Main PROS migrating to Scale - apps or docker?

[listhor]

I've just tried to migrate to Scale and honestly, I'm disappointed.
At first migration is bumpy af:
- lagg interface wasn't properly translated to bond interface - I couldn't get gui working until all virtual interfaces are deleted, which was not very easy to achieve due to system messages coming on top of cli menu...
- translation of users mapping in NFS shares also doesn't exist
- gui isn't efficient (running with mouse pointer from one edge of screen to other)
It seems like it's also hard to assign separate IPs for apps (assigning new address/alias to existing interface didn't help).
Bearing in mind that number of apps is limited, the only bright sides are docker and VMs. But I use PVE and Esxi so, I prefer to use more proper hypervisor and Truenas be just a storage.

I have only one jail running in Core - Nextcloud but there's no straight way to migrate its db to truecharts Nextcloud - I couldn't get Postgres credentials extracted by tcdbinfo.sh - no results. So that was an ultimate punch for Scale and I reverted back (boot-pool is virtualized/snapshotted) to Core.

Is there any roadmap available showing development paths for Core and Scale flavors?
What is a "use case" pushing for migration to Scale?

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

If you are happy with your applications on CORE and do not miss anything in particular that does not run natively on FreeBSD - like Home Assistan or OnlyOffice - by all means stick to it. Operations and updates are just so much simpler and more reliable ...

 

[danb35]

which was not very easy to achieve due to system messages coming on top of cli menu...

Agreed--this has been a long-standing problem in TrueNAS. Way too much stuff spews output to the console, which really ought to be reserved for "your server is on fire"-style messages. It's not unique to SCALE, but it seems to be more pronounced there.

What is a "use case" pushing for migration to Scale?

Apps, really--they're everything plugins wanted to be, particularly with TrueCharts' integration of Traefik and ingress settings for the individual apps.

Other than that, kvm seems to be a better hypervisor than bhyve, so if you were using your NAS as a virtualization platform, that might sway you. SCALE has some clustering features, though I think those are still under heavy development. It's Linux, so hardware support is likely a little better--though if CORE doesn't support your hardware, you probably shouldn't be using it with SCALE either.

I also have a PVE cluster, which is why I don't run VMs on TrueNAS. But I do use several apps, mostly those that are dealing heavily with data on the NAS--it's just simpler and cleaner to mount it as a host path than to send the data over the wire (or fiber) to the hypervisor and back again.

 

[listhor]

I also have a PVE cluster, which is why I don't run VMs on TrueNAS. But I do use several apps, mostly those that are dealing heavily with data on the NAS--it's just simpler and cleaner to mount it as a host path than to send the data over the wire (or fiber) to the hypervisor and back again.

That's why I use Nextcloud (and your script ;-)) on TrueNAS.
Having just brief experience with apps on Scale I can say they are a bit too rigid for me. There are options for variables inputs but I couldn't find their names in truecharts docs.
Out of curiosity, what's a way to assign multiple IPs to apps?

 

[listhor]

If you are happy with your applications on CORE and do not miss anything in particular that does not run natively on FreeBSD - like Home Assistan or OnlyOffice - by all means stick to it. Operations and updates are just so much simpler and more reliable ...

I'm missing qemu-guest-agent in Core, installed it manually but it's not persistent across updates.
Do you guys know development roadmap for both software versions? Maybe in the future migration will make more sense...

 

[danb35]

what's a way to assign multiple IPs to apps?

Do you mean individual IPs to each app, or more than one IP for a given app? In the former case, MetalLB, but I don't find much documentation on setting it up.

 

[listhor]

Do you mean individual IPs to each app, or more than one IP for a given app? In the former case, MetalLB, but I don't find much documentation on setting it up.

I meant individual IPs for each app - and I couldn't find MetalLB in catalogue.

 

[danb35]

MetalLB is a TrueCharts Operator app.

 

[listhor]

MetalLB is a TrueCharts Operator app.

Haha, now I know why! Anyway in PVE I have cloned Scale VM prior to rolling back Core snapshot, so maybe I'll give it another try...

 

[flmmartins]

I personally find myself in this dilemma. I tried migrating to Scale but I reverted because I have one jail with plex server working perfectly fine on Core but when I try to use the one from Scale it does not run (something about my old amd GPU not being able to be health checked).

I would like to install Scale because I believe containers are the future and if you see the community offerings for apps: There are more Charts then Jails available. PiHole for example is available as a Chart but not as a Jail in Core.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

PiHole for example is available as a Chart but not as a Jail in Core.

Create jail, pkg install adguardhome ...

 

[listhor]

Create jail, pkg install adguardhome ...

It would have been great if there's webpage with general recipes/docs of how to install in jails most popular services... Personally I don't understand fully jails networking. But that's an offtopic.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Exactly like on any standalone FreeBSD system. pkg install <application of choice>. Then refer to that application's documentation for setup.

To find out what's available, and the exact package name and version, use Freshports.

EDIT: the general process is documented in the FreeBSD Handbook. Specifically the chapters on installing applications and general configuration and management of services.

 

[danb35]

PiHole for example is available as a Chart but not as a Jail in Core.

...which is because PiHole doesn't run under FreeBSD. You could run a VM in CORE with Pi-Hole, but not a jail. But as Patrick suggests, AdGuard Home is an alternative.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

But as Patrick suggests, AdGuard Home is an alternative.

And a great one! Are you aware there is a community repo for OPNsense and it contains AGH?

 

[danb35]

Are you aware there is a community repo for OPNsense

Very much so; that's where my Caddy installation comes from--far easier to work with than acme client/HAProxy, even if there really isn't a GUI for it. But I haven't had much occasion to play with AGH as yet.

 

[sfatula]

It seems like it's also hard to assign separate IPs for apps (assigning new address/alias to existing interface didn't help).
Bearing in mind that number of apps is limited, the only bright sides are docker and VMs. But I use PVE and Esxi so, I prefer to use more proper hypervisor and Truenas be just a storage.

I am not using apps from IX or Truecharts, so, I just use docker containers from whereever. This allows me to assign a different ip for any app I want. It also gives me full control over the container instead of using any defaults the app providers use that I may not like (for example, embedded postgres for nextcloud, etc.). It also allows me to easily embed other things into the standard container, maybe an automatic SSL cert, whatever. That was my solution to this issue. I was not going to use non standard ports for thing like Emby as then there is more work on every client, etc to set up connections. So, Emby has it's own IP and therefore uses the standard ports. Same for mariadb, etc.

For those familiar with docker and maybe even creating their own containers (extending standard published ones as needed), this works very well, much better than the apps. For those not familiar, probably not the best method unless you want to learn. No ingres, etc. needed.

 

[listhor]

MetalLB is a TrueCharts Operator app.

I'm now experimenting a bit with Cobia in one of my VMs and it seems like there's no MetalB/Operator app available. Any clue of how to make multiple IPs available for apps?

 

[danb35]

there's no MetalB/Operator app available.

Sure there is:

 

[listhor]

Sure there is:

So, I must have something different in catalog settings, I have it set as following:

TRUENAS

GitHub - truenas/charts: TrueNAS SCALE Apps Catalogs & Charts TrueNAS SCALE Apps Catalogs & Charts. Contribute to truenas/charts development by creating an account on GitHub. github.com

master

charts,community

I don't see "operators" train available in settings...