cockpit-file-sharing VS The Lounge

I just build a new Proxmox server, and it has a ZFS pool that I'd like to share via NFS/SMB with other hosts on my network. I want to do as little on the Proxmox host as possible, so I figured I'd mount the ZFS pool in an unprivileged Ubuntu 22.04 LXC container that runs cockpit and cockpit-file-sharing to easily manage NFS and SMB shares. Should be simple, right?

I am a fan of virtualization and run a three-node Proxmox cluster along with a Hyper-V host at home. I avoided Docker for years because I couldn't wrap my head around it. A couple of months ago, I migrated my NAS from being a Proxmox VM to bare-metal. It runs minimal Debian 11 (no desktop GUI) and the Cockpit web UI with the 45Drives Cockpit File Sharing extension for managing the server and file shares, respectively. I also installed Docker Engine and a Portainer container for managing containers. The system, a 2C/4T i3 CPU with 16 GB RAM, easily runs 19 containers.

My NAS is simply minimal Debian 11 running the Cockpit web UI (https://cockpit-project.org/) with the 45Drives Cockpit File Sharing application (https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-file-sharing) for managing SMB and NFS shares. I use MDADM (Linux software RAID), but 45Drives also has a ZFS management Cockpit application as well. Cockpit is in the Debian repository, see https://cockpit-project.org/running#debian. Give Cockpit a look. You can easily “apt remove” if you don’t like it.

https://cockpit-project.org/ https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit-machines https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-navigator https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-file-sharing

Hi, I'm using Cockpit to manage my Ubuntu server and I want to mount a network share (Synology NAS) through the web interface. Under the "Storage" page it is possible to mount a NFS share with options such as auto-mount at boot and such, and this is exactly what I need for Samba. I found a third-party plugin to manage Samba shares (link), but it can only create new and manage shares and not mount existing network shares (I think, I haven't tried it yet). Does anyone know how to mount SMB shares using Cockpit? Thanks in advance.

45-drives makes a plugin for the web interface for nas features (use the "install from RPM" install option). You'd also need this plugin

Some important services for me: 1. Wireguard: I have bypass rules in Authelia since I’m too lazy to login to my services. Wireguard also provides adblock on-the-go. 2. Samba server: use to transfer files between iPhone/iPad/laptop. Didn’t expect I’m depending on it too much. 3. Webtop: aka my lite/fake VM. I mounted my data directory to this container, mostly use it when i need GUI to move/edit files on my server. Accessible through web browser or RDP protocol. 4. Diversion: adblock on Asus router. Easy to setup adblock with vpn. Also no need to setup 2 Adblock instances. Another advantage, asus router can force all dns queries through this, bypass hard coded dns on some devices. 5. Cockpit with file sharing plugin: easily manage samba/nfs share

there's plugins for cockpit like: https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-file-sharing

IRC as a protocol is indeed incredibly simple and easy to get started with. Years ago did discover this when I was able to make [this atrocity](https://github.com/creesch/discordIRCd) bridging IRC and discord where for IRC I effectively did a simple server implementation.

There is a caveat, though. Like many older protocols (ftp) there is a lot that was not initially written down or left up to clients and server implementations. This, does lead to a lot of edge cases you need to be aware of once you want to actually support a wider user group.

Also, as this is apparently is still a discussion. IRC is not simple from a modern user UX perception. Registration can be complex and confusing, though hidden a bit through clients. Managing channels with various flags is a whole other thing. Then there is also the fact that these days people are no longer used to the fact that they can't see messages from periods where they were not connected. Of course, the latter can be easily handled by a BNC or fancy clients like https://thelounge.chat . But, that is only easy for technically inclined folks.

> It’s 2024, people aren’t going to go out of their way to setup “bouncers” to keep up with conversation that happens when they’re not online or leave their computer running 24/7.

You can just set up something like The Lounge [0].

[0] https://thelounge.chat/

Excellent idea! You'll have a mature, open standard protocol under the hood, with no vendor lock-in, excellent extensibility, and great modern frontends like The Lounge (https://thelounge.chat/) or Convos (https://convos.chat/) to choose from (and you can choose).

For the other layers one can front-end IRC with TheLounge [1][2] or Convos [3][4]. TheLounge only persists history in private mode meaning that users are created in that front-end and chat messages are in Redis. For small networks or groups of friends this is probably fine.

Notably missing is voice chat. I use the Mumble client [5] with the Murmur or uMurmur [6] server which is light-weight enough to run on ones home router. I use it on Alpine Linux, works great. It's not a shiny and attention grabbing as Discord but probably fine for everyone else. For people to create their own voice channels would require the full-blown Murmur server.

[1] - https://github.com/thelounge

[2] - https://thelounge.chat/

[3] - https://github.com/convos-chat/convos/

[4] - https://convos.chat/

[5] - https://www.mumble.info/

[6] - https://github.com/umurmur/umurmur/wiki/Configuration

As another self-hosted solution, I quite like TheLounge (https://thelounge.chat)

TheLounge (https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge) - web IRC client that I set to listen on my vpn/mesh. Works great on desktop and mobile, and supports push notifications.