Small Setup without redudancy

TrueNAS General
1

Hi,
I currently have a small home server (hp prodesk 600 g3) with one nvme and one ssd. As base OS I use ubuntu (non lts, which was not the best idea) and run about 12 docker containers (rasbperrmatic, paperless ngx, immich, traefic etc).
I want to switch to a solution, that does not require me to maintain the base OS (updates, config etc) itself and that I can completely maintain via a web UI. I also want to have a VM solution to move rasbperrmatic to home assistant.
As backup I use a very old synology nas.

I made a quick setup of the current truenas community version in a VM and have some open questions:

  • I need some dedicated drive (like an USB drive) if I do not want to lose one of my drives to the truenas host installation? So I cant install true nas on like 30GB of drive 1 and then use the rest for userdata, right?
  • which usb drive would you recommend
  • I can use docker compose directly in the UI with custom apps, but I cant pull the compose files automatically from git like github, right?
  • as long as the host supports virtualisation I can import the homeassistant VM and forward the homematic usb stick to it, right?
  • can I forward the virutal monitor of a VM or docker to the displayport?
  • can I use traefik or even some better solution for ingres (ie each docker container has its own subdomain like immich.mytruenas.local?)
  • can I use the ingress also for VMs (like homeassistant.mytruenas.local)?
  • can I use letsencrypt certs even if the truenas is not reachable from the internet?
  • is there a built in way to backup container volumes or its content? or do I use some bash magic and cron?

would you also use truenas for my setup or some other solution?
(I also took a look at proxmox and the built in container solution was not really great, but maybe that was a miss conception on my side)

thanks for your help and time

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TL;DR: TrueNAS is what you want, but spend some money and buy a new server and some new disks and do it right. Or stick with your current Ubuntu and switch to LTS.

Q: I need some dedicated drive (like an USB drive) if I do not want to lose one of my drives to the truenas host installation? So I cant install true nas on like 30GB of drive 1 and then use the rest for userdata, right?
A: It is possible, but definitely NOT recommended to put user data on the rest of the drive. In essence if for any reason you need to reinstall TrueNAS, there is a good chance you could lose your data.

Q: Which usb drive would you recommend?
A: None. USB drives are not recommended (and I say that even though I use one for a boot/apps pool). Put simply they are far less reliable than a SATA based drive.

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yeah I read that usb drives in general are not recommended and I totally understand it, if you really want a reliable NAS.
The same for the server upgrade. I guess with “do it right” you mean something with at least 3 disks. one for truenas and two for a raid 1 or a zfs drive ppol.
But I don’t need a NAS. I basically want a easy to manage docker + vm host.
so why not simply use a USB drive?

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USB devices were found to wear out quickly and fail when used as a boot device. It’s your choice in the end.

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Ok thanks for input and yes I get that the stick will fail faster than a sata or nvme drive.
is there a tutorial how I can create additional volumes/pools (whatever its called) on the drive that has truenas installed?. I just dont want a 750GB drive only because I have a 30gb truenas installation on it

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Here is an explanation on the boot drive

1 Like
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thank for the link to the post.
I understand option 1 & 2, but I really do not want to go that way.
can you give me some suggestions for option 3 "Buy some high endurance USB SSD-quality thumb drives and boot from USB. " or a link to a tutorial for option 4?

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Honestly i don’t understand how you take truenas as the better answer for your needs.
In your place i really would have looked into proxmox more further; if you don’t like the built in container solution just virtualize something else (Alpine Linux works great for that).

Btw:
shopping

Cheap and reliable for boot from small SSD sata

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By choosing Truenas you are getting ZFS with all its strings attached. The VM part is not as flexible as simply using virt-manager and for docker I would use dockge or portainer anyway.

So I dont see a point in choosing TrueNAS.

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Thanks for the response.
Right now I try to figure out if truenas fit my needs.
And I understand that, by either using a usb drive to boot or installing truenas on a partition I go against the requirements and I take some risks.
But I want to know what my options are and what the up & downsides are. If in the end I decide that truenas does not fit my needs thats totally fine, but I want to know for myself why.

if you don’t like the built in container solution just virtualize something else

this is IMHO not really better than having the ubuntu docker host I have right now. The usb sata adapter is an interessting idea. thx.

So I dont see a point in choosing TrueNAS.

like I said I’m evaluating right now.
the points that make truenas interesting for me are the great webinterface, the option to manage VMs AND docker containers (including compose files) via the webinterface, the managed OS, the built in backup management.
It checks many boxes and I do not see why now to take it into consideration. If the problem of the exclusive boot device could easily be solved by a usb stick, a usb ssd or a separate partition.

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I think TrueNAS provides a good appliance like base is for running docker and VMs, and in the future Incus containers, on a ZFS file system with a good gui for snapshots and replications etc, even if you’re not using redundancy.

You can hack up the installer to partition the boot disk. It’s an unsupported configuration. You should be able to find posts about it if you search.

A better solution is to use a cheap 120GB SSD with SATA to USB adapter.

Or use a pair of good quality USB thumb drives in mirror. At least you can very quickly recover when one fails. The other issue is running off slow thumb drives can actually make the OS laggy.

  • which usb drive would you recommend

I use the little Sandisk ultra fit drives. But always in pairs.

  • I can use docker compose directly in the UI with custom apps, but I cant pull the compose files automatically from git like github, right?

You can if you use native docker, rather than the UI version.

You may want to check out the Dockge app, which provides a GUI to the native docker compose support, and I demonstrate somewhat in this video

You can use git clone etc in the stacks dataset.

  • as long as the host supports virtualisation I can import the homeassistant VM and forward the homematic usb stick to it, right?

In theory. The UI is perhaps suboptimal for configuring this.

  • can I forward the virutal monitor of a VM or docker to the displayport?

You forward the graphics adapter. But you also need one for TrueNAS.

  • can I use traefik or even some better solution for ingres (ie each docker container has its own subdomain like immich.mytruenas.local?)

Yes. The configuration is manual, or you ca use the nginx proxy manager app.

  • can I use the ingress also for VMs (like homeassistant.mytruenas.local)?

Yes. You need to setup a Bridge.

  • can I use letsencrypt certs even if the truenas is not reachable from the internet?

Yes. You need to use DNS based ACME cert acquisition.

  • is there a built in way to backup container volumes or its content? or do I use some bash magic and cron?

You can use replication, rsync, cloud backup etc. none of these are 1 click options.

I’d recommend using bind mounts rather than docker volumes. Then the data is easy to backup via replication.

1 Like
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thank you very much :blush: