Proxmox LXC Containers Changed My Life - Seriously

[ward]

I have been using proxmox for years and I've always just done it all myself using VMs, portainer, etc. If you don't know what Proxmox is, I'll explain quickly... It's a Debian-based distro for virtual machines. Here's my installation:

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I'm just going to tell you how I'm using it, then we can talk about these LXC containers.

I use it for wireguard to remote in and use my local network while traveling. This is also good for secure browsing on my phone. I have pihole going as well... plus a Windows 10 LTSC VM for a bunch of random stuff. So... let's cover those LXC containers...

What makes the LXC containers special? They aren't virtual machines, they are containers that run right on the host and they are FAST and use a fraction of the resources. Think of them as docker containers, but you can do a lot with them since they can inherit the permissions and such of the host and even mount folders that are mounted on the host. Then, when it comes to installing the, you just need to run a simple script for each one: https://community-scripts.org/

What I have installed:

I'm using cloudflare ddns so I can have books.mydomain.com instead of 172.16.16.225:8565 or some nonsense. You need Nginx proxy manager as well, but it's easy enough to learn.
https://community-scripts.org/scripts/cloudflare-ddns

Navidrome means I can have my music collection on the go... it streams it anywhere: https://community-scripts.org/scripts/navidrome

Audiobookshelf is awesome... You can host your own audiobook collection on the go and you can use an android app to play or even download local copies. https://community-scripts.org/scripts/audiobookshelf

There's a debian VM running with Portainer... I've moved most of my containers out of that now and the only thing that is left is nginx proxy manager and fressRSS. I'll probably move those over the LXC containers too and turn off the Debian machine too... It's kinda insane. https://community-scripts.org/scripts/freshrss

I slept on the community scripts since I was just doing things myself for the longest time... but having a little more time since I'm not doing all the videos... so I've discovered a few things.

Then I have wiki.js... I have about 100 pages in this so far... it's for my tabletop RPG idea: https://community-scripts.org/scripts/wikijs
You can install pihole and the script even asks if you want to install and configure unbound dns. It is the easiest pihole installation I've ever done: https://community-scripts.org/scripts/pihole

Trilium is for taking notes and it's really slick. I haven't fully tested it, but it seems to be awesome: https://community-scripts.org/scripts/trilium

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Stuff I might add:
Nextcloud: https://community-scripts.org/scripts/nextcloud-vm
Pelican Panel for game hosting: https://community-scripts.org/scripts/pelican-panel
MeTube for acquiring YT videos: https://community-scripts.org/scripts/m ... fromQ=trek
Memos... I plan to test this against Trilium: https://community-scripts.org/scripts/memos
wger is a workout manager... without ads and nonsense: https://community-scripts.org/scripts/wger
The Lounge: it'd be cool if we could integrate this into the site... it's IRC! https://community-scripts.org/scripts/the-lounge

Does anyone else use this? What containers are you using?

[Archmage]

I'm using so many containers. I have containers for containers. Now I'm not using LXC but rather Docker as I'm on Unraid.

AdventureLog - A useful piece of software to track travels, it's a bit much to get configured but it has an Immich tie in. https://adventurelog.app/

audiobookshelf - I use this container all of the time, like Ward said it's for audiobooks.

Plex - It's a media player, I won't link the project as they've been making some rather stupid decisions the last couple of years. I need to move over to Jellyfin but I haven't had the time. https://jellyfin.org/

CouchDB - It's a database container that I use for myself hosted Obsidian. Obsidian is a note taking/planning app. https://couchdb.apache.org/ https://obsidian.md/

Dashy - A dashboard that I have all my common links and workflows saved. https://dashy.to/

Duplicacy - Backup software https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy

FactorioServerManager - Server for the game Factorio github.com/OpenFactorioServerManager/fa ... er-manager

Firefly-III, Data Importer - Budgeting software https://www.firefly-iii.org/

Firefox - Virtual browser, I use this all the time when I remote in. I also have this piped through a VPN

Grimmory - BookLore fork, basically self hosted Kindle it even has a way to pull books onto your Kobo ereader built in natively. I also use this container extensively. https://github.com/grimmory-tools/grimmory

HomeBox - Inventory management, I use it to track all the things I care about if I were to lose them in say a house fire. That way I can provide proof of purchase, the cost of the item, pictures of the item, and s/ns should the insurance company fight me on a claim. https://homebox.software/en/

Immich - Another container I use almost daily. It's basically a self hosted Google images. I managed to get a lot of buy in from friends and family when I was sharing my Japan trip photos. They also have extensions for more advanced features like ML/AI for facial recognition and de-duping. https://immich.app/

LubeLogger - Tracking for vehicles. I use this to track maintenance on my vehicles along with a running tally of the cost to keep the vehicle running. I use this pretty heavily. https://lubelogger.com/

nebula-sync - syncs my three piholes to keep them all the same https://github.com/lovelaze/nebula-sync

OwntracksRecorder - Self hosted location sharing. I use this with my family and friends so they know where I'm at in case of an emergency. I had it on while in Japan in case something happened. https://owntracks.org/

PeaNUT - Used for UPS management

romm - Web browser based emulation for most systems https://romm.app/

shinkro - sync my Anime viewing with My Anime List automagically. https://github.com/shinkro/shinkro

tautulli - Plex viewing stats

I have a lot more but these are the ones I use most often and probably are of interest to this community. If you have questions or would like more details just ping me.

[bumbervevo]

Agreed, containers are awesome. I downgraded my server so I only have a few running with a couple of services on them, but I have to admit that I haven't gotten around to using community scripts that much; I started self-hosting on bare metal and even using Docker was a huge jump for me. My big fear is that something breaks or goes wrong and I have would have no idea how to fix it.

My list of services is small but critical for me.

• Jellyfin

• *Arr stack (Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr/Prowlarr)

• qBittorrent

• Wireguard

• Actual (budgeting app)

• Copyparty

@ward +1 for Audiobookshelf and Navidrome, though these days I just download audiobooks to my phone and play them through VLC. I used Navidrome for a while before switching to Jellyfin with Finamp on Android; I couldn't quite get the Subsonic apps to play nicely with Navidrome, and playing directly from my browser was giving me issues on Android. I had never heard of Trilium either; I've been on the hunt for a good notetaking app, so I'm excited to play with this!

@Archmage This is a great list of software. Hadn't seen Romm or Owntracks before; Owntracks is the answer to Life360 that I've been looking for, so I'll definitely be setting this up. I've heard of Immich but never got around to setting it up, but when I eventually drop a new hard drive into my server, I plan on setting this up along with something like

[ward]

@ward +1 for Audiobookshelf and Navidrome, though these days I just download audiobooks to my phone and play them through VLC. I used Navidrome for a while before switching to Jellyfin with Finamp on Android; I couldn't quite get the Subsonic apps to play nicely with Navidrome, and playing directly from my browser was giving me issues on Android. I had never heard of Trilium either; I've been on the hunt for a good notetaking app, so I'm excited to play with this!

@Archmage This is a great list of software. Hadn't seen Romm or Owntracks before; Owntracks is the answer to Life360 that I've been looking for, so I'll definitely be setting this up. I've heard of Immich but never got around to setting it up, but when I eventually drop a new hard drive into my server, I plan on setting this up along with something like

There's a lot of stuff I need to check out here. For Navidrome... did you ever try Symfonium https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... r&hl=en_US? Finamp is great. I forget why I stopped using it.. maybe the metada categories weren't good enough for me? That was a looong time ago. I did like the interface better.

@Archmage I'm curious about a bunch of stuff on this list...

1. How is romm? I had a tab of it open... The thing I'm really looking forward to is device sync... that sounds crazy.

I'll also check out owntracks.

[Archmage]

1. How is romm? I had a tab of it open... The thing I'm really looking forward to is device sync... that sounds crazy.

I'll also check out owntracks.

I've only tested NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, and the PS1. It does a fairly good job. NES, SNES, Genesis, no issues. The PS1 took a little longer than I would have liked to load and the frame rate wasn't great sometimes. I was using Firefox at the time and I'm curious how well something Chrome based would do in comparison. It has a save state function which has been great for when I've been on the go.

The thing I really like about romm is the metadata it's basically Jellyfin but for emulation.

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[ward]

1. How is romm? I had a tab of it open... The thing I'm really looking forward to is device sync... that sounds crazy.

I'll also check out owntracks.

I've only tested NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, and the PS1. It does a fairly good job. NES, SNES, Genesis, no issues. The PS1 took a little longer than I would have liked to load and the frame rate wasn't great sometimes. I was using Firefox at the time and I'm curious how well something Chrome based would do in comparison. It has a save state function which has been great for when I've been on the go.

The thing I really like about romm is the metadata it's basically Jellyfin but for emulation.

05-26-2026, 07-39-54.png

That interface is what I'm really after. I'm not sure if I care about emulation through the app... maybe? I just really want that interface. It's a way to force myself to organize my libraries... then I'll have an interface to browse and find stuff to play... then I'll just have to open retroarch. I'm not sure if this is a better idea than a retroarch setup... but I haven't found a good way to keep track of things across devices, so their upcoming save-game feature is interesting.

[Archmage]

1. How is romm? I had a tab of it open... The thing I'm really looking forward to is device sync... that sounds crazy.

I'll also check out owntracks.

I've only tested NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, and the PS1. It does a fairly good job. NES, SNES, Genesis, no issues. The PS1 took a little longer than I would have liked to load and the frame rate wasn't great sometimes. I was using Firefox at the time and I'm curious how well something Chrome based would do in comparison. It has a save state function which has been great for when I've been on the go.

The thing I really like about romm is the metadata it's basically Jellyfin but for emulation.

05-26-2026, 07-39-54.png

That interface is what I'm really after. I'm not sure if I care about emulation through the app... maybe? I just really want that interface. It's a way to force myself to organize my libraries... then I'll have an interface to browse and find stuff to play... then I'll just have to open retroarch. I'm not sure if this is a better idea than a retroarch setup... but I haven't found a good way to keep track of things across devices, so their upcoming save-game feature is interesting.

Yeah that's what I'm mostly using it for. I have a massive library of ROMs but it's a mess so I've been using this to go through my collection. Clean up dupes, rename the files, grab the metadata.

For the metadata there is a gotcha. You need to make an account for the metadata websites so you can use their APIs and there's a little bit of configuration during and after the setup. So far I've been enjoying it and it has been nice to just fire up a web browser on a laptop when I'm on the go and play some Super Metroid. Pretty much beat the whole game from multiple PCs using a web browser. Kid me woulda freaked at an idea like that lol.