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[mattkhan]

I've been looking into this a bit recently, on paper it looks totally doable but no doubt there will be wrinkles, particularly around audio & running x in the container.

Has anyone looked into this in more detail? especially interested if there are any blocking issues of course
Any interest out there in this?

[mwillems]

I thought about some kind of containerization option recently when I was setting up my MC windows VM on my Debian server, but ultimately dismissed it as at the time windows support/integration for docker didn't seem very robust (see e.g. http://www.quora.com/What-Windows-applications-can-I-currently-run-inside-a-Docker-container).

It seems to me that there are two primary use cases for a containerized MC: 1) bringing the full functionality of MC for windows to non-windows platforms, and 2) bringing MC for Linux to unsupported Linux/Unix platforms (i.e. NAS boxes). 

Here's the way I see it conceptually, and let me know if I've got any holes in my logic:

A) I'm not sure goal 1) is currently technically feasible given the state of docker/containerization solutions in general right now (although I would be happy to hear otherwise).  If you think there is potential for a windows application container (docker or otherwise) that could bring the functionality of MC for windows (TV Tuner, Theater View, etc.) to Linux, I would enthusiastically participate in trying to get that set up, especially if it had a lower overhead than a full VM instance.

B) 2) seems more feasible, but I guess I wonder how much smaller of a resource footprint a docker container that can run MC would be (As opposed to a minimal linux VM.  Given that MC needs an Xserver, ALSA, and a network stack to run, it seems as though the resource savings from a dockerized version vice a full Linux VM would be small, but I'll admit that's just supposition on my part.  I guess there might be a significant segment of NAS boxes that would support Docker, but not a VM?

I guess I'm just trying to make sure I understand what the desired use case/end state is, and what the design goals would be.

[mattkhan]

I was not thinking in terms of trying to run a windows MC in a docker container as I assumed that would be impossible. As you say, a VM is the way to go for that use case atm (and perhaps it would be nice to distribute an appropriate image for that).

The use case here is the 2nd one you list, it's just a case of opening up another route to deploying MC on Linux. A quick google says synology has released a beta version of their software supporting docker. I'm not familiar with the rest of that market though so don't know how commonly VMs are used.

Ultimately the reason I thought about this is that I've been prevaricating about how to upgrade my existing unraid 5 setup which runs in a xen VM on a debian server. The Q is whether I turn it around so that unraid 6 is the master & my VMs would convert to either kvm VMs or docker containers or do I continue as is & just dump unraid in a VM again. Running unraid as the master would avoid the pci passthrough munging I have to do atm so seems like the preferred choice. I've only written a one simple docker container (to run this repo I forked - https://github.com/3ll3d00d/Remote-Wake-Sleep-On-LAN-Server) so far so I thought this might be an interesting thing to try out.

[mwillems]

Ultimately the reason I thought about this is that I've been prevaricating about how to upgrade my existing unraid 5 setup which runs in a xen VM on a debian server. The Q is whether I turn it around so that unraid 6 is the master & my VMs would convert to either kvm VMs or docker containers or do I continue as is & just dump unraid in a VM again. Running unraid as the master would avoid the pci passthrough munging I have to do atm so seems like the preferred choice. I've only written a one simple docker container (to run this repo I forked - https://github.com/3ll3d00d/Remote-Wake-Sleep-On-LAN-Server) so far so I thought this might be an interesting thing to try out.

That makes sense; running UNRAID as the base may well work better if you're having to virtualize/passthrough PCI devices; MC seems pretty well-behaved in a VM (at least for server purposes) FWIW.  I'd be interested in the resource difference between the dockerized version and just running a minimal VM.

Out of curiosity, what advantages does running a distro like UNRAID offer over just setting up a normal linux file server with a drive pooling solution like BTRFS or LVM and monitoring it witha web monitor like munin?  I know very little about the ins and outs of UNRAID; is it just about convenience?  Or does it offer distinct functionality?  

[mattkhan]

Out of curiosity, what advantages does running a distro like UNRAID offer over just setting up a normal linux file server with a drive pooling solution like BTRFS or LVM and monitoring it with munin?  I know very little about the ins and outs of UNRAID; is it just about convenience?  Or does it offer distinct functionality?

unraid provides single parity, mixed drive sizes and drives that remain useable outside of the "raid" setup, I suppose that is jbod+single parity? It also provides "user shares" which are a form of union fs & has minimal hardware requirements. It also gives you pretty poor write performance, a pretty clunky UI (at best, in v5 anyway, I heard the v6 one is shiny) and a bunch of other features that people moan about which I don't use It's been pretty solid for me tbh, no problems with it at all *crosses fingers*.

I went for it as flexraid/snapraid with aufs seemed annoying to setup & freenas seemed to have rather aggressive hardware requirements (loads of ECC RAM for example). In contrast, unraid was pretty much plug and play. I don't have a good reason to change course (I find it hard to maintain interest in storage stuff) at this point really so just roll with the upgrades.

[mwillems]

drives that remain useable outside of the "raid" setup

That's a big difference, and a nice one.  You can't achieve that with LVM or BTRFS.  Just about everything else you mention (different sized drives, parity, etc.) can be done with BTRFS on a native linux distro, but only with fairly current kernels (i.e. I wouldn't try to use parity raid in the BTRFS version currently in Debian stable).  But in a year or so you may be able to get all or most of that (other than the webui) from a linux filesystem running baremetal.

I'm currently just using separate drives fully backed up to a second set of drives; the read and write performance is excellent and I have an easy enough time monitoring them with munin.  However, the space management/administration experience leaves something to be desired, and requires a little more fuss/forethought than I'd like, but I've been putting off doing something more intense until the next gen filesystems are more mature.  Maybe I'll investigate UNRAID in the meanwhile. 

[mattkhan]

Just about everything else you mention (different sized drives, parity, etc.) can be done with BTRFS on a native linux distro, but only with fairly current kernels (i.e. I wouldn't try to use parity raid in the BTRFS version currently in Debian stable).  But in a year or so you may be able to get all or most of that (other than the webui) from a linux filesystem running baremetal.

I always seem to get the impression that btrfs is "99% done" if you get what I mean, maybe it's 99.9% done now though

I'm currently just using separate drives fully backed up to a second set of drives; the read and write performance is excellent and I have an easy enough time monitoring them with munin.  However, the space management/administration experience leaves something to be desired, and requires a little more fuss/forethought than I'd like, but I've been putting off doing something more intense until the next gen filesystems are more mature.  Maybe I'll investigate UNRAID in the meanwhile. 

The current version of unraid does use a modern linux kernel (4.x) and supports btrfs/xfs for the data drives so it should be easy enough to load up a system and then transfer to something else in future if required.

[mwillems]

I always seem to get the impression that btrfs is "99% done" if you get what I mean, maybe it's 99.9% done now though

I know what you mean, but parity RAID is kind of a special case. Until Linux 3.19 there was general acknowledgement that BTRFS parity RAID was really only about 50% done (i.e. quite experimental within the already experimental FS).  Now it's the same 99% done that the rest of BTRFS is 

The current version of unraid does use a modern linux kernel (4.x) and supports btrfs/xfs for the data drives so it should be easy enough to load up a system and then transfer to something else in future if required.

Good to know.  I'll probably never really be happy with a distro in a box though.  I love to tweak things and track data too much (even boring stuff like storage and disk throughput).  Maybe I'll try it out on my backup box and see how it flies as a pilot.

[Sandy B Ridge]

Docker version of mc server would be great. I keep my Unraid server on most of the time because it is such low power. Having it on all the time I could have jremote working all the time rather than just when the media pc is on. I have transferred my mobile devices to use plex because I can have them always on. I run plex server in a docker on the Unraid box.

Of course main pc/tv viewing will preferentially be through mc and madvr, so an always on library server would work really well on the Unraid box for me. I have already transferred all the media files to Unraid.

Happy to test anything if it ever gets off the ground.

[mattkhan]

Are you running unraid 6 now?

[Sandy B Ridge]

Yes. 6.0.1
Haven't ventured to the 6.1RC yet. 6.0 has been working good for me so sticking with stable releases for dependability!

[mattkhan]

I couldn't find an answer to this when I looked but does unraid6 itself include drivers etc for audio? I haven't upgraded yet (v5 works fine for me as I run it in a vm) so can't see for myself right now.

[Sandy B Ridge]

I don't know. My motherboard in the Unraid box is a server one with no on board audio and I run it completely headless.
You can pass through graphics and audio to a vm inside Unraid 6 I think and use it like a 'normal pc' but I'm not sure about docker. The Dockers I have all use a basic rdp web interface so use the audio of the client device I suppose.

[mattkhan]

OK ta, I will try it out myself at some point (have a few other things to do before I get to this so it's probably a while away til I have it working, if it works)

[JustinChase]

I've been running unRAID v6.0.1 since release (ran most/all beta's prior to v6 stable also) and it works great.  It offers built in/native docker support and a very robust VM manager as well.  I'm currently running a windows 8.1 VM as my living room HTPC and it works great.  I've got an nVidia 550ti video card passed thru along with the associated audio and just have one HDMI cable from my server to my TV and it's been working great for months now.

I have SABnzbd, Sonarr, Deluge, CouchPotato, SickRage and OwnCloud running in their own dockers on this same system and it runs for months without issue.  The only time I need to reboot is when I start mucking about trying to update or change or test things.

As far as the slow write speeds are concerned, I write everything to my cache drive, which then gets moved to the protected array via the mover script at about 6am.  The cache writes plenty fast enough for my downloads, and nothing else I write is so speed critical to me that the speeds bother me at all.

I've just installed a second video card in the server to use for a second/bedroom HTPC and am trying to decide if I want another windows VM, a Linux VM or perhaps a MC docker (if one gets created).

I don't think Theater View is available in the Linux version, so I'm leaning towards another windows VM, but if a dockerized MC would allow me to use Theater View, that would probably be best for me.

I know little about creating dockers, and would be of little/no help in creating, but would be happy to test any such attempts on my server and provide feedback.

FWIW, I can and do happily recommend unRAID v6.  If you're on the fence, do give it a try; I think you'll be impressed.  Also, dual parity is on the roadmap for unRAID, which will hopefully be released sometime this year.

[jimwc]

Yes please!

My music library resides on a mid-range Synology NAS, which as a 2.4GHz quad core and 6GB of RAM.  Most of this horsepower goes generally unused unless I am transcoding video streams on the fly.  It seems silly that I now need to set up another computer as a MC library and UPnP/DLNA server (on a NUC, RPi, whatever), when I have a perfectly capable linux machine (the Synology) already setup with my whole music library loaded and plenty of extra CPU. If JRemote could simply talk to my NAS with no other computer required, and stream to any endpoint/renderer on the network, that would be fantastic!  If ignorance is bliss, simplicity is surely the next best thing.

NAS units like Synology are great for the non-experts among us who have never installed linux, setup VMs, built a computer, etc.  I would imagine a Dockerized version of MC to be easily installed, set-and-forget, and just my speed (along with other non-IT experts probably running MC on Win or Mac).  Even though I already have a MC Master License, I would definitely pay an additional fee if it were dead simple to install and run directly on my NAS. It's easily worth another $50 (or more) to save hours of my time learning linux from scratch and just use something within the user-friendly Synology interface to make MC happen on the NAS directly.

[mattkhan]

I haven't had time to actually try this out but leaving a few links here for future reference....

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28985714/run-apps-using-audio-in-a-docker-container
summarises how to access ALSA or pulse in the container. This is for ubuntu so other distros may differ of course. Note this does rely on the host having alsa (or pulse) installed. I don't know whether this is true for unraid though.

http://fabiorehm.com/blog/2014/09/11/running-gui-apps-with-docker/
this gives an approach to running a gui app in a container. The options seem to be vnc, ssh with x forwarding & sharing the X socket. More generally this is covered by http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16296753/can-you-run-gui-apps-in-a-docker-container though it sounds like it is a bit of a moving target. There are also a variety of examples that put this together in https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/docker-containers-on-the-desktop/

Given the intent is to run this on a server, with access from disparate OS's, I suspect that vnc is the best choice in this situation.

The other thing to bear in mind will be exposing the relevant port(s) for remote control

[fitbrit]

I just finally got onto unraid 6.

I love it. A huge +1 for a dockerised version of MC from me.
It would save me having to run a PC 24/7 AND the unraid server 24/7 too.
And I know many others in the same boat.

This would be a win for JRiver, I think. I'd upgrade to a Master licence in a flash. I'd probably save the upgrade price in electricity within the first year.

The only thing I do not understand is how the licence install and purchase would work for the dockerised version.

[JustinChase]

Has anyone had any luck or made any progress on this?  I'm still hoping for the ability to run MC on my unRAID 6 server without having to create a Linux Virtual Machine to install MC.

**I added a request on the unRAID forums for help building this docker, so maybe they can build it for us.

[mattkhan]

I still intend to get to this but haven't had time yet. The fact that all the interest is from unraid users means that my effort is blocked on me upgrading my unraid server. I will get there at some point though (unless someone else gets there first!)

[JustinChase]

For what it's worth, the upgrade process is pretty smooth, and once you get on a current build, it's honestly as easy as pressing a button to upgrade from now on.  Plus, the latest is very nice and useful.  (i.e. it's worth your effort to upgrade)

[mattkhan]

I upgraded to unraid6 earlier today, 2 problems are immediately obvious

1) they don't appear to include any sort of audio support in their kernel
2) the docs around creating a docker container that fits into their world view aren't obviously in existence

Frankly 2 is pretty much a deal breaker for me, not going to waste my life trying to work out how some niche vendor wants to repackage something. I will still be intending to get something running on my machine, I will post how I do that (and if it can be easily repackaged then I will post that here).

[JustinChase]

I'm surprised there's no audio in the kernel, I've never seen any complaints of that, and I know LOTS of folks are using unRAID to host their various audio solutions.  With that said, if you really can't get what you need working audio-wise, the devs of unRAID are almost as responsive as jriver, so I know it could be added for you in the next release.

As for creating a Docker, perhaps this will help...

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Manual_6#Using_Docker

I've never created one myself, but I'm willing to help with whatever I can to help you get one created.  Please let me know what, if anything I can do to help, and I'll do my best.

[mattkhan]

all of the existing docker templates are server apps and the VM support focuses on passing through physical devices (mainly GPUs) to handle audio and video. A user has confirmed there is no native audio support unless you roll your own kernel (see http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=45180.msg431325#msg431325) and there is someone who maintains some "mediabuild" kernels that include some other drivers (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=40705.0) which seems likely to bring alsa in but I'll have to take a look at that.

I will ask if they intend to include alsa in future, it baffles me that they continue to use slackware tbh, quite odd.

[mattkhan]

I've never created one myself, but I'm willing to help with whatever I can to help you get one created.  Please let me know what, if anything I can do to help, and I'll do my best.

I've been digging further, I think pci device passthrough is the only way you can get audio out of a standard unraid build atm and that means you need VT-d support on your mobo (I do, I suspect you do too judging from a few posts of yours I saw over there). I think, but am not certain, qemu requires an audio backend on the host to enable emulated audio devices.

[JustinChase]

I've been digging further, I think pci device passthrough is the only way you can get audio out of a standard unraid build atm and that means you need VT-d support on your mobo (I do, I suspect you do too judging from a few posts of yours I saw over there). I think, but am not certain, qemu requires an audio backend on the host to enable emulated audio devices.

I'm not sure how you would do pci passthru into a docker. I have done it into my VM, which works great, but I don't know how you'd do it into a docker (or if it's really necessary).

Have you posted on the unraid forums about this?  I'll add to your posts if so.

[mattkhan]

I think I'll start another thread about running jrmc in an unraid vm just to describe the basic setup. I have sound now at least so can see it works. We can then work out whether it makes sense to package it somehow.

[mattkhan]

I'm not sure how you would do pci passthru into a docker. I have done it into my VM, which works great, but I don't know how you'd do it into a docker (or if it's really necessary).

you can bind host devices into a docker (like mapping /dev/snd to /dev/snd) but I'm not sure whether it's possible to get access to the underlying physical device.

Once I have it working here then I can post a more specific question over there.

[JustinChase]

I think I'll start another thread about running jrmc in an unraid vm just to describe the basic setup. I have sound now at least so can see it works. We can then work out whether it makes sense to package it somehow.

Running in a VM is different than running in a docker. The VM route requires a host operating system, which I'm trying to avoid in this case.

Let me know if you stay a new thread on the unraid forums and I'll monitor that thread also.

[mattkhan]

Running in a VM is different than running in a docker. The VM route requires a host operating system, which I'm trying to avoid in this case.

yeah I know but my wife doesn't care about that (this jrmc instance is the physical source of another zone that she is the primary user of), she just needs it working again

I had a load of network issues causing general instability earlier but seem to have got on top of that and have a functional setup, I can now start to dig around in docker on the machine. I'll post here once I start a thread over there.

[mattkhan]

I think direct pci device access (in a passthrough style) is possible using something like

docker --run --privileged -v /sys/bus/pci/devices:/sys/bus/pci/devices

which I think maps /sys/bus/pci/devices through to the container, one could then create a docker that installs/configures alsa as necessary

[mattkhan]

And just to put the kibosh on that

https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=38356.msg370679#msg370679

Docker is scoped by the host kernel so that means any additional device/drivers requirement forces you to use a VM given the spartan unraid kernel.

[Flyingsparks]

Hi all,

I was also wanting a docker container for JRiver to act as a server, so I rolled my own. The image is flyingsparks/jrivermc which can be found at https://hub.docker.com/r/flyingsparks/jrivermc/. It is based on a Debian image, and applies the Debian install instructions and running headless instructions on these forums. Access to manage the server is using vnc.

Be gentle, it is my first docker image that I have made. I have not yet tried to pass through any audio devices, and an updating mechanism will need to be added at some stage. At the moment I am using this simply as a library server for my other installs of JRiver and JRemote.

JRiver team - I hope this looks acceptable to you. Let me know if there are any issues.

[JimH]

Thanks for sharing your work.

[Flyingsparks]

Hi All,

Just a heads up, I have updated my docker container for JRiver 22. There is a release of the container with the tag 21-final for those still wishing to run JRiver 21.