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rottedmood @lemmy.linuxuserspace.show

Pros and cons of Proxmox in a home lab?

Hi all. I was curious about some of the pros and cons of using Proxmox in a home lab set up. It seems like in most home lab setups it’s overkill. But I feel like there may be something I’m missing. Let’s say I run my home lab on two or three different SBCs. Main server is an x86 i5 machine with 16gigs memory and the others are arm devices with 8 gigs memory. Ample space on all. Wouldn’t Proxmox be overkill here and eat up more system resources than just running base Ubuntu, Debian or other server distro on them all and either running the services needed from binary or docker? Seems like the extra memory needed to run the Proxmox software and then the containers would just kill available memory or CPU availability. Am I wrong in thinking that Proxmox is better suited for when you have a machine with 32gigs or more of memory and some sort of base line powerful cpu?

72 comments

  • If you know your way around Linux you most likely don’t need Proxmox and its pseudo-open-source... you can try Incus / LXD instead.

    Avoid Proxmox and safe yourself a LOT of headaches down the line. Go with Debian 12 + Incus/LXC, it runs VMs and containers very well. Proxmox ships with an old kernel that is so mangled and twisted that they shouldn’t even be calling it a Linux kernel. Also their management daemons and other internal shenanigans will delay your boot and crash your systems under certain circumstances.

    LXD/Incus provides a management and automation layer that really makes things work smoothly - essentially what Proxmox does but properly done. With Incus you can create clusters, download, manage and create OS images, run backups and restores, bootstrap things with cloud-init, move containers and VMs between servers (even live sometimes).

    Another big advantage is the fact that it provides a unified experience to deal with both containers and VMs, no need to learn two different tools / APIs as the same commands and options will be used to manage both. Even profiles defining storage, network resources and other policies can be shared and applied across both containers and VMs.

    I draw your attention to containers (not docker), LXC containers because for most people full virtualization isn't even required. In a small homelab if you can have containers that behave like full operating systems (minus the kernel) including persistence, VMs might not be required. Either way LXD/Incus will allow for both and you can easily mix and match and use what you require for each use case. Hell, you can even run Docker inside an LXC container.

    For eg. I virtualize the official HomeAssistant image with Incus because we all know how hard is to get that thing running, however my NAS / Samba shares are just a LXD Debian 12 container with Samba4, Nginx and FileBrowser. Same goes for torrent client that has its own container. Some other service I've exposed to the internet also runs a full VM for isolation.

    Like Proxmox, LXD/Incus isn’t about replacing existing virtualization techniques such as QEMU, KVM and libvirt, it is about augmenting them so they become easier to manage at scale and overall more efficient. I can guarantee you that most people running Proxmox today it today will eventually move to Incus and never look back. It woks way better, true open-source, no bugs, no delayed security updates, no BS licenses and way less overhead.

    Also, let's consider something, why use Proxmox when half of it’s technology (the container part) was made by the same people who made LXD/Incus? I mean Incus is free, well funded and can be installed on a clean Debian system with way less overhead and also delivers both containers and VMs.

    Yes, there's an optional WebUI for it as well!

    Some documentation for you:

    • I think I was on a previous account the last time I saw you, glad to see you're still posting. You convinced me to move from Proxmox to Incus a while back. Sure, I had some growing pains, but it's pretty smooth now.

      I like that I can switch out my distros underneath Incus instead of being stuck on one weird kernel. IME you were absolutely right about that. I'm getting into atomic distros to manage homelab machines. I would not be able to do that on Proxmox.

      I also don't need to edit a giant Javascript file to remove a nag about enterprise software repos, which is nice.

      • I'm glad to know that I could help.

        I like that I can switch out my distros underneath Incus instead of being stuck on one weird kernel

        This is an interesting take that I never considered before, my experience (be it corporate or at home) is usually around Debian machines running Incus and I never had the need to replace the distro underneath it.

    • In what scenarios have you found Proxmox to be unstable? I've had almost no issues with it, despite using it in several unsupported ways.

      • Check the bottom of reply, there’s a link there with my experience over the years.

    • Thanks for all this. I’m familiar with Linux and I just think for my need, something like Proxmox is overkill. I do need to learn LXD on its own. Typically I just run binaries of the services I use, and I don’t tend to use docker or other things. I had toyed with the thought of using Proxmox for management purposes because let’s face it management of several on prem and off prem servers can be a pain. But keeping things running fast and smooth (for spouse approval) is important. I’ll look over the links you provided as it’s probably just good for me to learn LXD directly.

      • Typically I just run binaries of the services I use, and I don’t tend to use docker or other things

        That's essentially what I do in my NAS with LXD, it's a great use case for it.

        Enjoy.

    • As a small homelabber I agree with this. I started with a baremetal and using Docker, and switched to Proxmox, and now over to Incus, actually currently I am using Debian with cockpit + cockpit-machines. I do like Incus, I keep hopping back and forth between cockpit, I need to settle on one.

      • Actually it would be interesting to see cockpit-machines move to Incus as a virtualization backend and support both LXC containers and QEMU VMs tat way.

    • Okay, i was able to take some time and play with Incus. i really like it. I had set it up on a clean VPS and attempted to set up Dendrite in a container. I had some issues getting the traffic to route appropriately to the Incus container and I didn't have as much time to sit back and play with the settings. It was the first time I was set ting up Dendrite and I had a ton of issues with that in of itself, so i just wiped the VPS and installed Dendrite w/o the use of Incus to get a good understanding of how to get it set up correctly and federate it, etc. Now that I know that I think I am going to give this another try. I like the web UI as well, but since i use an iPhone i wasn't really able to be able to set up the browser with the cert, which in the long run isn't a big deal. overall, outside of the firewall settings, it was super easy to setup and get moving. thanks again for the recommendation.

    • LXC is worse than virtualization as it pins to a single core instead of getting scheduled by the kernel scheduler. It also is quiet slow and dated. Either run Podman, Docker or full VMs. Proxmox has a really nice GUI that allows for more advanced management and live transfers between hosts. It also ships with a newer kernel than Debian although it shouldn't matter as you are using it for virtualization.

      • LXC is worse than virtualization as it pins to a single core instead of getting scheduled by the kernel scheduler. It also is quiet slow and dated. Either run Podman, Docker or full VMs.

        First what you're saying about the scheduler isn't even what happens by default, that was some crap that Proxmox pulled when they migrated from OpenVZ to LXC. To be fair, they had a bunch of more or less valid reasons to force that configuration, but again it due to kernel related issues that were affecting Proxmox more than regular Ubuntu and those issues were solved around the end of 2021.

        Now Docker and LXC serve different purposes and they aren't a replacement for each other. Docker is a stateless application container solution while LXC is a full persistent container aimed at running full operating systems...

        Docker and LXC share a bunch of underlaying technologies at on the beginning Docker even used LXC as their backed, they later moved to their execution environment called libcontainer because they weren't using all the featured that LXC provided and wanted more control over the implementation.

        For those who really need full systems is LXC definitely faster than a VM. Your argument assumes everything can and should be done inside Docker/Podman when that's very far from the reality. The Docker guys have written a very good article showcasing the differences and optimal use cases for both.

        Here two quotes for you:

        LXC is especially beneficial for users who need granular control over their environments and applications that require near-native performance. As an open source project, LXC continues to evolve, shaped by a community of developers committed to enhancing its capabilities and integration with the Linux kernel. LXC remains a powerful tool for developers looking for efficient, scalable, and secure containerization solutions. Efficient access to hardware resources (...) Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (...) Close to native performance, suitable for intensive computational tasks.

        Docker excels in environments where deployment speed and configuration simplicity are paramount, making it an ideal choice for modern software development. Streamlined deployment (...) Microservices architecture (...) CI/CD pipelines.

        Anyways...

        It also ships with a newer kernel than Debian although it shouldn’t matter as you are using it for virtualization.

        It matters, trust me. Once you start requiring modules it will suddenly matter. Either way even if they ship a kernel that is newer than Debian it is so fucked at that point that you'll be better with whatever Debian provides out of the box.

  • VMs under KVM are pretty much bare metal and Proxmox doesn't use much for resources itself, it's basically a headless Debian with a webserver interface to do all the KVM stuff.

    Proxmox, especially if you use ZFS for the VM datastore, makes a home lab so much easier to revert, backup and deploy/clone VMs and LXCs. I highly recommend it if you're just starting out. Once you wrap your head around it, it gets out of the way and lets you just tinker with your projects, and not have to manually do everything in VirtManager or at the command line.

    Combined with Proxmox Backup Server, it's a production ready hypervisor for anything you decide to keep. Also, the HA features work well enough that I had my main routing OPNsense VM jump between nodes when the primary node lost a drive, and I didn't notice for a week, it was that seamless.

  • It all depends on how you want to homelab.

    I was into low power homelabbing for a while - half a dozen Raspberry Pis - and it was great. But I'm an incessant tinkerer. I like to experiment with new tech all the time, and am always cloning various repos to try out new stuff. I was reaching a limit with how much I could achieve with just Docker alone, and I really wanted to virtualise my firewall/router. There were other drivers too. I wanted to cut the streaming cord, and saving that monthly spend helped justify what came next.

    I bought a pair of ex enterprise servers (HP DL360s) and jumped into Proxmox. I now have an OPNsense VM for my firewall/router, and host over 40 Proxmox CTs, running (at a guess) around 60-70 different services across them.

    I love it, because Proxmox gives me full separation of each service. Each one has its own CT. Think of that as me running dozens of Raspberry Pis, without the headache of managing all that hardware. On top of that, Docker gives me complete portability and recoverability. I can move services around quite easily, and can update/rollback with ease.

    Finally, the combination of the two gives me a huge advantage over bare metal for rapid prototyping.

    Let’s say there’s a new contender that competes with Immich. They offer the promise of a really cool feature no one else has thought of in a self-hosted personal photo library. I have Immich hosted on a CT, using Docker, and hiding behind Nginx Proxy Manager (also on a CT), accessible via photos.domain on my home network.

    I can spin up a Proxmox CT from my custom Debian template, use my Ansible playbook to provision Docker and all the other bits, access it in Portainer and spin up the latest and greatest Immich competitor, all within mere minutes. Like, literally 10 minutes max.

    I have a play with the competitor for a bit. If I don’t like it, I just delete the CT and move on. If I do, I can point my photos.domain hostname (via Nginx Proxy Manager) to the new service and start using it full-time. Importantly, I can still keep my original Immich CT in place - maybe shutdown, maybe not - just in case I discover something I don’t like about the new kid on the block.

    That's a simplified example, but hopefully illustrates at least what I get out of using Proxmox the way I do.

    The cons for me is the cost. Initial cost of hardware, and the cost of powering beefier kit like this. I'm about to invest in some decent centralised storage (been surviving with a couple li'l ARM-based NASes) to I can get true HA with my OPNsense firewall (and a few other services), so that's more cost again.

  • Incus is way easier to work with than Proxmox, and it sits on your OS of choice instead of being the OS you must use. For home use it’s way easier to use with the web ui, it even has clustering if you want to go hard.

    So you can install Incus when you want a VM/LXC container and not have to commit to a VM/LXC container OS from the start.

    Also Proxmox free just had a bad update that björked some stuff if you updated when it was live. Proxmox free is rolling and apparently lacks basic sanity checks for updates.

    • I remember updating (maybe a year ago now) and it making all my containers unaccessable.

    • i played around with Incus yesterday on one of my VPSs that I really don't care about. I did find it really interesting. But im just wondering if its still a bit too much for what i use my home lab for (running local services like jellyfin, gitea, etc.). I would prefer to containerize all of those, but unless im misunderstanding something somewhere (and I probably am), running Incus to then run another instances of ubuntu 22.04 (or whatever) so i can set up Jellyfin or Gitea inside of that seems like a bit of overkill. However, as im trying to get nextcloud set up and running, having it exposed to the internet would mean spousal factor would go way up. Honestly they are about to kill me for using pihole, so having them have to turn on tailscale to connect to nextcloud, well sometimes it feels like its asking too much. So this is where running something in an isolated container would make me feel a bit more at ease. ah if only my spouse would just learn to turn on tailscale when they need it, but i don't see that happening any time soon.

      • I do use it to hold internet-exposed things in LXC containers to sidestep having to figure out how to not run things as Docker root.

        You do not need it for everything, but since it’s not an OS that makes it your everything, that’s ok! Run Docker containers as you need, put internet-exposed ones in an LXC container, put home assistant in a VM because it’s special.

  • Using ProxMox has been extremely useful for me. It has allowed me to experiment with a lot more things than I ever did before—it is very easy to spin up a new VM to test things out.

    I would recommend it to anyone running a home server.

  • I'm currently running proxmox on a 32 gig server running a ryzen 5600 G, it's going fine the containers don't actually use all that much RAM and personally I'm actually seeing a better benchmarks than I did when I just ran as a Bare Bones Ubuntu server, my biggest issue has actually been a larger IO strain than anything, because it's a lot more IO heavy now since everything's containerized. I think I easily could run it with a lower amount of ram I would just have to turn off some of the more RAM intensive items

    As for if I regret changing, no way Jose, I absolutely love the ability of having everything containerized because I can set things up how I want it when I want it and if I end up screwing something up configuration wise or decide that I no longer need that service I can just nuke the container without having to remember well what did I install on this program so I can remove it and do other programs need this dependency to work. Plus while I haven't tinkered as much in this area, you can hard set what resources you want a lot to each instance, so if you have a program like say a pi hole that you know is never going to use x amount of resources to be able to appropriately work you can restrict what it can do so if something does go wrong with it it doesn't use all of your system resources

    The biggest con out of it is probably having to figure out how to do the networking side because every container is going to have a different IP address, I found using a web dashboard is my friend because I can have heimdel tell me where all my services are and I just have to click the icon to bring me to the right IP address, it took a lot of work to figure out how it's operational and how to get it working, but the benefits I've gotten of having it is amazing. Just make sure you have a spare disk to temporarily clone partitions to because it's extremly difficult to use existing disks in the machine. I've been slowly going one at a time copying it over to an external drive nuking the and then reinitializing the disc as part of the proxmox lvm and then copying the data back over onto their appropriate image file.

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