Hello! 😀
I want to share my thoughts on docker and maybe discuss about it!
Since some months I started my homelab and as any good “homelabing guy” I absolutely loved using docker. Simple to deploy and everything. Sadly these days my mind is changing… I recently switch to lxc containers to make easier backup and the xperience is pretty great, the only downside is that not every software is available natively outside of docker 🙃
But I switch to have more control too as docker can be difficult to set up some stuff that the devs don’t really planned to.
So here’s my thoughts and slowly I’m going to leave docker for more old-school way of hosting services. Don’t get me wrong docker is awesome in some use cases, the main are that is really portable and simple to deploy no hundreds dependencies, etc. And by this I think I really found how docker could be useful, not for every single homelabing setup, and it’s not my case.
Maybe I’m doing something wrong but I let you talk about it in the comments, thx.
I don’t like docker. It’s hard to update containers, hard to modify specific settings, hard to configure network settings, just overall for me I’ve had a bad experience. It’s fantastic for quickly spinning things up but for long term usecase and customizing it to work well with all my services, I find it lacking.
I just create Debian containers or VMs for my different services using Proxmox. I have full control over all settings that I didn’t have in docker.
For real. Map persistent data out and then just docker compose pull && up. Theres nothing to it. Regular backups make reverting to previous container versions a breeze
For one, if the compose file syntax or structure and options changes (like it did recently for immich), you have to dig through github issues to find that out and re-create the compose with little guidance.
Not docker’s fault specifically, but it’s becoming an issue with more and more software issued as a docker image. Docker democratizes software, but we pay the price in losing perspective on what is good dev practice.
Docker is a convoluted mess of overlays and truly weird network settings. I found that I have no interest in application containers and would much prefer to set up multiple services in a system container (or VM) as if it was a bare-metal server. I deploy a small Proxmox cluster with Proxmox Backup Server in a CT on each node and often use scripts from https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/. Everything is automatically backed up (and remote sync’d twice) with a deduplication factor of 10. A Dockerless Homelab FTW!
It’s hard for me to tell if I’m just set in my ways according to the way I used to do it, but I feel exactly the same.
I think Docker started as “we’re doing things at massive scale, and we need to have a way to spin up new installations automatically and reliably.” That was good.
It’s now become “if I automate the installation of my software, it doesn’t matter that the whole thing is a teetering mess of dependencies and scripted hacks, because it’ll all be hidden inside the container, and also people with no real understanding can just push the button and deploy it.”
I forced myself to learn how to use Docker for installing a few things, found it incredibly hard to do anything of consequence to the software inside the container, and for my use case it added extra complexity for no reason, and I mostly abandoned it.
I hate how docker made it so that a lot of projects only have docker as the official way to install the software.
This is my tinfoil opinion, but to me, docker seems to enable the “phone-ification” ( for a lack of better term) of softwares. The upside is that it is more accessible to spin services on a home server. The downside is that we are losing the knowledge of how the different parts of the software work together.
I really like the Turnkey Linux projects. It’s like the best of both worlds. You deploy a container and a script setups the container for you, but after that, you have the full control over the software like when you install the binaries
I hate how docker made it so that a lot of projects only have docker as the official way to install the software.
Just so we are clear on this. This is not dockers fault. The projects chose Docker as a distribution method, most likely because it’s as widespread and known as it is. It’s simply just to reach more users without spreading too thin.
I agree with it, docker can be simple but can be a real pain too. The good old scripts are the way to go in my opinion, but I kinda like the lxc containers in docker, this principle of containerization is surely great but maybe not the way docker does… (maybe distrobox could be good too 🤷 )
Docker is absolutely a good when having to scale your env but I think that you should build your own images and not use prebuild ones
Honestly after using docker and containerization for more than a decade, my home setups are just yunohost or baremetal (a small pi) with some periodic backups. I care more about my own time now than my home setup and I want things to just be stable. Its been good for a couple of years now, without anything other than some quick updates. You dont have to deal with infa changes with updates, you dont have to deal with slowdowns, everything works pretty well.
At work its different Docker, Kubernetes, etc… are awesome because they can deal gracefully with dependencies, multiple deploys per day, large infa. But ill be the first to admit that takes a bit more manpower and monitoring systems that are much better than a small home setup.
yeah I think that at the end even if it seems a bit “retro” the “normal install” with periodic backups/updates on default vm (or even lxc containers) are the best to use, the most stable and configurable
How isit lore stable or configurable? I have docker containers running backup the my folder daily where all the data lives off-site. Also backup the whole container daily onsite. I have found it so easy. I admit it was a pain to learn but after everything was moved over it has been easier.
Do you use any sort of RAID? Recently, ive been using an old SSD, but back 9ish years ago, I used to backup everything with a RAID system, but it took too much time to keep up.
I tend to also agree with your opinion,but lately Yunohost have quite few broken apps, they’re not very fast on updates and also not many active developers. Hats off to them though because they’re doing the best they can !
I have to agree, the community seems to come and go. Some apps have daily updates and some have been updated only once. If I were to start a new server, I would probably still pick yunohost, but remove some of the older apps as one offs. The lemmy one for example is stuck on a VERY old version. However the GotoSocial app is updated every time there is an update in the main repo.
Still super good support for something that is free and open source. Stable too :) but sometimes stability means old.
Didn’t really tried YunoHost it’s basically a simple selfhostable cloud server?
I like reminding people that with every new technology, the old one is still around. The new gets most of the attention, but the old is still kicking. (We still have wire wrapped programs kicking around.)
You are all good. Spend your limited attention on other things.
