4 ms·

Like any other project I run everything in a Docker container, and this project should be no different. What is the advantage of this in this case?

by jrmg 4y ago

NegativeLatency 4y ago
Specifically relating to pihole (as of previous versions) it wasn’t the cleanest install uninstall experience and left a bunch of crap behind on my system. I now run it in a docker container because of this, but I can’t speak to OPs motivations
- mmcnl 4y ago
  I run everything in a Docker container because I have 50+ services running, and I don't want to spend any time on their inner workings. I truly couldn't care less. I only manage the access layers (configuration parameters, volumes, ports and reverse proxy). Using Docker every application is the same from a management perspective.
dspillett 4y ago
> What is the advantage of this in this case? Not specific to PiHole, but perhaps keeping the OPs infrastructure management consistent may have monitoring and maintenance benefits. And specifically mentioned in the very next sentence: > The Pi Hole project already has a nice Docker project utilizing compose. It is a supported configuration for PiHole so it fits in nicely, no need to even product their own docker based solution. Not much of a docker user myself (I've tinkered, and we use it for some things in DayJob, but for my own stuff I use VMs or occasionally LCX if I do want a container instead), but the answer to your questions was really quite obvious.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
Any special setup amongst your network takes excess work to maintain. In the case of Pihole, I gave up on maintaining it because I was running it on a Raspberry Pi, and found that it was annoyingly hard to keep a Pi running stable for a long period of time. Had I a convenient way to set it up in a Docker container, it would've been better. Of course, since I don't run anything in Docker at home, that would also constitute a special setup I have to maintain.
- charwalker 4y ago
  Yeah, docker simplifies deployment and maintenance/rebuild time. I've stuck to fairly clean/default setups on any computer I use to keep rebuild time down or at least try to use the built in/simple tools of whatever OS I'm using and Docker is the perfect version of that for small services. I say all this of course while running pihole on a pi4 that also serves DHCP so I don't have to mess with it much... I used to run pihole on various Linux distros I was testing for home server stuff. It used to be that some distros needed a few packages added to support pihole properly but nowadays the app itself is more streamlined and/or most common distros include the minimum components. I think pihole did focus on streamlining to enable easier docker support which is where I should be putting my install whenever I get back to messing with the homelab. I've been working in windows systems for work so everything is currently Win Server based which plex doesn't seem happy with but is easier than running the whole thing as VMs on my older hardware.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    Yeah, I'm more comfortable in the Windows space personally. My Sandstorm server is Linux but I don't really want to try running something else side by side with it. It looks like a Linux container on a Windows Server is technically possible, but it looks nontrivial enough that I am not sure I want to do it on my domain controller. :D
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
I do discaster recovery tests for my home lab from time to time. This is bare metal recovery (from empty hardware). - I download the ISO for my system (Arch Linux) - I install it on a drive - I install docker and a (very) few other things - I recover /etc/docker and data from a backup - I run my docker-compose - the server is up Time: around 30 min to 1 hour without any documentation. For me - THAT is the real power of docker.
- mmcnl 4y ago
  In short: the power of declarative configuration management. Way less error-prone than imperative shell scripts.
rektide 4y ago
> What is the advantage of this in this case? That you can manage & think of this machine (program/process/container/vm) the same was as every other machine & dont have to ever ever ever ask "what should i do in this case?" or "what's right for this case?" because it's a unified answer that works well & operates the same everywhere. Uniformity & no special cases. Death to pitiful old ways.
- hinkley 4y ago
  My experience is that as long as a rule has only one exception, people are pretty good at keeping on top of them. But that always leaves you the question of whether you want to burn that exception on the current project or save it for something better. Which then makes you very nervous when your coworkers start getting clever ideas and trying to volunteer (over-engineered) things as the exception. In the same way the best leaders often didn't want the job, the best exceptions are the ones you accept grudgingly, not enthusiastically. Much more recently I realized that this phenomenon of One Rule, One Exception falls under the umbrella of - or perhaps explains the effectiveness of - the Rule of Three. Two exceptions are bad, and work is partially pre-empted to correct that problem.
pigbearpig 4y ago
The real advantage is another layer of complexity, so you can write a blog post about running PiHole on a home network, which done by a billion other people (conservative estimate).
- dicknuckle 4y ago
  It's much simpler. A lot less arcane knowledge is needed to get something running, and even less to clean it up completely if you need to delete it or start over for whatever reason.

Like any other project I run everything in a Docker container, and this project should be no different. What is the advantage of this in this case?

by jrmg 4y ago

Like any other project I run everything in a Docker container, and this project should be no different. What is the advantage of this in this case?

NegativeLatency 4y ago

Specifically relating to pihole (as of previous versions) it wasn’t the cleanest install uninstall experience and left a bunch of crap behind on my system. I now run it in a docker container because of this, but I can’t speak to OPs motivations

mmcnl 4y ago
I run everything in a Docker container because I have 50+ services running, and I don't want to spend any time on their inner workings. I truly couldn't care less. I only manage the access layers (configuration parameters, volumes, ports and reverse proxy). Using Docker every application is the same from a management perspective.

dspillett 4y ago

> What is the advantage of this in this case? Not specific to PiHole, but perhaps keeping the OPs infrastructure management consistent may have monitoring and maintenance benefits. And specifically mentioned in the very next sentence: > The Pi Hole project already has a nice Docker project utilizing compose. It is a supported configuration for PiHole so it fits in nicely, no need to even product their own docker based solution. Not much of a docker user myself (I've tinkered, and we use it for some things in DayJob, but for my own stuff I use VMs or occasionally LCX if I do want a container instead), but the answer to your questions was really quite obvious.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago

Any special setup amongst your network takes excess work to maintain. In the case of Pihole, I gave up on maintaining it because I was running it on a Raspberry Pi, and found that it was annoyingly hard to keep a Pi running stable for a long period of time. Had I a convenient way to set it up in a Docker container, it would've been better. Of course, since I don't run anything in Docker at home, that would also constitute a special setup I have to maintain.

charwalker 4y ago
Yeah, docker simplifies deployment and maintenance/rebuild time. I've stuck to fairly clean/default setups on any computer I use to keep rebuild time down or at least try to use the built in/simple tools of whatever OS I'm using and Docker is the perfect version of that for small services. I say all this of course while running pihole on a pi4 that also serves DHCP so I don't have to mess with it much... I used to run pihole on various Linux distros I was testing for home server stuff. It used to be that some distros needed a few packages added to support pihole properly but nowadays the app itself is more streamlined and/or most common distros include the minimum components. I think pihole did focus on streamlining to enable easier docker support which is where I should be putting my install whenever I get back to messing with the homelab. I've been working in windows systems for work so everything is currently Win Server based which plex doesn't seem happy with but is easier than running the whole thing as VMs on my older hardware.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Yeah, I'm more comfortable in the Windows space personally. My Sandstorm server is Linux but I don't really want to try running something else side by side with it. It looks like a Linux container on a Windows Server is technically possible, but it looks nontrivial enough that I am not sure I want to do it on my domain controller. :D

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

I do discaster recovery tests for my home lab from time to time. This is bare metal recovery (from empty hardware). - I download the ISO for my system (Arch Linux) - I install it on a drive - I install docker and a (very) few other things - I recover /etc/docker and data from a backup - I run my docker-compose - the server is up Time: around 30 min to 1 hour without any documentation. For me - THAT is the real power of docker.

mmcnl 4y ago
In short: the power of declarative configuration management. Way less error-prone than imperative shell scripts.

rektide 4y ago

> What is the advantage of this in this case? That you can manage & think of this machine (program/process/container/vm) the same was as every other machine & dont have to ever ever ever ask "what should i do in this case?" or "what's right for this case?" because it's a unified answer that works well & operates the same everywhere. Uniformity & no special cases. Death to pitiful old ways.

hinkley 4y ago
My experience is that as long as a rule has only one exception, people are pretty good at keeping on top of them. But that always leaves you the question of whether you want to burn that exception on the current project or save it for something better. Which then makes you very nervous when your coworkers start getting clever ideas and trying to volunteer (over-engineered) things as the exception. In the same way the best leaders often didn't want the job, the best exceptions are the ones you accept grudgingly, not enthusiastically. Much more recently I realized that this phenomenon of One Rule, One Exception falls under the umbrella of - or perhaps explains the effectiveness of - the Rule of Three. Two exceptions are bad, and work is partially pre-empted to correct that problem.

pigbearpig 4y ago

The real advantage is another layer of complexity, so you can write a blog post about running PiHole on a home network, which done by a billion other people (conservative estimate).

dicknuckle 4y ago
It's much simpler. A lot less arcane knowledge is needed to get something running, and even less to clean it up completely if you need to delete it or start over for whatever reason.