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From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

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Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#61

Post by treve »

dizhn wrote: post #46
arch1e wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP here. One thing we mentioned in the blog but probably didn’t emphasize enough is how deeply ZFS is integrated into the UI. With Sylve, you rarely need to touch the CLI. Snapshots, datasets, ZVOLs, even flashing images directly to ZVOLs, it’s all handled from the UI in a straightforward way. That tight ZFS integration also lets us build more flexible backup workflows. You can back up VMs, jails, or entire datasets…

I did actually notice the ZFS gui which is indeed something lacking in proxmox which doesn't default to ZFS in the installer. However once you do install it using ZFS it actually makes use of it pretty well and the user does not need to mess with the zfs cli tools much. Obviously it would be nice to have a GUI for all zfs operations too. Then again even TrueNAS refers you back to the cli for SOME operations. On proxm…

I just installed Proxmox for the first time with a 5 disk ZFS array. Very basic stuff but I already had to go to the CLI a few times and it didn't really feel that well integrated. Even setting up the array didn't work (non-descript -1 error message, and ended up needed to use -f on the cli). I also couldn't find a zfs create equivalent (but that could have been me?)

It's fine because I'm comfortable in the CLI but I read your comment and wanted to share that it felt a bit rudimentary at best.

Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#62

Post by arch1e »

redserk wrote: post #56
hedora wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not silly at all. I've been repeatedly burned by systemd, both on machines I've administered and on appliances. In every situation, the right fix was either "switch distros" or "burn developer-months of work in a fire drill". In fact, I just decided to go with FreeBSD instead of proxmox specifically because proxmox requires systemd. The last N systemd machines I've had the misfortune to touch were broken due to…

It absolutely is silly. I’ve been responsible for managing low-thousands of Linux servers with systemd and it’s standardized a lot of things that otherwise would’ve been a lot of bespoke scripts.

Yeah, I’m kind of in the same camp. I never really had issues with systemd either. It mostly just works, even if it’s a bit heavy.

For me, moving to FreeBSD wasn’t about escaping systemd, it was more about the overall system design and how cohesive everything feels. That said, I’ve tried to keep Sylve neutral on that front. I don’t really position it as “systemd vs not”, just focus on what it actually does well.

It’s still early and not as feature complete as Proxmox yet, but I think it already stands on its own as a solid option.

Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#63

Post by gerdesj »

redserk wrote: post #37
TacticalCoder wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They explain a lot of things but I can't see the advantage over prox other than they wanted to use it. A huge, totally obvious, advantage is that FreeBSD isn't using systemd. I'm now nearly systemd-free, if not for Proxmox. But my VMs are systemd free. And, by definition, my containers too (where basically the entire point is that there's a PID 1 for the service and that PID 1, in a container is not systemd). So th…

Whether an appliance OS uses SystemD or not is as silly of a concern as “does the lead developer prefer cheddar or brie” What about performance characteristics? Recoverability of workloads? I’m interested in a FreeBSD base OS because it seems ZFS is better integrated and ZFS has a lot of incredibly useful tools that come with it. If Bhyve is at least nearly as performant as KVM, I’d be hard pressed not to give it a w…

“does the lead developer prefer cheddar or brie” Quite right but given I live in Somerset (UK) I can have both: Cheddar is in Somerset and where the eponymous cheese originated and quite a lot of brie is produced here too - it's not the French original effort but rather good.

I have quite a lot of customers that we have migrated from VMware to Proxmox. Some of them are rocking zfs instead of vmfs. Mostly these are Dell servers. Proxmox with zfs seems to be more aggressive about disc failure warnings, which I think is helpful.

Pick what OS works for you.

Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#64

Post by gonzalohm »

h4kunamata wrote: post #58

>A lot of our week is made up of the same kinds of small tasks: provision a VM, tweak storage settings, pass through a device, replicate a dataset, share a file, test an image, throw the machine away, do it again. None of that is exciting. All I read is that they are still doing ClickOPS over DevSecOps!! At no moment I heard automation, if you aren't using automation in 2026, your future in IT is cooked. I run Proxmo…

How many times are you redeploying your homelab stuff? I also run lxc containers and thought about automating deployments but in my one year running proxmox I have only deployed each container once. If anything breaks I have PBS running to recover a previous backup. I don't see myself having to repeat this process more than once or twice

Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#65

Post by arch1e »

treve wrote: post #61
dizhn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did actually notice the ZFS gui which is indeed something lacking in proxmox which doesn't default to ZFS in the installer. However once you do install it using ZFS it actually makes use of it pretty well and the user does not need to mess with the zfs cli tools much. Obviously it would be nice to have a GUI for all zfs operations too. Then again even TrueNAS refers you back to the cli for SOME operations. On proxm…

I just installed Proxmox for the first time with a 5 disk ZFS array. Very basic stuff but I already had to go to the CLI a few times and it didn't really feel that well integrated. Even setting up the array didn't work (non-descript -1 error message, and ended up needed to use -f on the cli). I also couldn't find a zfs create equivalent (but that could have been me?) It's fine because I'm comfortable in the CLI but I…

Yeah, that’s pretty much been my experience as well. Last time I seriously used Proxmox with ZFS (I think 8.4.x), it felt a bit… bolted on.

It works fine for the common VM workflows, but once you step outside that path, you end up dropping to the CLI more than you’d expect.

In Sylve, we tried to make ZFS a first-class part of the system rather than something sitting underneath it. You can create pools, scrub them with actual progress visibility, replace disks, and manage datasets (Filesystems, Volumes, Snapshots) directly from the UI.

Proxmox tends to abstract datasets away and handle them for you, which is great for standard VM usage, but gets limiting if you want to do something custom, like creating your own dataset for media or Samba shares.

That’s really where Sylve differs, it gives you both the "it just works" path and the flexibility without forcing you into the CLI.

Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#66

Post by h4kunamata »

arch1e wrote: post #59
h4kunamata wrote: post #58

>A lot of our week is made up of the same kinds of small tasks: provision a VM, tweak storage settings, pass through a device, replicate a dataset, share a file, test an image, throw the machine away, do it again. None of that is exciting. All I read is that they are still doing ClickOPS over DevSecOps!! At no moment I heard automation, if you aren't using automation in 2026, your future in IT is cooked. I run Proxmo…

Author of Sylve here, and I helped deploy the setup in the post. > All I read is that they are still doing ClickOPS over DevSecOps!! Their setup is mostly working on embedded stuff, and this involves some amount of moving VM disk images around, sometimes they run different software within the same VM disk, so that means ZFS properties need to be tweaked accordingly (compression, recordsize, etc). This is a lot easier…

I see, based on your comment and others, Sylve seems to be heavily GUI for everything.

There is nothing wrong with that but if an user cannot perform the same tasks via CLI, I see that as a big blocker for a project to be fully adopted with exceptions. OPNSense, there is zero reasons to manage the whole network and what not via CLI, GUI makes life so much easier. I would hate it having to do everything via CLI.

The other thing is LXC, Sylve seems to call it jail.

I would expect this jail to support something like below.

Ansible only automates what you do manually, the server itself only sees the command and it will never run Ansible itself, so intead of manually creating a LXC, Ansible would send:

   - name: Deploy LXC
     ansible.builtin.command: >
      pct create {{ lxc_id }} {{ template }}
      --hostname {{ hostname }}
      --unprivileged 1
      --cores {{ cores }}
      --memory {{ memory }}
      --rootfs {{ storage }}:{{ rootfs_size }}
      --net0 name=eth0,bridge={{ bridge }},ip={{ static_ip }}/{{ cidr }},gw={{ gateway }}
      --features nesting=0
Of I wanna exec into the LXC container to restore a backup and start the system, I would expect Sylve to support this.

  - name: Import lists and hotfixes
    ansible.builtin.command: >
     pct exec {{ lxc_id }} -- bash -c "
     pihole-FTL --config ntp.sync.interval 0;
     systemctl stop pihole-FTL;
     sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db
All of that from my PC without having to go to a browser. That is the friction that your team should look into automating, there is always a way, it is just easier to go to the browser.

Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#67

Post by fouc »

pdntspa wrote: post #57
hedora wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not silly at all. I've been repeatedly burned by systemd, both on machines I've administered and on appliances. In every situation, the right fix was either "switch distros" or "burn developer-months of work in a fire drill". In fact, I just decided to go with FreeBSD instead of proxmox specifically because proxmox requires systemd. The last N systemd machines I've had the misfortune to touch were broken due to…

I have never really understood the systemd hate. It sure as hell beat the sorcery that was managing init.d scripts for everything. I managed the distro upgrade on hundreds of remotely-managed nodes, porting our kiosk appliance from a pre-systemd debian to a post-systemd debian, and out of all the headaches we suffered systemd was not one of them, short of a few quirks we caught in our development process. It pretty m…

I don't understand the init.d script hate ;)

Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#68

Post by arch1e »

gonzalohm wrote: post #64
h4kunamata wrote: post #58

>A lot of our week is made up of the same kinds of small tasks: provision a VM, tweak storage settings, pass through a device, replicate a dataset, share a file, test an image, throw the machine away, do it again. None of that is exciting. All I read is that they are still doing ClickOPS over DevSecOps!! At no moment I heard automation, if you aren't using automation in 2026, your future in IT is cooked. I run Proxmo…

How many times are you redeploying your homelab stuff? I also run lxc containers and thought about automating deployments but in my one year running proxmox I have only deployed each container once. If anything breaks I have PBS running to recover a previous backup. I don't see myself having to repeat this process more than once or twice

[dead]

Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#69

Post by arch1e »

h4kunamata wrote: post #66
arch1e wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author of Sylve here, and I helped deploy the setup in the post. > All I read is that they are still doing ClickOPS over DevSecOps!! Their setup is mostly working on embedded stuff, and this involves some amount of moving VM disk images around, sometimes they run different software within the same VM disk, so that means ZFS properties need to be tweaked accordingly (compression, recordsize, etc). This is a lot easier…

I see, based on your comment and others, Sylve seems to be heavily GUI for everything. There is nothing wrong with that but if an user cannot perform the same tasks via CLI, I see that as a big blocker for a project to be fully adopted with exceptions. OPNSense, there is zero reasons to manage the whole network and what not via CLI, GUI makes life so much easier. I would hate it having to do everything via CLI. The o…

That’s fair, but Sylve isn’t GUI-only.

We’re API-first, the UI is just a client on top. We already ship Swagger docs with the code (docs/ on the repo), so everything the UI does is exposed and usable programmatically today.

Right now we’re still early (v0.2), so the CLI/SDK pieces aren’t fully there yet, but that’s what we’re building next.

Before v0.4 the plan is:

* a proper CLI for scripting

* a well-defined API lib (TypeScript/Go first, others later)

* parity between UI, CLI, and API

Re: From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in our office lab

#70

Post by cheema33 »

h4kunamata wrote: post #58

>A lot of our week is made up of the same kinds of small tasks: provision a VM, tweak storage settings, pass through a device, replicate a dataset, share a file, test an image, throw the machine away, do it again. None of that is exciting. All I read is that they are still doing ClickOPS over DevSecOps!! At no moment I heard automation, if you aren't using automation in 2026, your future in IT is cooked. I run Proxmo…

> if you aren't using automation in 2026, your future in IT is cooked.

This x 10.

Ansible and OpenTofu/Terraform is where it is at. And you can use Claude/Codex with that setup.

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