Configuration of fileserver: Should I disable automatic updates to ensure network is up 100% of the time?

virtManager

Member
Jun 11, 2020
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Hi,

I'm facing a conundrum because Proxmox makes it easy to install and run a "Turnkey (LXC) fileserver" and I have a very small low-power proxmox-pc turned on 24/7 that I want to run 1-2 VMs on in addition to pfSense. The problem I'm facing is that after weeks, the "Turnkey (LXC) fileserver" always loses it's internet connection and what good is a fileserver that cannot be reached on the network? If you would like to read into the details of this issue, I asked about it back in June: network_interface_goes_missing - but I didn't receive any answers. After having used (not much) this setup for some months I'm thinking about fixing this problem properly so I can use it for e.g. storing security camera footage and that requires high uptime/availability.

My newest theory and attempt to explain the issue is somewhat based on the "CRON-APT completed on turnkey-fileserver [/etc/cron-apt/config]" (subject line) emails I now see sometimes arrives in my gmail spam-folder. From these emails I see that turnkey-fileserver automatically runs e.g. usr/bin/apt-get -o quiet=1 dist-upgrade -y software updates - which is normally good I guess. I'm not fully into the theory of LXC/VMs and linux kernels, but the Proxmox host is in average manually being fully updated once every 2-4 months. I don't suppose the turnkey fileserver will download and perform a kernel upgrade, because as I understand it it'll use the kernel of the host? Anyway, my theory is that these turnkey updates causes the network to become unavailable until the "Turnkey (LXC) fileserver" is rebooted - which I currently do manually, when I need to access the fileserver and I realize it does not respond. That situation is annoying but I can cope with it manually. Worse yet, the situation is not appropriate for automatic storage of data via a security camera, because the camera is not as clever as I and cannot tell the fileserver to reboot...

I would like the fileserver to always work so it can be used to reliable store security footage with no downtime. I prefer a solution with automatic updates, but with no network downtime. Maybe this contradicts each other? My conclusion (=guess) so far is that if I want to be happy with the turnkey LXC fileserver and ensure 100% network uptime, I probably need to disable automatic updates. Then manually once in a while I would have to update and reboot the fileserver. Is this something you people do or recommend? I hope you see the conundrum: Do you disable automatic updates and then manually update once in a while? Do you not trust or use Turnkey fileservers at all? Or do you not even have this problem like I have? Do you recommend I instead install e.g. a debian VM and let that act as fileserver instead of using a linux container and then also use manual updates?

I'm not pleased with the current situation, so hoping for a bit of input/ideas to work on the future (sparetime project), thanks!
 

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