It was almost inevitable that this would happen. After getting more comfortable with Proxmox, I realized that I needed more reliability for the applications running on my RPis. Things are running fine on my RPi, but it was a matter of time before disaster struck. So begin my efforts to move everything over to Proxmox.
While almost everything could run on or built for Docker one way or another these days, running complicated applications on Docker will eventually uncover some really esoteric behaviours. So I stuck to using LXC containers for most of my applications. I used Docker for the applications that I can deploy and leave them alone, hence Redis, WikiJS, and WatchTower. WatchTower ensures that the containers stay healthy and updated.
With the easiest stuff out of the way, I started preparing the LXC container templates. I opted for two templates: CentOS 7 and Debian 10. I updated them, added my SSH public keys, installed the basic tools, and it was good to go.
As a result of my messy installations on RPi, I had to scrounge around for the configs and data for Gitea and Apache httpd. After that, it was a quick tarball to be transferred over to their respective containers. This time, I've created a separate container dedicated for PostgreSQL and MySQL. Doing so was somewhat liberating; I now know where I can access and isolate my databases.
What is a migration without a major data loss disaster? So, I lied previously about the 'simple' applications I run on Docker. I tried migrating my Nextcloud instance to Docker. Sound simple right? Mount the NFS directory on the Docker host, spin up the Nextcloud Docker image with the directories and the already-migrated PostgreSQL user and tables ready, and magic would take place. Turns out a new Nextcloud instance would immediately nuke /data to set up a 'clean slate'. My NFS directory was clean enough, I'll say. To make things worse, I was putting off scripting for my Btrfs snapshots and backups. With them, I could've easily rolled back my changes.
The silver lining was that I did not keep any important information on the instance. As the old adage goes, backup before doing stupid things. This cowboy move was a hard lesson for me.
This concludes Part 1. Most of my time was spent untangling all the services that I was experimenting on my RPi and deciding what gets to live or not. So far, I've learned a hard lesson and had to plan out my migration before doing so. I only look forward for the rest to come.
For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.
- Odo