need Help getting started

[Gad]

Hi i am not a system guy
but i want to achieve the below... so please be gentle

i want to start Homelab... started with ESXI but found it to restricting in terms of backup exporting....
so scratch that i found Proxmox

1. download to USB(Done)
2. Put in Pc(some old two core for testing)
60GB ram

3. i want to have the below machines running
a. pfsense firewall
b. freenas
c. some Ubuntu vm for home automation purpose
. some NVR system (dont know one yet )

do i need container VMs? i don't know what is the


4. networking - the entire purpose is to have

Intrent>Firewall > VMs, Home LAN network

5. when the system is tested i will expand to real free NAS with drives and all
what kind of hardware is recommended to run the above, maybe in feature i will have some more VMs
but nothing to shavy for now

thanks please correct me if got something wrong here

 

[t.lamprecht]

In general, the official reference documentation might come handy to you: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/

do i need container VMs? i don't know what is the

We provide Linux Containers, which are very lightweight. They share the kernel with the host kernel but are contained, and resource constricted.
Only Linux Distributions can be hosted as them, so pfSense (which is BSD based, not Linux based) won't work there, as does Windows or freenas (also BSD based).

VMs are full blown, but still very fast, "emulation" (in quotes as a lot isn't emulated, but rather "virtualized", i.e., much faster) of a full computer, you can run almost any operating system therein,
if it'd run on the architecture (e.g., amd64/x86_64) of the host too. In your case you probably want to use VMs, but could use a Container for the Ubuntu one.

For firewall/storage configuration there are some other threads and also some tutorials out there, that part I leave for others to answer as my home setup is very complex and to hacky to take as an example here ;-)

 

[Gad]

thanks allot you have shown me where the wind blows

so for my Openhab i can use ubuntu container
but for all other machines, i will need VMs

is it recommended to run FreeNAS/any NAS distro on a VM ?
just asking if i am going the right way, i looks like if i put all my eggs in one basket

it will be a breeze to backup, also the traffic inside the machine will go faster right?

 

[LnxBil]

is it recommended to run FreeNAS/any NAS distro on a VM ?

Normally you'll run a NAS distribution on bare metal, because a lot of the features it provides are better on real hardware like ZFS, but it also can run in a VM. If you have only one machine, it is tricky and you'll always have to balance performance, easy administration and such.

Depends also on your administration skills, so that you can run everything on your own. Most homelab users with experience in running all the components of a NAS themselves in containers with the use ZFS on PVE and the NAS-part (samba/nfs) from inside of containers.