Apps Question.

[tux-box1]

I'm very new here and was directed here after searching hours for a solution for hosting containers(for myself).
I need an answer to a few pressing questions, that admittingly I'm hoping for some quick answers for.
From what I could find, the apps appear to be more "3rd party" than an actual feature of unRaid, can you confirm this?

What backend is being used docker, k8s, what is being used for the orchestration swarm, helm?
What is the possibility of this feature (apps) being removed from unRaid in the future?
Is there any official support for these apps or are they only supported only by the developer of the app?

 

[ChatNoir]

Hi tux-box1, some answers.

 

2 hours ago, tux-box1 said:

From what I could find, the apps appear to be more "3rd party" than an actual feature of unRaid, can you confirm this?

While the "Appstore" Community Applications was created and is maintained by a Community member (thanks Squid !), it is done with very close ties with Limetech.

 

2 hours ago, tux-box1 said:

What backend is being used docker, k8s, what is being used for the orchestration swarm, helm?

I might be very wrong since I am not super knowledgeable on this, but it might be dockerman ? And AFAIK no swarm support.  (someone correct me if I am wrong)

 

2 hours ago, tux-box1 said:

What is the possibility of this feature (apps) being removed from unRaid in the future?

Personal opinion : I doubt that Community Applications could just disappear or be removed. I would expect that if Squid could not continue, either another community member or Limetech would take over if needed. It is now such an important part of the product that I cannot see Unraid without apps.

 

As for the individual apps themselves (dockers or plugins), some disappear for lack of maintenance, lack of support, incompatibly with more recent OS versions, sure. But that's probably not the case for the most used ones. And several community favorites plugins have changed maintainer along the years.

 

2 hours ago, tux-box1 said:

Is there any official support for these apps or are they only supported only by the developer of the app?

Depends on the issue. Unless there is an actual Unraid issue that causes the app not working, the support is done by the developer/maintainer. Either on the Unraid forums or some other ways depending on who handles that. Most prefer the forums, some github or Discord or their website.

There are several different Jellyfin or Plex templates for example.

[tux-box1]

Thank you very much for the clarification. Containerization has become a "needed" feature set within my home lab. Without containers, I'd be forced into other methods and I frankly don't have the patience for yet another method.  I'll mark this as solved, while I'd like more insight into the backend of how containers are being managed would be perfect.

[Kilrah]

2 hours ago, tux-box1 said:

I'll mark this as solved, while I'd like more insight into the backend of how containers are being managed would be perfect.

Start a trial and have a go - it should be pretty obvious quickly. CA simply provides templates that allow to easily specify parameters of a "docker run" command in a GUI that uses any container that's available from basically anywhere.

It's easy to modify them and you can make your own right in the UI for anything that's not there yet.

 

Edited July 13 by Kilrah

[tux-box1]

5 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Start a trial and have a go - it should be pretty obvious quickly. CA simply provides templates that allow to easily specify parameters of a "docker run" command in a GUI that uses any container that's available from basically anywhere.

It's easy to modify them and you can make your own right in the UI for anything that's not there yet.

 

Thank you for this addition. I'm thinking about a demo but I don't have time to devote to it right now and the 30-day trial would be wasted.

[Espressomatic]

This is like asking if Linux, the backbone of the OS, is in danger of disappearing.

 

DOCKER. Not going anywhere.

 

Install anything you want from anywhere, you don't need it to be listed in Unraid's Community App Store (repository). But let me assure you that Unraid's community is the biggest and most development oriented around. No other platform has this level of customer engagement and contribution.

 

You can keep looking forever at other solutions like TrueNAS Scale (the only other platform that approaches what Unraid does, but with cluster support - but it also ONLY supports ZFS), Proxmox (primarily VM management with the worst UI anyone has ever deployed in the past 20 years), some desktop or server linux (like Debian or Ubuntu, Fedora Server, etc.) with Docker installed and then deploying Portainer (Docker management, but trying to give Proxmox a run for their money on abysmal design), Open Media Vault (OMFG), RockNAS (ugh, BTRFS only, bloody useless), etc.  Take a month, take two, take two years.

 

Short summary
Nothing does it all as easily or with the versatility of Unraid. If you need what Unraid does, there's nothing else out there worth wasting a second on.

 

If you DON'T need what Unraid does, and only need to deploy containers, then spin up some distro and put CasaOS on top of it to deploy them. Or Yacht, which is super easy and clean, but not eye-candy filled like CasaOS.

Edited July 18 by Espressomatic

[Kilrah]

1 minute ago, Espressomatic said:

This is like asking if Linux, the backbone of the OS, is in danger of disappearing.

 

DOCKER. Not going anywhere.

 

Install anything you want from anywhere, you don't need it to be listed in Unraid's Community App Store (repository).

This was posted right after the announcement that Truecharts was gonna stop supporting Truenas, OP likely simply wanted to know if such a thing was likely to happen on unraid.

[Espressomatic]

9 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Truecharts

 

That dumpster fire can disappear off the face of the planet and I wouldn't have even noticed. 🤣 I need Kubernetes as much as I need another hole in my head. And if I were deploying for enterprise, none of the solutions mentioned, including TrueNAS, would be on a long list, let alone short.

Edited July 18 by Espressomatic

[tux-box1]

On 7/18/2024 at 2:10 PM, Espressomatic said:

This is like asking if Linux, the backbone of the OS, is in danger of disappearing.

 

DOCKER. Not going anywhere.

 

Install anything you want from anywhere, you don't need it to be listed in Unraid's Community App Store (repository). But let me assure you that Unraid's community is the biggest and most development oriented around. No other platform has this level of customer engagement and contribution.

 

You can keep looking forever at other solutions like TrueNAS Scale (the only other platform that approaches what Unraid does, but with cluster support - but it also ONLY supports ZFS), Proxmox (primarily VM management with the worst UI anyone has ever deployed in the past 20 years), some desktop or server linux (like Debian or Ubuntu, Fedora Server, etc.) with Docker installed and then deploying Portainer (Docker management, but trying to give Proxmox a run for their money on abysmal design), Open Media Vault (OMFG), RockNAS (ugh, BTRFS only, bloody useless), etc.  Take a month, take two, take two years.

 

Short summary
Nothing does it all as easily or with the versatility of Unraid. If you need what Unraid does, there's nothing else out there worth wasting a second on.

 

If you DON'T need what Unraid does, and only need to deploy containers, then spin up some distro and put CasaOS on top of it to deploy them. Or Yacht, which is super easy and clean, but not eye-candy filled like CasaOS.

I can't tell you how many times I've used projects only for them to be pulled by the person/community supporting them.
The inclusion of support for containers or VM's is optional for a hardware appliance like a NAS, correct me if I'm wrong but if the focus of Unraid is to be a NAS then I don't need to say anymore. The fact is these features are unnecessary for inclusion with Unraid, they are optional if Unraid's primary feature set is network storage/network shares.

On 7/18/2024 at 2:14 PM, Kilrah said:

This was posted right after the announcement that Truecharts was gonna stop supporting Truenas, OP likely simply wanted to know if such a thing was likely to happen on unraid.

This is exactly why I asked, I don't want to spend time or money on a project that will leave me high and dry as many others have. I don't have the time or patience to keep swapping.

thanks.

Edited July 29 by tux-box1

[Espressomatic]

3 hours ago, tux-box1 said:

The inclusion of support for containers or VM's is optional for a hardware appliance like a NAS

 

Unraid isn't an appliance. VM and Docker are core features of the product and how it has, besides its merged Array, differentiated itself from other products.

 

Both Docker and KVM are also well supported outside of Unraid, so no matter what happens, IMO, there's no danger of losing anything.