TrueNAS Virtualization Solutions - Docker, LXC, and KVM - Which to Use | TrueNAS Tech Talk (T3) E051

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On today’s TrueNAS Tech Talk, Kris and Chris will revisit the three virtualization technologies that you can use to run non-storage workloads on TrueNAS - Docker, LXC, and KVM. How do they impact performance and functionality, and which one’s right for you? They’ll also tackle some viewer questions about VDEV removal, and make suggestions around L2ARC and Special VDEVs for a user building a budget system in the midst of RAMmageddon.

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Any news about the release schedule of the 26.04 beta ?

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It should happen around April? You might start to hear news within a month to a month and a half.

Check back on Feb 2. You can pretend you saw your shadow, there’s six more weeks of winter and check back later (Groundhog Day - Wikipedia)

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Thanks for explaining the roles of:

  • Docker
  • LXC
  • VMs

I have been after an easy explanation of these technologies which then allows me to understand their application and usage more. I also like how once you explained the basics you guys went a little deeper into them.

pfSense

I run my pfSense fully virtualised (KVM) and I can control which gateway traffic from particular IP addresses is routed to. Some of my gateways are VPN clients.

My setup has some key points:

  • TruneNAS has a static IP
  • pfSense has a static IP
  • The VM is configured to auto-start
  • I have passed through a Quad NIC to the VM
  • My pfSense router is connected to my Fibre modem and thus controls all of my internet routing.
  • TrueNAS uses a 5 NIC (the Motherboard’s onboard NIC) which is connected into the Quad Card (via a network switch).

Notes

  • Even if pfSense goes down I can always access my TrueNAS box via it’s IP (eg 192.168.1.37)
  • Upgrading TrueNAS with this setup causes no issues.
  • This is not a crazy setup :smiley: , it is solid and I have never had an issue.
  • pfSense handles all of my DHCP

Thanks for the Video

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They mentioned that a beta release would be available around February

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I am running pfSense on ESXI for some years and at the moment I am transitioning these VMs to TrueNAS.
Of course you need static IPs for everything. TrueNAS IPs via DHCP - no, this does not make any sense at all.
Furthermore I have 2 pfSense in a HA configuration running on 2 TrueNAS machines.
If one goes down the other takes over.

Same for Active Directory Domain Controllers: 2 VMs on 2 TrueNAS machines, primary and secondary.
So Active Directory and DNS remain accessible if you need to reboot one TrueNAS.

Thus there are no network dependencies. No reason not to recommend this setup.
By the way, the same approach is true for virtualizing your gateway, firewall, domain controller via ESXI, Proxmox, whatever hypervisor.

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I spotted something on Github and Jira.
Looks like IX is pivoting from a 6 month release cycle to a yearly cycle.
Now it is TrueNAS 26 (without .04/.10).

Maybe @HoneyBadger is going to enlighten us :wink:

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That would be a welcome change–they seem to have been rushing to meet a release date for a number of recent releases, resulting in half-baked implementations or show-stopping bugs. If they’re moving to a yearly schedule, perhaps they’ll give themselves time to actually have release-ready releases.

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Is it mentioned anywhere why TrueNAS migrated from Incus to Libvirt for LXCs?

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because Incus sucked :smiley:

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Only the vm part of incus sucked, the lxc part is rock solid and has worked fine for me for almost a year now.

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Interesting, now I saw the same haha, with dates lol (I’m sure those dates are estimates/placeholders tho)

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You get a special shoutout for being one of those who called it :wink: