDs slapped onto it has been rocksolid for years.