Poor man's home server

[keeka]

Hi,

I have recently started exploring Proxmox and it's reignited my enthusiasm for virtualisation. I have been running a home server currently along the lines detailed below. No redundant storage, and rsnapshot backups to multiple drives via sata caddy.
It all seems to perform quite well in terms of CPU/memory use, but I don't have a full picture and I should start thinking about data loss. Plus, it seems ripe for containerisation.

hardware:
GA-Z77X-UD5H
i7-3770S
32GB RAM
2x NIC

Host OS: Ubuntu 18.04

Host services:
libvirt
mysqld
nfs (to serve vms)
smb
minidlna

KVM guests:
1. bitnami elk stack
2. zoneminder (3x network cams and local mysqld)
3. kopano mail stack
4. openvpn server + pihole + httpproxy
5. icinga (local mysql)
6. docker (4-10 containers running such as calibre-web, gitea etc)
7. tvheadend (using usb device rather than pci passthrough which gives a slight processing overhead)
8. traccar

storage:
1X 128GB SSD (currently unused)
1X 250GB SSD (host OS + qcow disks)
1X 3TB HDD (nfs -> kopano/attachments, docker ro)
1X 1TB HDD (nfs -> tvheadend)
1X 0.5TB HDD (nfs -> zoneminder)

Other than icinga and zoneminder, virtualised services are using the host mysqld instance. I have no vitualised router but would like to learn/experiment.

Regarding moving/reimplementing this in Proxmox...

1) I currently use both NICs though, I think, in a suboptimal way: One for the host and the other NIC bridged with all the VM's. So all guest<->host traffic goes out over the switch.
Can I make (better) use of dual NICs in my situation or should one just be made redundant?

2) If I have a guest accessing, say, USB dvb sticks, should I containerise or passthrough? When containerised, can such devices locking interfere with the host whereas it would not if passed to a vm?

3) What would be a good/versatile storage setup given the available devices above and the fact I am willing to buy one more 3TB HDD.
I have full backups of the 3TB drive, so a reformat to accomodate a new storage schema is ok.)

4) what is the recommended way to mount storage, in a container, where that container is the sole consumer of the storage? I'm thinking of the zoneminder installation, where recording data currently resides on a single ext4 partition of a dedicated hdd.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and I'd appreciate any advice.

 

[Dominic]

I think you should ask yourself where you have requirements that are not yet met. For example, it would make sense to use the additional hard drive for more backups but it would also make sense to use it as mirror for higher availability. What is more important for you is something only you can decide. For your NIC question, you could take a look at our documentation about bonds to see what is possible. For your storage question, you could check out our storage documentation and look for features like snapshots. For 4 maybe this thread helps you.

 

[keeka]

Many thanks for the pointers. Very helpful.
I have often separated vm's and containers from their application data. Other than for large media volumes, I'm going to rethink that.

The id mapping feature for bind mounts looks good.

Thanks again.

 

[Dominic]

Other than for large media volumes, I'm going to rethink that.

Feel free to ask if something is unclear for you!