This seems very cool and I will probably try it, but I think I’m missing something. I run Proxmox so that I can have multiple VMs running on my NUC. This doesn’t really solve that right? I cant spin up a windows 11 vm one weekend for a random experiment.
Incus is roughly a frontend for qemu, so you can launch an empty VM and use the ISO to install the OS. You don't have to use a preconfigured base image.
I'm a big LXD and now Incus fan. But I went with NixOS rather than IncusOS for my latest build because I prefer the LTS linux kernel over the mainline kernel.
NixOS has transformed my use of Proxmox. I configure, build, and deploy everything from my nix workstation. I don't need to use the PVE gui at all. Proxmox is just a target, and I've abstracted things enough to where I can deploy the same machines to libvirt on a local machine too. Why would I need to let my agent into my PVE box? I haven't looked at incus, but if I wanted to run the full stack declaratively, nixos and LLMs are so powerful now that I would probably just say to run libvirt and ZFS on nixos natively.
> I configure, build, and deploy everything from my nix workstation. I don't need to use the PVE gui at all.
I would love to know more about how you do this, particularly the deploy part. I'm considering moving away from Ansible, but haven't had the time to dedicate to exploring a similar Nix experience.
> But fundamentally, Proxmox is built around clicking buttons. It is a GUI-first paradigm.
Uhh, whut? It provides a button-y interface, but you can do everything via config files and `pct` on the command line if you prefer. I know that’s not full nix-style declarative, but you don’t have to mislead to sell me on the advantages of declarative infra.
I haven't abandoned Proxmox yet, but the take here resonates with me. I do not like configuring appliances. I prefer defining infra as code, having that diffable, assertable, etc. I have had pretty good luck managing Proxmox clusters with the Proxmox API (https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/api-viewer/index.html) or just letting the agent shell in as root (lol). I built a very simple provisioning tool called vmfactory that takes some really somple config on disk, bakes a fresh qcow image, pushes it to proxmox and then configures networking and boots it. It's extremely rudimentary but has been working well for me.
I did abandon TrueNAS, however. It really is a locked-down appliance. Good luck installing custom software on the base OS. I have a domain-joined Ubuntu/ZFS box that inherits a lot of policy from FreeIPA and/or Ansible config that is all backed by files on disk. It's been really easy to orchestrate what many would consider overkill in my homelab because literally everything is represented in a single Github repo.
Incus is great. I've been trying to revive an unmaintained ansible collection to manage incus resources https://github.com/sbstp/ansible-collection-incus
This seems very cool and I will probably try it, but I think I’m missing something. I run Proxmox so that I can have multiple VMs running on my NUC. This doesn’t really solve that right? I cant spin up a windows 11 vm one weekend for a random experiment.
This small project makes running Windows on Incus a breeze: https://github.com/antifob/incus-windows
It sounds like all his containers are Linux, so that's why Incus is such a good fit for him. For your use case, yeah, proxmox is likely a better fit.
Incus is roughly a frontend for qemu, so you can launch an empty VM and use the ISO to install the OS. You don't have to use a preconfigured base image.
I think incus can be a frontend for qemu, but it's primary mode of operating is to run containers. It's a fork of LXD.
I'm also considering migrating from Proxmox to Incus, but I'd look into IncusOS rather than having to manage the host OS myself.
I'm a big LXD and now Incus fan. But I went with NixOS rather than IncusOS for my latest build because I prefer the LTS linux kernel over the mainline kernel.
NixOS has transformed my use of Proxmox. I configure, build, and deploy everything from my nix workstation. I don't need to use the PVE gui at all. Proxmox is just a target, and I've abstracted things enough to where I can deploy the same machines to libvirt on a local machine too. Why would I need to let my agent into my PVE box? I haven't looked at incus, but if I wanted to run the full stack declaratively, nixos and LLMs are so powerful now that I would probably just say to run libvirt and ZFS on nixos natively.
> I configure, build, and deploy everything from my nix workstation. I don't need to use the PVE gui at all.
I would love to know more about how you do this, particularly the deploy part. I'm considering moving away from Ansible, but haven't had the time to dedicate to exploring a similar Nix experience.
What do you mean exactly? You have a nix workstation and a physically separate PVE server, and configure the second from the first?
I've been using incus for a while now and actually run it on a side project in production for the better part of a year. Rock solid performance.
> But fundamentally, Proxmox is built around clicking buttons. It is a GUI-first paradigm.
Uhh, whut? It provides a button-y interface, but you can do everything via config files and `pct` on the command line if you prefer. I know that’s not full nix-style declarative, but you don’t have to mislead to sell me on the advantages of declarative infra.
I haven't abandoned Proxmox yet, but the take here resonates with me. I do not like configuring appliances. I prefer defining infra as code, having that diffable, assertable, etc. I have had pretty good luck managing Proxmox clusters with the Proxmox API (https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/api-viewer/index.html) or just letting the agent shell in as root (lol). I built a very simple provisioning tool called vmfactory that takes some really somple config on disk, bakes a fresh qcow image, pushes it to proxmox and then configures networking and boots it. It's extremely rudimentary but has been working well for me.
I did abandon TrueNAS, however. It really is a locked-down appliance. Good luck installing custom software on the base OS. I have a domain-joined Ubuntu/ZFS box that inherits a lot of policy from FreeIPA and/or Ansible config that is all backed by files on disk. It's been really easy to orchestrate what many would consider overkill in my homelab because literally everything is represented in a single Github repo.
I yanked vmfactory out and into a standalone repo if anyone is interested: https://github.com/whalesalad/vmfactory