Help improve my understanding. Could an LXC container be used to administer zfs pools on the host? If not, why?

[Prophes0r]

I know JUST enough about containers to use a few.
I know I don't understand enough about LXC to know if this would work or not.

Right now I'm at the "Key in ignition. Getting comfortable driving around the track at higher speeds." stage of admin.
I'm nowhere near the "Tuning injector duty-cycles to optimize for this elevation" stage.

Part of me immediately thinks "No. Of course not." But it's always good to check.

Right now I'm running TrueNAS in a VM on a Proxmox host. It's not ideal.
I really dislike the route they are taking of adding in all their VM/app-bloat.

I'd LOVE to be able to have the in-depth zfs and SMB/nfs/etc share stuff right in Proxmox, but I also understand it is very much out of scope.
Barring that, a lightweight LXC seems like the ideal way to run a NAS on a Proxmox host.
I'm just not comfortable enough with how LXC works to know if it isn't possible (Intentionally impossible if I had to guess)

Note: I always take the time to reread posts before...posting... But this one feels a bit scattered even for me. I may come back and edit this a bit if tomorrow me find this completely incoherent.

 

[name stolen]

I'm not sure if you can manage Proxmox ZFS via a container, but you CAN install a package (like Cockpit) to give yourself some sort of non_proxmox GUI.

 

[alaricljs]

Presumably it's not much different than doing it in docker...

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39955585/access-hosts-zfs-from-docker-container

 

[jode]

a lightweight LXC seems like the ideal way to run a NAS on a Proxmox host.

Look into this Making Proxmox into a pretty good NAS

 

[Prophes0r]

I'm not sure if you can manage Proxmox ZFS via a container, but you CAN install a package (like Cockpit) to give yourself some sort of non_proxmox GUI.

I have looked into putting cockpit directly on the host.
It's not really what I'm asking.

Look into this Making Proxmox into a pretty good NAS

Yup I've seen Apalrd's video.
That was one of the motivations for migrating away from TrueNAS.
It's not the problem I'm trying to solve.

I want to do the zfs admin from inside the container, in a webgui, not just the share admin.

I posted this thread because I realized I don't know enough about containers to know if what I want to do is even possible.
I wanted to shore up my knowledge, not just follow a guide.

The what and the why are important too, not just the how.

 

[alaricljs]

A container is just about isolation. You'll either need to bind one or more devs into the container or give it 'capabilities' that provide the container enough access to ZFS to achieve your goal. Maybe both.

 

[jode]

I want to do the zfs admin from inside the container,

That requires passing the /dev/zfs device through to the LXC container. Make sure to have proper permissions in the LXC.

in a webgui

What are you envisioning there? Proxmox already exposes a bunch of functionality, what software are you looking at to provide a web gui?

 

[Prophes0r]

What are you envisioning there? ...what software are you looking at to provide a web gui?

Ideally?

• TrueNAS...
• with it's own users so I don't have to have them on the Proxmox host...
• with all the dashboard and webGUI management of users/shares/zfs...
• minus all the TrueNAS VM/container stuff...
• in an LXC container, so I don't have to permanently lock all that RAM to it 24/7, and with easier access to host hardware...
• managing it's own set of zfs pools (not the boot pool), but with these TrueNAS managed pools still directly accessible from the host so I don't have to do the song & dance that comes with using a "remote" share for storing VMs on the host, that is actually on a VM on that same host...

...and after typing that last sentence I think I might see a problem with this idea...

...at what level would this hypothetical system be running the zfs ARC?

I guess on the host? That would be the least wasteful, which is kind of the point of this.

Right now I have 2 separate ARCs. One on the Proxmox host and another on the TrueNAS VM.

hrmm....

 

[pimposh]

So, what is your REAL problem ? Reading between your lines tells only you are lucky fellow with too much of free time

For that very reason i keep nas as isolated machine and do not bother myself with inception-kind of matters you want solve eg. Doubled arc.

Or your VM hypervisor is just not correctly scaled to meet your demands. ?

 

[Prophes0r]

So, what is your REAL problem ?

I have already stated it.
Learning about LXC containers.
The quirks. How they interact with the host. What is and is not possible.

I will be the very first person to assume there is an X Y problem.

Sometimes it is just about learning.

But, learning is WAY easier if you set a concrete goal.

"I want to learn about blacksmithing" isn't something attainable without more specificity.
"I want to make a knife from this railroad spike" is.

It doesn't really matter if the railroad spike is made of metal that isn't really good for making a good utility knife.
You can still learn a lot about the processes involved, even if the knife isn't really useful.


So yeah, I would like to do "NAS Things" with an LXC, but that is just a framework for the learning.

Why?

Because repetition is also useful for learning.
Having something that I need to maintain will cement the skills, and keep the methods in my head.

But at the end of the day, it's the general knowledge that I'm after.