Advice/poll on switching away from Ubuntu for my VM host. - eviltoast

First off, I know ultimately I’m the only person who can decide if it’s worth it. But I was hoping for some input from your collective experience.

I have a server I built currently running Ubuntu 22.04. I’m using KVM/qemu to host VMs and have recently started exploring the exciting world of Docker, with a VM dedicated to Portainer. I manage the VMs with a mix of virt-manager via xRDP, cli tools, and (if I’m feeling extra lazy) Cockpit. Disks are spindles currently in software Raid 10 (md), and I use LVM to assign volumes to the KVM VMs. Backups are via a script I wrote to snapshot the LVM volume and back it up to B2 via restic.

It all works. Rather smoothly except when it doesn’t 😀.

I’ve been planning an HD upgrade and was considering using that as an excuse to start over. My thoughts are to either install Debian and continue with my status quo, or to give Proxmox a try. I’ve been reading alot of positive comments about it here and I have longed for one unified web interface to manage my VMs.

My main concerns are:

  1. Backups. I want to be able to backup to B2 but from what I’ve read I don’t see a way to do that. I don’t mean backup to a local repository and then sync that to B2. I’m talking direct to B2.
  2. Performance. People rave about ZFS, but I have no experience. Will I get at least equivalent performance out of ZFS and how much RAM will that cost me? Do I even need ZFS or can I just continue to store VMs the way I do today?

Having never used Proxmox to compare I’m really on the fence about this one. I’d appreciate any input. Thanks.

  • hockeyhippie@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I run Proxmox in a cluster and TrueNAS in a VM on one of the nodes. It’s been really convenient. My nodes run a mix of LXC containers for different things + Docker or regular VM’s for other software.

      • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.ripEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I haven’t done it myself, but I have looked into the process in the past. I believe you do it just like paying any drive through to any Proxmox VM.

        It’s fairly simple - you can either pass the entire drive itself through to the VM, or if you have a controller card the drive is attached to, you can pass that entire PCIe device through to the VM and the drive will just “come with it”.