Should I move to Docker?
I'm a retired Unix admin. It was my job from the early '90s until the mid '10s. I've kept somewhat current ever since by running various machines at home. So far I've managed to avoid using Docker at home even though I have a decent understanding of how it works - I stopped being a sysadmin in the mid '10s, I still worked for a technology company and did plenty of "interesting" reading and training.
It seems that more and more stuff that I want to run at home is being delivered as Docker-first and I have to really go out of my way to find a non-Docker install.
I'm thinking it's no longer a fad and I should invest some time getting comfortable with it?
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IMO, yes. Docker (or at least OCI containers) aren't going anywhere. Though one big warning to start with, as a sysadmin, you're going to be absolutely aghast at the security practices that most docker tutorials suggest. Just know that it's really not that hard to do things right (for the most part[^0]).
I personally suggest using rootless podman with docker-compose via the podman-system-service.
Podman re-implements the docker cli using the system namespacing (etc.) features directly instead of through a daemon that runs as root. (You can run the docker daemon rootless, but it clearly wasn't designed for it and it just creates way more headaches.) The Podman System Service re-implements the docker daemon's UDS API which allows real Docker Compose to run without the docker-daemon.
[^0]: If anyone can tell me how to set SELinux labels such that both a container and a samba server can have access, I could fix my last remaining major headache.
I don't know if this is what you are looking for but I used :z with podman mounting and it Just Works*.
podman run -d -v /dir:/var/lib/dir:z imageFrom the documentation :z or :Z relabels volumes for host and container usage depending.
Unfortunately, no. Samba needs a different label. Doing that relabels things so that only containers (and anything unrestriced) can access those files.