Or another container type if there’s a better one?

My server was originally connected to my TV to run Kodi and play some games while serving files, so it’s running Xubuntu. While it works well for the most part, I want to set it up properly, and be able to move the services to a new system when the time comes.

I was thinking that Docker, or another container system, would probably be best, because as well as hopefully being able to be moved, installing new software shouldn’t affect anything else.

Am I on the right track? Can containers be moved to another system without needing to be set up again?

I’m running the *arr suite two Java Minecraft servers Plex media server Two copies of qBittorent NZBGet Ombi Mylar Codex and probably some others that I’ve forgotten.

While I’m at it, is there a best OS to base everything on? Preferably free. The server is a 4th generation i5 with 32GB RAM, and currently about 10TB of HDD space, with a small SSD for boot, and a Quadro graphics card for transcoding.

Thanks in advance :)

  • mark
    17•1 year ago

    @Tippon That is a big part of the point behind containers, you don’t have any long term state inside them. Migration is just a case of copying the configuration over along with the contents of any persistent volumes.

    It’s worth looking into Podman instead of Docker, the daemon-less architecture makes it more lightweight and secure as it’s easier to have rootless containers. Management can also be easer as being a Red Hat project it integrates well into Systemd.

    With your existing server on Xubuntu you may as well stick with Ubuntu Server or Debian for the familiarity.

      • TipponOPEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        I have no idea what that means! (yet :D).

        Time for some research :)

        • mark
          2•1 year ago

          @andruid @Tippon Stay away from k8s for now, that’s more for when you have a cluster of multiple physical servers. The systemd services are more useful in a single server environment.

          The way that works is that once you have the containers set up, podman can save the configuration of them as unit files so they can be managed the same way as native server software. This makes it easier to have them all start automatically after a reboot, and is a requirement for enabling automatic updates.

    • TipponOPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Brilliant :)

      I’ve just been reading some of the other replies, and, yeah, it looks like containers are the way to go. I’ve got my data on separate drives, so that’s easy enough to deal with, it’s just the container side of things that’s been confusing me.

      I’ll have a look at Podman, thanks :)

      Like you say, I’m probably better off with a Debian fork, especially as I’m using Mint on my laptop, and should be on my PC if I can find alternatives to a few programs :)