this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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My first seccam, now the Frigate mystery in LXC (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Just got my first security camera, a Hikvision multi focal 4MP. I got Proxmox up and running and installed Frigate through the community LXC repository on github. Most of the documentation is to first install Docker as LXC and then Frigate as a normal docker compose yml, where all the configuration is done. Now that I've skipped the docker bit, how do i config my camera on frigate? From reading the frigate website, i need access to config file. I also need to tell frigate to save all streaming on my Truenas that I've shared with Proxmox via a NFS share. Anyone have a similar setup? These LXC containers seem pretty cool as concept, as from what I understand, they're similar to a bare metal install except the host shares its kernel and they bring the convienence of containerisation. Basically, LXC and Docker are similar in concept but with Docker you have the benefit of compose and portainer which are universal whereas LXC is part of Proxmox. Is that a fair summary?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You have a few questions here, which ones do you want answered?

To configure the camera, you should have defined it in the config. That you don't know this means you should go back to the docs and read the setup section start to end.

I write my frigate clips to an NFS share. I mount it on the host and bind Mount the path in my container. You can also mount NFS directly in a container, but it comes with extra steps.

LXC is not a proxmox-specific thing. You can run lxc containers on almost any Linux and you can manage multiple containers with other software (lxd, incus, etc). At one time, docker was based on lxc, but both docker and lxc have evolved significantly since then.

LXC and docker are indeed similar, but one aims to provide an OS-level environment and the other simply a software environment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ah right. Docker seems to have gained more ground than LXC if its the first time I come across it. I hadn't realised they were similar, especially after I discovered that people are running docker in LXC ...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Docker seems to have gained more ground than LXC

They aren't really competing in the same space. LXC is more comparable to jails or openvz in that they provide an os layer, Docker does not.

I recently saw docker described in a web comic where some poor dev was bemoaning that his software "worked on his machine", and his teacher says "then we'll ship your machine", meaning Docker sets up a software environment for a project to work, nothing more.

Docker was at first based on lxc, but has since moved to its own libcontainer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

“Skipped the docker bit”? I’m assuming you mean by using the proxmox helper scripts? If so, the path to the config file is there as well. If you are setting this all up on your own without the helper script, then the config path is whatever you choose in your compose.yaml.

Frigate also has a built in config editor, so as long as you have it up and running with the correct storage path you can edit the configuration on the front end.

TBH, the phrase “skipped the docker” is a bit confusing. Running in LXC doesn’t mean you are not using docker, the script installs docker on the container. I personally don’t run it in a container, passing through storage and detector hardware can be challenging. Just spin up a small Debian VM, install docker and compose, and follow the frigate documentation. It’s very well written, and almost every problem you would run into is covered. It will give you the basics of the inner workings, and makes it much easier to pass through hardware and storage.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Ok, I hadn't realised that the helper script installs docker. I thought LXC was an alternative to docker.

Regarding the VM option, I did think of doing just that but read a lot about it using too many resources with frigate and LXC seems to be more efficient option when it comes to resources

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

LXCs are more an alternative to VMs if your use-case supports it.

Docker is its own thing with pre-made application images.

VMs barely use more resources than LXC, debian minimal probably needs another 50MB of RAM in a VM vs LXC and that's about the only difference. It matters at scale but for home use it really doesn't IMO.

That said LXC has some benefits over a VM of being able to pass through mounts and parts of devices, those can be useful for Frigate where you want to use Intel Quicksync or OpenVINO and still share it with the host and other containers, because you can't do that on a VM unless you have a device you can dedicate to the VM only. You can also bind mount a directory on the host to a directory inside the container which is useful for sharing files between multiple containers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

With one low res camera I ran it in a Debian vm with 4gb of Ram and two cores no problem. Once I had three 4K streams, I bumped it up to 16gb and 10 cores, only cause I wanted a hi-res live view, but I’m sure it would do fine with less with low res live view. Have been running it in a vm for two years now, no issues. Tried a bare metal install and lxc. Keep coming back to vm for the adaptability. Adding GPU and npu through lxc always made issues for me, but passing through to a vm is pretty well supported and documented, I think the ease of use outweighs the additional resources used by the vm. Plus I have read it’s not best practice to run docker inside an lxc.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Would using the Proxmox Helper Scrips be a good option here?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

OK, I should have been clearer. With "community LXC repository on github" I actually meant that I used the LXC scripts. It did go through a few questions at the start but nothing relating to storage and camera setup.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

@trilobite done similar set up but with #shinobi in #proxmox . I think you need to create some mount binding in order to make shares available in the LXC. Here is a link for a tutorial.

https://www.itsembedded.com/sysadmin/proxmox/_bind/_unprivileged/_lxc/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

That is brilliant. Thanks. I haven't read this all yet looks like what I need.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago

You're not really telling what the exact nature of your problem is, so it's hard to answer you.

What's the camera? How are you intending to connect to it? Do you otherwise have access to the feed of this camera as a user?

You need to give a lot more details, and maybe some errors to explain what you need help with.