My thoughts on docker
My thoughts on docker
Hello! 😀
I want to share my thoughts on docker and maybe discuss about it!
Since some months I started my homelab and as any good "homelabing guy" I absolutely loved using docker. Simple to deploy and everything. Sadly these days my mind is changing... I recently switch to lxc containers to make easier backup and the xperience is pretty great, the only downside is that not every software is available natively outside of docker 🙃
But I switch to have more control too as docker can be difficult to set up some stuff that the devs don't really planned to.
So here's my thoughts and slowly I'm going to leave docker for more old-school way of hosting services. Don't get me wrong docker is awesome in some use cases, the main are that is really portable and simple to deploy no hundreds dependencies, etc. And by this I think I really found how docker could be useful, not for every single homelabing setup, and it's not my case.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I let you talk about it in the comments, thx.
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I don’t like docker. It’s hard to update containers, hard to modify specific settings, hard to configure network settings, just overall for me I’ve had a bad experience. It’s fantastic for quickly spinning things up but for long term usecase and customizing it to work well with all my services, I find it lacking.
I just create Debian containers or VMs for my different services using Proxmox. I have full control over all settings that I didn’t have in docker.
What do you mean it's hard to update containers?
For real. Map persistent data out and then just docker compose pull && up. Theres nothing to it. Regular backups make reverting to previous container versions a breeze
For one, if the compose file syntax or structure and options changes (like it did recently for immich), you have to dig through github issues to find that out and re-create the compose with little guidance.
Not docker's fault specifically, but it's becoming an issue with more and more software issued as a docker image. Docker democratizes software, but we pay the price in losing perspective on what is good dev practice.
Since when is checking for breaking changes a problem? You should do that every time you want to update. The Immich devs make a real good informing bout those and Immich in general is a bad example since it is still in so early and active development.
And if updating the compose file every once in a new moon is a hassle to you, I don't want to know how you react when you have to update things in more hidden or complicated configs after an update
I'm trying to indicate that docker has its own kinds of problems that don't really occur for software that isn't containerized.
I used the immich issue because it was actually NOT indicated as a breaking change by the devs, and the few of us who had migrated the same compose yml from older veraions and had a problem were met with "oh, that is a very old config, you should be using the modern one".
Docker is great, but it comes with some specific understanding that isn't necessarily obvious.
Use portainer + watchtower
the old good way is not that bad