A lot of the TC updates weren’t app/image specific, was somewhere else in their Helm environment.
I can now confirm this is not the case, at least not universally. My test was on an instance of Plex that I’d installed, but not done anything with. I was able to edit the app and add two NFS mounts as external storage, following which the app came right back up and ran without issues. I obviously can’t say it will work with all settings for all apps, but it’s definitely not universally the case that “you can’t even modify any settings.”
can you share the steps taken to setup and convert the truechart apps, as well as your insights and suggestions from the process?
- watch Stux video on how to setup a jailmaker jail
- Note which apps from truecharts are not needed, e.g. certmanager, cluster issuer, prometheus operator.
- Took a look at the truecharts github to see which images they were using for their apps and searched for them on dockerhub.
- Made a private github repo to collect the docker compose files i wanted to use and edit them to my needs (ports, paths for storage mapping etc)
- installed portainer inside the jail to manage the apps.
- played around with simple to deploy apps like the *arrs and qbittorrent to get familiar with portainer and docker.
- Found out that portainer sucks at deploying compose files that reference .env files and get stuck for about 2 weeks.
- deploy compose files that use .env directly with docker-compose up (they still show up in portainer with limited managability)
- use Techno Tim’s traefik tutorial to setup traefik
- Figure out which labels i needed to add to the compose files so that my apps ara accessible via domain and traefik uses let’s encrypt to issue certs
- Add forward auth middleware to traefik via authentik for SSO
I think that were all steps i did.
Edit: docker was a lot more straigh forward then i expected. Compared to setting up apps on k3s it was a lot easier because there’s really good documentation on the dockerhub pages for every image.
Where i got stuck the most was to get gpu transcoding working on jellyfin because the nvidia runtime is not pre installed inside the jail and i made a very stupid mistake during the setup and got stuck there.
In the end i just stupid and copied a wrong command during the runtime setup.
I took a break and went on vacation for 2 weeks and when i came back i realised how stupid i was and got it working in less then an hour.
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Thanks!!
It seems like a big project…
You mention that you collected docker images of the apps. How are they updated? I undestand you’re not using the TrueNAS apps. Can you update the apps automatically (like heavyscript), and update only major or minor versions
Additionally, can you have cloud access to your server (with wg-easy) and ingress with your setup?
If an update is available you can just redeploy the stack (that’s what portainer calls their docker-compose management) and tell portainer to repull the Image. If you used latest as Image Tag, portainer will pull the newest image Version. If you’ve specified a certain Version number, edit the Version number in the Compose File, redeploy and the app is updated. For the Apps with .env files, i ssh into the jail, use docker-compose pull, wait till the imgage is pulled and then redeploy the App with regular docker-compose up -d
Edit: I’ve never used wg-easy. And afaict Ingress is a kubernetes Thing. With docker you have to add Labels to the Compose File to add the app to traefik, it’s Not working automatically via GUI tick-box
Of course, if you use dockge you can edit the env files and original compose files from the dockage gui.
I watched Stux’s videos for Jailmaker and Dockge. I only had a few Truecharts apps that didn’t have a native version, so didn’t need to do many. I found compose files for the ones I wanted on linuxserver.
I had a few hiccups. One was commenting out the the old macvlan setting in the jailmaker setup when changing to bridged (rather than editing it)… but it was after the "system_ndspawn… " bit before the rest of the switches, so the DNS setting didn’t work in the jail 
The other one is I broke my PiHole setup (in the native app) when I switched to a bridged connection. Just needed the config fixing to use the new connection.
I need to play more at some point as I want to shift some stuff off a couple of Raspberry Pis.
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So, from what i gathered here I need to install several new unfamiliar software to be able use my Plex Server (it’s in non working condition in Dragonfish) and just hope that Truenas Scale gods will not break something else or go totally different direction.
Got it.
To run a plex-server, you just need to install the plex-app under TrueNAS scale. It works fine.
Right now I would wait for TrueNAS 24.10, because the apps will change from kubinetics to dockers.
Well, the problem I am having is that “just need to install the plex-app under TrueNAS scale” it is not working in Dragonfish. I have tried hundreds of times, with different options (SMB, host path, existing paths or auto) and images and it just doesn’t work.
With official image boots to plex client where you can’t do anything.
With plex pass image gets stuck in deploying.
None of guides on the internets are working - maybe because are outdated?
You can install Plex in a Sandbox using Jailmaker.
This gives you full control, and has been mentioned a few times in this thread.
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Is “Plex in a Sandbox using Jailmaker” direction of gods of Truenas or just a temporary “solution” to the problem?
“Temporary” is ambiguous; it would require prescience to answer it correctly.
Setting up your own solutions, I’d argue, is the most permanent solution. This route gives you the knowledge & skills to work around future changes that don’t align with your goals. Could be through a VM, jailmaker, or whatever else isn’t locked down.
I’ll go even further & say it would be a valid solution if we specify the timeframe to minimum of 2 years. If you’re asking if you’ll never have to make a shift again for the lifetime of your system? Very unlikely - unless you system has a lifespan of <2 years 
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Thank you for your reply, i really mean it.
My problem is that I have 100s of TBs of data on my Truenas Scale Dragonfish setup.
I have no way to back it all up to other computers or cloud, all of it cost a lot money and time. When I first started with Truenas Core everything was so cool and straight forward - I have NAS and with 500 GB of memory on double Intel Xeon and Supermicro motherboard and case with 24 - 3 1/2" bays. Since I have transferred to Truenas Scale with the advertised super futures, more apps, more of everything and safety and speed - I’ve got SMB NAS storage box with no options anymore.
Sorry, I’m little bit upset about it…
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Not sure I understand the complaint?
Don’t you still have a NAS box?
What do you mean by “No options anymore”?
I suspect the problem is too many options 
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That is a beast setup! I’m 100% certain that you’ll be able to restore any lost functionality, it’ll just take a few hours & maybe a couple of @Stux’s videos.
It ain’t perfect, especially since you’ve at the moment you likely feel like you’ve taken a leap backwards, but I’d argue that every ~5 years or so these kind of things’ll happen. After you get it working it’ll be back to auto-pilot for a while again 
I think the worst part if that previous solutions changed just as you went to scale & we still have things pointing to TrueCharts all over google searches & youtube - sadly these things aren’t helpful as of only a few short weeks ago so that likely wasted a lot of your time.
I’m also surprised you’re having issues with Plex. I’ve installed mine using the default TrueNAS catalogue & has claimed token, and Plex Pass Image…
I love computers, that’s why I’ve got Truenas to run my Plex Server and not pay for Netflix or other super duper services and try to get little privacy. I guess me working blue collar job every day is just not enough to easily set up my private media server inside my house anymore.
Sorry if I sound little bitchy.
If I understand it correctly (not really sure to be honest), iX will ditch their k3s implementation with a semi friendly frontend for another solution for apps.
Apps meaning containers for different applications, all running in a Linux environment using some kind of container runtime (docker, podman, containerd, rancher…), that basically use all the same containers / technology.
The basic transition should be, if I understand the problem correctly, doing an inventory of the apps / containers you use now, see which ports are used, which storage is mounted (if you use ixVolumes, think it will be not so fun, if you use Host Path to mount files, it should be simple).
With this information you should be able to find the correct docker-image, and most docker registries have infos on a docker-compose-file, which mount-points are expected and what ports are used.
If you look into that, you can chose your way forward:
- Install a new virtual machine and install docker there and manage the machine by hand or via dockge or portainer (there’s a homelab-license), all of which can be done with the docker-compose syntax.
- you can use jailmaker as shown in the excellent video above
- you can wait till october, when TrueNAS has moved to docker-compose for their internal solution
All 3 options are viable, the only difference is the way to map the volumes to the containers, which looks easy with the jailmaker-solution.
Another quesion could be updating your containers, that can be simply done in dockge via update, redeploying the stack in portainer or installing a cointainer with watchtower, that handles update automatically / via schedule.
I didn’t look far into handling inbound connections from the internet and certificates, since that is handled on my router right now, but I assume you can handle that via NGINX Proxy Manager, which has a handy gui.
From this perspective, that you can use the docker-compose.yaml-files in different systems (right now I’m migrating some apps over from a small cluster of machines) I think it’s a good move, since you can use simpler tools (dockge is a relatively new thing), deploy your own images, build your own bundles of torrent-client + vpn or even install a gluetun-container and route all traffic via that network.
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I think IX’s goal is to auto-migrate apps that were published by IX as part of the official and community catalogs, additionally “custom” apps launched with the custom app button should migrate too.
Effectively this means the TrueCharts charts won’t auto-migrate and can be replaced with a compose file
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