Portainer on Debian or Proxmox?
from damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 17:20
https://lemmy.world/post/40100656

Folks,

I have an Intel N5095 2 GHz box, with 16 GB RAM and 500 GB sitting below my desk. It’s a teeny tiny box with no fan or anything.

I’m currently running Debian server on it with Portainer on top to run some *arr services. I’m thinking of running some more. But the device seems to groan under the weight of the services already running.

Was just watching a video about proxmox, and it seems to be a better solution if I don’t need to run Portainer on top of an OS. Maybe it’ll be lower resource usage?

So, thoughts? Should I change it up from Debian to proxmox? Or should I stick to what is already running? I am running Debian because I read somewhere that it’s the lowest resource hog of all Linux server options.

Alternatively, should I stick to Debian and portainer but use it with something like podman as it might use less resources than docker-ce?

#selfhosted

threaded - newest

anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz on 12 Dec 17:33 next collapse

Is it your cpu or your ram that hits the roof? Is it the host OS/Portainer or the services you run on it?
Here’s how to check container usage in Portainer: docs.portainer.io/user/docker/containers/stats

damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 17:49 collapse

The server kinda stops completely responding when it’s doing a heavy download… so I can’t get to those stats. But the other commenter has recommended I use github.com/henrygd/beszel so I’ll check it out and see what the data reveals. I believe, based on how the system freezes up, that it must be the CPU hitting the roof.

anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz on 12 Dec 19:09 next collapse

I hope you find out that it’s a not very necessary service that is the culprit, so that you can simply skip it. :)

damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 21:14 collapse

I hope so too! It would be an unnecessary change.

frongt@lemmy.zip on 13 Dec 00:37 collapse

If it’s fanless, is it thermal throttling?

damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world on 13 Dec 03:38 collapse

It’s fanless! How can I check for thermal throttling? Is that a bios setting?

db_geek@norden.social on 12 Dec 17:41 next collapse

@damnthefilibuster Is it a subjective impression or do you have information about used ressources on your device?

Are you running something like Beszel for getting information about the used ressources, especial from running containers?
https://github.com/henrygd/beszel

I'm running my services with rootless podman, but I can't compare it with docker. It's more related to security reason.

damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 17:48 collapse

Thanks for that link! I’ll run that service, collect some data and get back to you. I think it hits CPU limits though…

db_geek@norden.social on 12 Dec 18:44 collapse

@damnthefilibuster There was just a post in my timeline about some applications for Docker Container Monitoring.
Maybe there are other alternatives, which fits better your needs:

https://video.hardlimit.com/w/kDohKgBFeqJM29YDw1r4nJ

moonpiedumplings@programming.dev on 12 Dec 22:18 next collapse

Proxmox is based on debian and uses debian under the hood…

damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 23:09 collapse

Oh that’s awesome to know!!

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 13 Dec 00:26 collapse

Portainer is just a docker container that manages other Docker containers. IMO, it’s going down the enshittification hole. They chose to use a non-standard implementation of compose files, so you’re stuck using Portainer unless you reconfigure your whole setup.

Proxmox, by contrast, is a hypervisor meant to run VMs and LXCs. The Proxmox devs have explicitly stated that nothing else should be running outside of it.

damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world on 13 Dec 03:40 collapse

Could you tell me more about the non standard implementation? Coz I just use composerize to convert docker run commands to compose (or if I find compose files then hooray!) and pop those into portainer. Seems to work fine. I don’t like that a lot of features seem to be hidden behind a costly subscription, but thems the brakes.

As for proxmox… is it lighter weight than Debian?

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 13 Dec 19:00 collapse

Could you tell me more about the non standard implementation? Coz I just use composerize to convert docker run commands to compose (or if I find compose files then hooray!) and pop those into portainer. Seems to work fine.

Portainer is generally fine, but if you decide to migrate away from it, you will basically need to rebuild your whole compose stack setup.

I don’t like that a lot of features seem to be hidden behind a costly subscription, but thems the brakes.

Yeah, that was a big reason I moved away from it myself. They used to be way more flexible, but started really clamping down on free users a few years ago.

As for proxmox… is it lighter weight than Debian?

Proxmox uses Debian as its base OS, and since Proxmox is built to run full VMs, it isn’t really comparable to running Docker containers on bare metal. You can run multiple Docker stacks inside a VM (including Portainer) - I do this with several VMs. But running a full VM inside a hypervisor on top of already-stressed hardware is probably a tall ask. So in your case, I would stick to Debian with Docker on bare metal.

The other thing I’m curious about - are you running a desktop environment on this machine? Or is it running headless? A DE will take up a lot of resources that the N5095 is already short on, and that CPU isn’t exactly a great contender for streaming, either… It tends to fall on it’s face if running much more than a single stream - including other services.