Deploying roon server in proxmox environment

Roon Software Discussion Linux
1

Hello everybody. I’m totally new to Roon, but not neceserily in IT.

Currently I have Roon installed on my Macbook M1 and it runs perfectly good, but there is one drawback - I have to have my notebook on each time I would like to listen any music and I’d like to play the music from mobile devices as well. I’ve got Proxmox VE in my basement where I have pfSense router and some smaller linux hosts for different tasks. The host is i5-8600T based machine with 32 gigs of RAM and M.2 drive for VMs. Got some questions:

  1. What resourcers should I assign to VM which will host Roon Server in terms of CPU Cores, RAM, and disk space - I will use Tidal as a source and EverSolo DMP-A8 as output device
  2. Should I run docker container (I’ve seen them here on forum), or install the server directly on Linux host? I use Debian distros, sometimes Ubuntu if I must strongly preferring pure Debian.
  3. How do I install it if I wanted to do it directly on linux host? Should I just run roonserver-installer-linuxx64.sh on clear system? Is it compatible with Debian 12?

Do I need to take any other aspects and issues under consideration? Any remarks and suggestions are much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Krzysztof

2

You might also ask in the Tinkering section.

3

Unprivileged deb container, 2 cores, 2-4 G ram, 8 G disk. Roon with the std installer. You can change ram and cores dynamically (without restart).

4

I just migrated my roon-server docker container from an Ubuntu VM running on ESXi to an unprivileged container on PVE 8.3. I’ve got my backups and music stored on TrueNAS Core CIFS shares. I had to create two CIFS mounts directly on PVE (/mnt/app_roon) using two systemctl mount files. In those files I specified a special Options line:

Options=uid=102010,gid=102010,file_mode=0770,dir_mode=0770,credentials=/etc/smbcreds-app_roon,vers=3.0,iocharset=utf8,sec=ntlmssp

The UID/GID is the TN UID/GID + 100000. I then added this as a mount point for the container. This successfully shared the CIFS mounts with Roon.

The one thing I forgot was the compose line:

network_mode: host

Once I did that, the container came right up.

5

With TN Fangtooth you could use an incus container as well, pass through your music & backup directories, install roon in the container, no need for proxmox, docker, cifs.

  • Create an incus container. Debian, ubuntu whatever you prefer
  • chown 2147000001:2147000001 roon_backup (mapped to root:root inside the container
  • Add your music and backup datasets as disks
  • Copy the roon installer into the container (e.g. to the backup ds or with ssh)
  • Log into the container, install the usual dependencies, execute the installer

The server is available to all roon clients and sees all endpoints.

6

@Nickpi you are correct. However, personally I’m going to wait a bit before starting down the path of containers or VMs in TrueNAS. I’ve read about some issues in Electric Eel and I’d like others to be the beta testers. I have concerns about running an Internet exposed “privileged” container. Seems like a good way to expose all your data. I have created what I call “app users” on TN and give them permissions to my TN shares. In Proxmox I create host CIFS shares under /mnt for each app user like, /mnt/app_roon. In that directory I CIFS mount my music folder as read only and my Roon backup folder as RWX. I bind mount those to the Roon container.

7

Just a reminder that running Roon in these environments is not officially supported and if you need some help, putting a question up about Proxmox, for example, under Tinkering might get more traction/eyes on.

8

I have concerns about running an Internet exposed “privileged” container.

It is unprivileged just like your proxmox container.

9

Sorry I wasn’t clear. I was describing my setup and explaining that I use an unprivileged container, not that TN is using a privileged container. Either way so far it’s working fine.