Question: Best UI to manage VMs and containers? - eviltoast

At this point, I’ve got a lot of containers already running on my system, all in separate directories in my home directory. They’re each set up with a docker-compose file, and all of the volumes are just directories within those directories.

I don’t really want to change this setup, because it allows me to easily rip it all out and transplant it to a new system.

What I’d like is a web UI to see all of these containers, view their status, and potentially reboot them. It would also be great to be able to spin up VMs (not containers, but actual VMs) with it.

I’ve heard of Portainer, but haven’t had any experience with it.

What are your suggestions, and why do you recommend them?

    • thirdBreakfast@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yo dawg, I put most of my services in a Docker container inside their own LXC container. It used to bug me that this seems like a less than optimal use of resources, but I love the management - all the VM and containers on one pane of glass, super simple snapshots, dead easy to move a service between machines, and simple to instrument the LXC for monitoring.

      I see other people doing, and I’m interested in, an even more generic system (maybe Cockpit or something) but I’ve been really happy with this. If OP’s dream is managing all the containers and VM’s together, I’d back having a look at Proxmox.

    • OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      I use Docker LXCs. Really just a Debian LXC with Docker and then Portainer as a UI. I have separate LXCs for common services. Arrs on one LXC, Nextcloud, Immich and SearXNG on another, Invidious on a third. I just separate them so I don’t need to kill all services if I need to restart or take down the LXC for whatever reason.