Fileserver recommendations

[trollbot]

Hi all,

sorry in case I am posting into the wrong part of the forum, am new around here and could not find a section on actual applications on the Proxmox server.
If there is a better section for my kind of question, please let me know and moderators feel free to move my posting there, thanks.

That being said: My first Proxmox-server stands ready for its first testing and I would like to install a fileserver, with the files to be shared in my home network located on an external USB drive connected to the Proxmox host.

Now I am wondering: Are there any recommendations / best practices for a simple local multi-user fileserver? (SMB probably)
From easy to more complex I see three options:
- Turnkey Linux fileserver LXC
- Openmediavault VM (or TrueNAS?)
- Linux VM and do-it-yourself SMB / NFS (or even copyparty?)

Is one of them a total no-go, especially in terms of security (even if starting in my own local network, the setup could later migrate into the cloud)?
Does one of them not work well with data from external USB?
How to get the data into the fileserver: Mounting on the host and sharing from there, or direct passthrough of the USB disk (if possible)?
Any other considerations?

Thanks a lot in advance for sharing your experiences and opinions.

 

[jdancer]

I use the Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts (LXC) to provide NFS/CIFS/Samba file sharing https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE

No issues sharing ZFS pools. There are other scripts to manage media and other services.

 

[DerekG]

I use OMV (even though I have 2x TrueNAS installs) as it's light on resources and plays nicely with USB drives, they can be temperamental + I didn't want the overhead of the zfs file system. I would suggest that you ensure that you have a redundant file system AND Backups.!!! If the family photos are lost to a failed drive, you will be in a world of trouble.

TrueNAS (it can be run as a VM) is definitely the safest (for your data) option, but in that case you need multiple drives, lots of RAM and USB drives are not recommended.

 

[trollbot]

Thank you all for your input, much appreciated.

The helper-scripts are quite worth a closer look, even if at first only to find out what they do and get inspired ...
(I hesitate to run scripts from somewhere without checking first and trying to understand them.)

Do you think Alpine best suited for LXC due to its focus on security and small footprint, or are there any major disadvantages?

As to file server I might go with OMV indeed.
Found two websites describing their experiences with OMV in Proxmox, that I am going to take a closer look at:
https://www.datahoards.com/testing-open-media-vault-omv-inside-a-proxmox-vm/
https://michaelluckenbill.com/creating-your-own-nas-with-open-media-vault-and-proxmox/
OMV seems to balance functionality and resource requirements well for my needs.

Backups ... yes, that's another issue I have to organize sooner or later.
The USB disks will use btrfs, so I can use snapshots and send | receive for incremental backups on another USB.
(That's how I do it right now from the disk in my laptop, where most of my files live.)
Or maybe give borg / borgmatic a try ...

So I see lot's of fun and learning ahead.

 

[DerekG]

The helper-scripts are quite worth a closer look, even if at first only to find out what they do and get inspired ...
(I hesitate to run scripts from somewhere without checking first and trying to understand them.)

The helper scripts are great (I have approx. 20 running in my homlab), but they are susceptible to break on OS or the underlaying package updates.
If you are going with OMV I would highly suggest running it in a VM with the drives passed through. It will be far more stable.

To be frank, I went through a similar process to you when I wanted to use storage based on (old) USB drives, I tried a couple of LXC file servers, (not easy to get the permissions set correctly) and ZimaOS before settling on OMV running in a VM. It's been a solid solution, but for one of the drives I've used, which I already knew was temperamental and needs to be power cycled once a week.

 

[Johannes S]

Do you think Alpine best suited for LXC due to its focus on security and small footprint, or are there any major disadvantages?

lxc is a great base os for container images if you can live with a less comfortable environment (e.g. by default it doesnt have a bash but the busybox shell) and some things work different than in main stream linuxes (e.g. by default systemd is not included).

As to file server I might go with OMV indeed.
Found two websites describing their experiences with OMV in Proxmox, that I am going to take a closer look at:
https://www.datahoards.com/testing-open-media-vault-omv-inside-a-proxmox-vm/
https://michaelluckenbill.com/creating-your-own-nas-with-open-media-vault-and-proxmox/
OMV seems to balance functionality and resource requirements well for my needs.

In any case you will need a dedicated HBA controller see https://www.truenas.com/community/r...guide-to-not-completely-losing-your-data.212/ and https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/best-practice-for-truenas-virtualized-on-proxmox.133536/

Although both links covers TrueNAS the reasoning is true for OMV too. For the same reason you shouldn't install OMV inside an lxc, since that's more a hack which is not supported by the OMV developers: https://forum.openmediavault.org/in...ccess-additional-drives-via-proxmox-with-lxc/ (another reason to be weary of helper scripts because they install OMV that non-supported way).

Another option might be to use something like the turnkeylinux-fileserver or zamba-lxc-toolbox inside an lxc container as fileserver: https://github.com/bashclub/zamba-lxc-toolbox

It will have a smaller footprint than OMV or TrueNAS and will also allow you to manage the storage directly from the PVE host at the cost of less strict isolation.

Backups ... yes, that's another issue I have to organize sooner or later.

For backups of vms and lxcs the best way to go is with ProxmoxBackupServer (which also supports external discs) since it saves a lot of storage space with deduplication. It's recommended to run it on dedicated hardware though. You should also have an offsite backup in case your local backup gets broken/lost. I described my approach here: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/b...r-with-incremental-chunks.157965/#post-723568

The USB disks will use btrfs, so I can use snapshots and send | receive for incremental backups on another USB.
(That's how I do it right now from the disk in my laptop, where most of my files live.)
Or maybe give borg / borgmatic a try ...

borg is nice, but I actually prefer restic since it doesn't need a dedicated server (although it's possible) s3 or ssh on the target is enough. Both tools are not really suited for vm/lxc backup, for that reason I do a mixed approach (see link above for details): VMs and lxcs without the actual data is backed up via PBS, the actual data is usually stored on a NAS and is backed up with restic. You can replace restic with borg or another tool of your choice of course

 

[trollbot]

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.

Meanwhile I actually came up with another idea for a lightweight fileserver that I am probably going to follow up on first:
Alpine-LXC with RClone and a USB disk for storage.
(Might open another thread to see if anybody else is using that.)
Additional benefit in my eyes: Very simple and similar setup to what I would in the future use in the cloud (e.g. Hetzner Storagebox), so I could get some practice and check out if that works for me.

Next step, if necessary or more convenient, would then be an OMV-VM in Proxmox, I think, passing through the USB drive.

Alpine will certainly require me to do some learning.
Might be worth the effort in terms of footprint and security, especially considering that at some later stage my whole setup could move to some cloud VPS and be more exposed to malicious parties?

I fully agree with separating OS/VM/LXC-backups and data.
ProxmoxBackupServer for the former, some standard solution for the latter.
Don't know what it was that made me prefer borg over restic when I compared them ... will certainly take another look before implementing. Perhaps also at duplicacy and ... whatever the name was, I remember finding another alternative that looked promising.
But that's for later, right now my data gets its btrfs-backup and I could still live with losing my early stage of OS/VM/LXC.
Thanks also for sharing the link to your setup, will make sure to read and consider that.

Guys, you have been most helpful in my first steps, thanks again!