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Comment by seizethegdgap | Hacker News Reader

For my home server, I have a flat 2507 line docker-compose file that automatically configures and boots all of my 85 containers. I still have some complexity: .env files in /opt/<container>/, a systemd process that automatically runs

  docker-compose -f /<dir>/docker-compose.yaml -d

on boot, and it's only a little irritating to have use absolute paths for everything instead of relative. But, after having to update all of my services manually for 3 years, I will never be able to go back.

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> 2507 line docker-compose file

mother_of_god.gif

Yeah, she's a big girl, but having one flat file and one systemd process is infinitely better than juggling 85 of each. I have the systemd process start after docker.service, and most of my containers have a "depends_on" argument so they don't all try to boot at once. All of the containers also push logging to a Splunk instance, which adds 9 lines per container, which increases the file by 765 lines.

I’ve got a similar probably-too-large docker-compose on my home server.

If those 9 lines are identical you can probably simplify quite a bit with extension fields and yaml anchors. [0]

You would put

    logging: *default-logging

As a single line under each container, and then define it elsewhere. The example on the docs page is for logging, but you can also simplify other fields too, like “depends on”.

[0] https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3...

Oh my god, why didn't I look into that, that's so much better. Thank you!

you had me until you said splunk and now I am horrified to know the true topology of your homelab

Heh, Splunk is way overkill for what I need, but they have a free 10GB Dev license that you have to renew every 6 months, and building a custom COVID dashboard during the first few months of 2020 kept me sane. Here's my home/lab "prod":

Homeserver: Ryzen 3950x, 64GB RAM, Ubuntu 22.04 DNS: 1 RPi 3B+ and 1 RPi 400 running pihole and Unbound Edge router/firewall: Palo Alto PA-440 Switch: Cisco 2960 24-port w/PoE AP: Aruba AP-345 in Instant mode

Have you used splunk's free tier? It's easy to setup, 500mb/day ingest free, and it's pretty easy to use (easier than grafana imho.) If they're using it professionally then why not at home?

What do you need 85 containers for in a home lab

For fun, pretty much. 20 of them are Matrix related (synapse/dendrite, bridges, and bots), 16 for media services (Plex, audiobookshelf, etc), stuff for management/monitoring, stuff for Fediverse, etc.

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