Worth using Docker on Pi? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacksaur · 2023-11-22 12:07 I'm planning to use my Pi for a few small services and nothing else. Currently it has my VPN and apcupsd installed directly, and I want to add Grafana, Prometheus and Uptime Kuma to it. I was going to install Docker to use the last three, but ultimately, is it really needed? I won't be using the system for anything other than these purposes, and I just plan to set them up then almost never touch it again. Once it's set up I'm cloning the SD card too, so I don't need the centralized folder structure of Docker either. And I'm already using Docker pretty heavilly on another server, so I don't need another environment to learn on either. So with all that, is it worth installing Docker on my Pi to run these services? Or should I save a small amount of storage and processing power by just installing them direct to the system? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Eirikr70 · 2023-11-22 12:20 It is up to you. Using Docker makes it easier for administration and evolution, but bare metal is sufficient if you are comfortable with it (which every self-hoster should be). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- brandi_Iove · 2023-11-22 12:56 i recently got my first raspberry pi and have a drupal website which consists of three docker container. not sure how it’ll handle high traffic but so far it works like a charme. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacksaur · 2023-11-22 12:59 I'll be installing these services and any configuration from then on would be done through their Web UIs or config files. Any way in particular Docker may benefit this? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-11-22 13:09 There is no benefit on installing stuff bare metal, on the contraty, if OP breaks something he messes up his entire OS, a problem he doesn't have with containers. That's why we use VM's since 15 years, for the exact same reason. Advertising that bare metal is a good solution in 2023 is a little odd. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IWishIHavent · 2023-11-22 13:18 I use Docker on my Pi for one simple reason: management. While it's true that some services are set and forget, there will be times when you will need to check on a particular service's health, and Docker makes it a little easier by having each service on it's own environment. You can restart every service individually with ease, and even nuke something if needed without wrecking the whole system. I use Portainer, and everything on Docker inside it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacksaur · 2023-11-22 13:20 I said I'll be backing up the entire SD card, so a restore would be easy. I'm only setting up a few basic services, hardly much that can break my entire OS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Eirikr70 · 2023-11-22 13:40 It seems odd to me to advertise that bare metal should be prohibited : I on the opposite consider that any self hoster should tinker a bit with bare metal once in a while in order to maintain their sysadmin skills. If OP breaks something and must restaure the entire OS, that is an excellent exercise. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-11-22 14:51 No. Host OS for containers is as low maintenance as it can be. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oscarhult · 2023-11-22 18:24 My Pi runs ubuntu 22.04 and docker with portainer, watchtower, adguardhome and tailscale ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Richmondez · 2023-11-22 19:15 It is an excellent exercise but conversely the stakes if you are running a number of services from having to sort it and perhaps rebuild it is higher. This can reduce the desire to tinker. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comprehensive_Round · 2023-11-23 09:04 Yes. Using docker is not like running your services inside VMs. It's a pretty lightweight way of structuring your services, with the host kernel shared by all instances. I run everything in Docker on my RPi 4 and it works very well.