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?
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I run proxmox for my own homelab and another instance for very small services inside my LAN.
Anyway, I have gotten into docker recently and my method so far has been to spin up a LXC container of just a base OS(like Ubuntu or Alpine or whatever) and then install docker and whatever else inside that container and then run my service.
So I have one container per service. Now my problem is how to manage the docker side without having to go into each container individually. I have tried portainer but it’s not clicking with me.
I’ve actually been trying to find a solution to just have docker on a bare metal OS install and that be my hypervisor, but I can’t get a clear answer on anything, so Proxmox seems to be my only option.
Proxmox is a very solid option, but it is not “less intensive” than Debian since it is built on top of Debian. Proxmox does not install a desktop environment(it has a web GUI), so that may help with keeping resources low, but it isn’t some magical solution.
I would recommend trying it 100%, there is a little bit of a learning curve getting to know Proxmox, but it’s the best hypervisor I’ve used for homelab so far.
maybe proxmox
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.
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?
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.
Proxmox is based on debian and uses debian under the hood…
Oh that’s awesome to know!!
@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/beszelI’m running my services with rootless podman, but I can’t compare it with docker. It’s more related to security reason.
Thanks for that link! I’ll run that service, collect some data and get back to you. I think it hits CPU limits though…
@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:
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: https://docs.portainer.io/user/docker/containers/statsThe 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 https://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.
I hope you find out that it’s a not very necessary service that is the culprit, so that you can simply skip it. :)
I hope so too! It would be an unnecessary change.
If it’s fanless, is it thermal throttling?
It’s fanless! How can I check for thermal throttling? Is that a bios setting?
Thermal throttling is when the system (usually the cpu) becomes so hot from the lack of cooling provided to it, that it limits its performance to save itself from certain death - going so far as performing a hard shutdown if the situation doesn’t improve or stabilize. AMD chips usually throttle at 80C, Intel chips 100C, but it could be a few different components. You need to run software that can properly read and report the temperature of various parts in your system to see if you might be hitting the throttling threshold.
I know software to do this for windows, but not any for *nix.
