u/blue_arrow_comment

I apologize if this is a common question, but several hours of searching and reading hasn’t yielded a solution I’ve been able to implement properly. I’m new to Proxmox and have been away from Linux in general for about 15 years, so there’s a lot of learning involved in the process of setting up my home servers.

I have two Proxmox host machines and want to be able to share several drives/directories/etc. between various (mostly Debian-based) containers and VMs residing on both hosts. My storage setup is very much unfinished at the moment (currently using individual drives until I can repurpose storage from a previous server) and doesn’t make use of ZFS or any of the more advanced options. Bind mounts using the commonly-recommended “mp#:” line in the [container].conf file initially seemed to be the way to go, until I realized I wouldn’t be able to take snapshots of containers. I’m trying to find a solution that will auto-mount shared storage but still allow snapshots (of the containers themselves, the mounted shared storage does not need to be included).

The alternative method that I saw recommended in almost all discussions like this was to use a Samba share instead, so I currently have the following setup:

PVE 1: 512 GB M.2 SATA partitioned into the default BIOS, EFI, and LVM by Proxmox during installation, plus a 2 TB 2.5” SSD with a 200 GB ext4 partition mounted on the host at /mnt/share/200

• 100 (LXC, unprivileged)
• 101 (LXC, unprivileged)
• 102 (LXC, unprivileged)
• 103 (LXC, privileged): Debian with a bind mount mapping /mnt/share/200 to /storage/interim, set up as Samba share (tested and working)
• 200 (VM): LMDE, connected to Samba share and auto-mounting via fstab edits

PVE 2: 128 GB M.2 SATA partitioned into the default BIOS, EFI, and LVM by Proxmox during installation

• 100 (LXC, unprivileged)
• 101 (LXC, unprivileged)

My current task is to get the 200 GB ext4 partition that is mounted to PVE 1 accessible (read+write) by PVE 1-100, PVE 1-101, PVE 1-102, and the PVE 2 host (if possible). It needs to remain permanently attached / auto-mount on boot to the LXC containers (mostly because I need to know it’s possible before setting up a 12 TB external drive to be shared in the same way) in a way that doesn’t prohibit the use of snapshots within Proxmox.

The Samba share from the privileged Debian container on PVE 1 is working fine, the LMDE VM auto-mounts the share on startup and I can connect to it via my Windows laptop as well. The unprivileged LXCs are unable to mount the share (which appears to be expected, though I was unaware of that restriction when I set the Samba “workaround” up) but they are able to connect to the share via smbclient. I have been looking into using the “lxc.mount.entry” bind mount instead of the “mp#:” bind mount, but have not been able to get it to work. So far I’ve tried these variations appended to /etc/pve/lxc/100.conf:

• lxc.mount.entry = /mnt/share/200 /storage/interim none bind,create=dir 0 0; testing via ls /storage/interim after reboot shows no contents
• lxc.mount.entry = /mnt/share/200 /storage/interim/ none bind,create=dir 0 0; testing via ls /storage/interim after reboot shows no contents
• lxc.mount.entry = /mnt/share/200 /storage/interim none bind,relative 0 0 (when /storage/interim has already been created in the container); testing via ls /storage/interim after reboot shows no contents
• lxc.mount.entry = /mnt/share/200 /var/lib/lxc/100/rootfs/storage/interim none bind,create=dir 0 0; testing via ls /storage/interim after reboot shows "ls: cannot open directory '/storage/interim': Permission denied"
• lxc.mount.entry = /mnt/share/200 /var/lib/lxc/100/rootfs/storage/interim none bind,create=dir,rw,users,uid=0,gid=0,fmask=777,dmask=777 0 0; testing via ls /storage/interim after reboot shows "ls: cannot open directory '/storage/interim': Permission denied"

The last two seemed to be getting... somewhere, so I tried adding the UID and GID mapping in the .conf:

lxc.idmap: u 0 100000 1000 lxc.idmap: g 0 100000 1000

I'm still getting the same permission denied error, though.

I would prefer not to have to replace these containers with privileged versions, but I have pretty much hit my current limit of what I know to test. Is there something obvious I'm overlooking in this setup that would allow this directory to be mounted by an unprivileged container, or an alternate strategy I should try that would meet my needs?

I'm currently planning/testing options for how to create a home server setup that will replace my current one (which was not set up or significantly managed by me). It's been a while since I've had the time to tinker with this type of project; I'm a little out of the loop on what options are available, and only about a week into getting reacquainted with Linux.

The current server runs on an HP Proliant DL380 Gen9, with Proxmox to manage virtual machines for Plex, Calibre-Web, a Windows VM for download management, and TrueNAS. TrueNAS manages RAID drives that are shared between the various VMs and other devices (running Windows, iOS, etc.) throughout the house. There are a variety of SSDs and enterprise HDDs installed, but I'm not certain of the specifics, and may not be able to look into that in detail until the replacement setup is functional (aside from backup automations and such that will require those drives when they can be repurposed).

Most of the prior server admin's (my ex) use cases have already been removed or migrated, so what remains basically represents what I need out of the new server:

• Plex server for personal use (local and remote) and for sharing with my parents (remotely)
• Calibre ebook server
• A container/VM that can be used for long downloads and file transfers without tying up my personal laptop for an extended period
• A storage setup that can be accessed by the various containers/VMs and other devices on the network

After playing around with Proxmox for a while, I've decided to stick with it for managing the various containers/VMs I need. My initial plan is to run Proxmox on a mini PC (I have access to a few) with 16 GB of RAM and whatever SSDs are needed to store and regularly back up the VMs and containers. The biggest decision I haven't yet made is how to handle the other storage capacity and make it accessible to everything. I need about ~9 TB of storage for my current media library, but need room to expand. As far as hardware goes, I have access to:

• The existing DL380 server
• An HP Proliant Dl60 Gen9 server
• A handful of 2.5" SSDs
• A handful of 3.5" HDDs of various capacities > 500 GB
• A handful of 2.5" HDDs of various capacities < 250 GB
• Two WD My Book 12 TB external drives, currently backing up my media library from the existing NAS
• A handful of small M.2 SATA SSDs, SODIMM RAM, SDRAM, and whatever can be scavenged from unused mini PCs, if things need to be shuffled around to add another machine to the network
• A couple of my old gaming PCs (built 2012 and 2015) that are currently sitting unused
• A UPS currently allowing the DL380 server to shut down gracefully during power outages, which will be moved to whatever new setup I create

The basic Proxmox setup is no big deal, and Plex/Autocaliweb/Jellyfin/etc. LXC containers have largely been a breeze to install thanks to the helper scripts. I've been mounting smaller external storage devices to play around with the media server tests and whatnot, but am kind of stuck on the decision of what to do about permanent storage.

With the current cost of storage, electricity, and everything else, I'm trying to avoid an expensive up-front cost for a ton of high-capacity drives, as well as aiming for a more energy-efficient setup than I currently have. I'd like to reuse at least some of the drives in the current server, once I've set up the new one. I'm open to suggestions about RAID vs automated backups, Unraid vs TrueNAS (leaning toward Unraid for the flexibility, but have not figured out the best way to physically attach the variety of storage on hand to it), and whether—based on energy use, hardware cost, etc.—it's worth repurposing one of the actual HP servers as a NAS vs repurposing one of my old desktops vs purchasing/building a more efficient(?) enclosure for drives to attach to a mini PC instead. Input on these, best practices for integrating them with Proxmox, etc. would be appreciated!