Silverblue? server or regular desktop?

I just to ask for a tip…

I have silverblue on my desktop and pretty happy with it. Not much of a tinkerer, and the flatpak apps do me well.

Now I have a IMAC 2011 laying around and going to use it as “Plexserver”, and Nextcloud home server.

I decided to go the way of silverblue + Containerized apps, but hitting so many walls with “basic” Plex server that I am questioning myself.
Did I bite toomuch going silverblue and containers? “THis mix is the future” so many people say it.
Should i just go with Server with regular packages and loose immutability?
Or keep to desktop familiar terrain and get the best of package support and ease of use?

Basically, if you were to use a Old computer as plexserver/nexcloud/rsync at home, how would you do it?

I would consider the following options

  • Fedora server, no gui, docker/podman containers
  • Truenas Scale (zfs, Web-gui, containers) the ones you mentioned are “apps” offered as plug-in
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What are the exact problems?

Fedora IoT would be the easy-to-setup atomic server.

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Using “pods” (gnome app) to manage the containers…
It was a mess getting it to start, having to reconfigure the “container” from scratch when trying it, a lot of missing things to configure (all solved), it can’t access the folders I am pointing it to because of permissions (even if using a new user and giving it the full access and permissions), a lot of different nags and issues
I still can’t access it even with “plex” in DMZ area of firewalld, … was looking for something more “out of the box” as it is with macosx. :D… but also wanting to learn through failure and error…

well… opted for truenas… It completely erased the disk where the contents were :smiley: :D… thank god I have a backup.

Funny part is, Truenas documentation and configuration options is much clearer… has zero issues configuring the server.

Also an issue I had with noisy AF Fans went completely away.

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Added plex, podman

I have been using plex for several years on a workstation, with plexmediaserver and use the /home/USER/Videos/Movies for the video library and /home/USER/Music for the audio library.

Note that the /home/USER directory is by default set as rwxr-x--- (750) on most systems and plex needs it to be 755 so the server has access to the sub-directories I noted.

You should be able to run plex on silverblue without the container and the slight changes I noted for a user where you can put the library media under that users home directory.

Hello, Silverblue is a atomic desktop, not server :melting_face:. For servers are there fedora server edition.

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It turns your machine into an appliance, and you in the position of a user, instead of a sysadmin.

Maybe because there is a company behind the OS that makes money with the product. So, both is high priority.

it’s all relative…

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Added iot

IoT in contrast to coreOS XD. Which are basically the same variant, but IoT is installed via Anaconda GUI, coreOS needs an ignition file and doesnt have any other method

Workstation is also “designed” as a desktop and not server, but almost all variants can easily be used as servers in one form or another.

Installing plex and starting its daemon makes the system a plex server very easily.

I just installed Fedora IoT on an old laptop as home server, it works great if your workloads use podman and reboot is easy to do.

To simplify server reboot, I installed dracut-sshd so that I can unlock encrypted root device through SSH. The author also has a copr repo for it:

sudo curl https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/gsauthof/dracut-sshd/repo/fedora-40/gsauthof-dracut-sshd-fedora-40.repo -o /etc/yum.repos.d/gsauthof-dracut-sshd.repo
sudo rpm-ostree install dracut-sshd systemd-networkd
sudo reboot
... modify dracut config ...
sudo rpm-ostree initramfs --enable
sudo reboot
# unlock on boot
ssh root@server_ip
# login after boot
ssh your_server_user@server_ip

And somehow a “zezere” service keeps running after installation, you have to disable it IoT - how to disable zezere?

The IoT version doesn’t have cockpit preinstalled, you need to do it yourself if you like it:

sudo rpm-ostree install cockpit-{system,storaged,ostree,podman,pcp}
sudo reboot
...
sudo systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket
sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=cockpit --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
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I don’t know who says that beside people who must not like bare-metal servers :stuck_out_tongue:

I’d say go Server so you can understand how to set stuff up proper, and run into server-specific issues with traditional troubleshooting methods vs something Silverblue/Immutable/container-related. I’m not totally sold on containers or immutable.

I’ve ran Plex on Fedora Server and other Linux distros bare-metal no problem! If I recall right I installed an RPM they provided directly, enabled the service, and was good to go for just Plex on the network (video files and permissions where a whole different jungle that had me just going Kodi and a simple vsftpd set-up :p)

@jpcarvalhinho I’m glad Truenas is working out well for your homelab. Truenas is a great product with an active community when you need help.

As a member of the Fedora Server Working Group, and as someone who runs their homelab on Fedora Server, I would love to get your feedback and help in improving Fedora Server Documentation.

I would like to find ways to make it easier for users to choose and administer Fedora Server in their homelab. I believe our Working Group is making some progress in this area as we explore using Ansible Playbooks to setup and provision different Linux server roles built on top of Fedora Server. If you ever feel like joining our working group and improving our documentation with us, we would love to have you join us. We meet weekly on Wednesdays on the Fedora Matrix Meeting Channel.

Fedora continues to improve as more members of the community bring their talents and experience to the project.

Hi Steve!

Sure…I will be glad to help, but I didn’t get past sliver blue+containers. Never played with server …

I can tell already what I liked on true as a server/homelab… I am not a professional sysadmin… Just a curious guy.

Some base information
The machine is a iMac 2011 with a 500gb SSD and a new 10 TB Seagate hard drive all connected via Ethernet.

Let me say what I loved
1- simple install. (Not pretty, but fast and simple)… Even so zfs killed the contents I had already put on the 10tb disk without a question. And I have a feeling that if I take that HDD and put it on other nas machine… Zfs will not me allow me to access it
2- webUI imediatly available makes everything well integrated in terms of UI UX… Let’s face it…CLI is not for everyone
3- love the possibility to pre-set up disk directories as individual Datasets and then assign them to a specific app… This means I don’t need to manage users and permissions… This is always confusing…to the point that I still don’t know where my HDd was mounted on my silverblue install… Other how to make it available to the Plex server container.
4- containerized app installs without having to look for the correct container (when I was playing with silver blue I installed 3 different containers until I found out there is an official one in a specific repo). Here is one click install.
5- smb shares? 2 clicks if I remember correctly plus a user setup.
6- container install/configuration via webUI (consistent) with tooltips on every field… Self explanatory
7- containerized log access… Man… So easy to check the logs for a specific app without having to look for it in folders and files via CLI

What I miss…
8- I feel I can’t take the HDD out without losing the contents.

9- Having the apps set directly to the datasets that live in the HDD gives me the impression I am not using the SSD except for the truenas OS… And that is a waste… Maybe zfs makes that management seamless… And that is another plus then.

As some1 else pointed it, this is not a “server”… This is an appliance… A freaking powerfull one, that does what a server does, easily.

If fedora server wants to be more usable for the comon guy (not l33t sys4dmin), maybe you can set up a server spin with a similar (consistent) webUI.

Best regards.
J

Ping me of you need to discuss more… I will try to join in a Matrix session.

A sábado, 3/08/2024, 18:35, Steve Daley via Fedora Discussion <notifications@fedoraproject.discoursemail.com> escreveu:

Install…
Updated the system and voilá.

“You are in emergency mode…”
Stuck reading logs.

Not fun
J

A sábado, 3/08/2024, 20:08, Joao P Carvalhinho <joao.carvalhinho@gmail.com> escreveu:

I regretted the decision to use iot image for server. Both Fedora coreOS and Fedora IoT are rolling release model, if you are on stable tag today, you are on Fedora 40, as soon as Fedora 41 is released, your next update on stable tag will be Fedora 41, there is no way to stay on 40 but also continue receiving changes in fedora-updates for version 40.

It’s better to use Fedora server for server use cases.

@mxj4 Thanks for this feedback. I’ve only used Fedora Server in my homelab, and have found it to be a good base to build upon for webapps and services that you would normally want to have in your homelab. I have found with the Fedora repos, that I often have access to the latest in technology to use on Fedora Server, but I retain the stability and painless upgrades from version to version that I have come to appreciate with all of my Fedora systems.

With the excitement around Fedora Core and IoT, I’m sure those have excellent use cases too, but I just haven’t found a fit for my use cases of Fedora. As a member of the Fedora Server Work Group, I appreciate your experiences and feedback.