Package Center and containers

The NAS runs applications — a movie server with artwork, a private cloud, the whole house's ad blocker — each locked in its own container, without touching the system. The Package Center installs and updates them in one click; the Containers app shows the machinery underneath, for when you need to look.

You need a volume already created: applications and their data live on the volume (<pool>/apps/<application>/), never on the system disk — an app that grows fat cannot leave the NAS without room to update itself.

Installing

Pick the app in the catalogue —by category or searching— and press "Install". The download and startup run as a task with progress; when it finishes, apps with a web interface carry the "Open" button, which lands you on their screen. Each application keeps its own things in its data folder on the volume: reinstalling or updating never touches what is stored.

"Update" pulls the new image version and recreates the container with the same settings. The data is not even looked at: it lives in its folder, outside the container.

Catalogue sources

The catalogue ships with the house recipes and can sync community catalogues — with one enabled you go from dozens to around 2000 applications with categories and icons. Converted recipes point their data at the NAS data folder just like the native ones, so the "everything on the volume" rule holds wherever the app comes from. Removing a source takes its recipes out of the catalogue, never the apps you already installed.

Ports and folders

Every installed app has its "Ports and folders" button:

• Ports: which NAS port leads to which port inside the container. If the one the recipe proposes clashes with something of yours, change it here and the app is recreated with the new one.
• Folders: which NAS folders the app sees from inside. It is how you hand a movie server your Movies folder, or let a backup app see what it has to copy.

For whatever the screen does not cover there is advanced editing: the full recipe (docker compose) and its variables, editable as is. With a safety net: on apply, the containers are recreated with the new recipe and, if they do not come up, the previous configuration is restored automatically — a syntax slip does not leave the app dead.

Uninstalling

"Uninstall" stops the app and takes it off the list, and says it plainly: the data is kept on disk. Reinstalling it tomorrow brings it back with everything it had. If what you want is the space back, the option to also delete the data does it for real — and if something could not be deleted, it says so with a name and a reason instead of pretending it came out clean.

Containers, logs and console

The Containers app shows what actually runs: each container with its state, memory and processor.

• Logs: the container's output, searchable — the first place to look when an app will not start or acts strangely.
• Console: a terminal inside the container, for the look no panel can give.
• Stop, start and restart individual containers. Careful with removing a Package Center application's container: it does not uninstall it —it will be created again on update—, it only leaves it stopped. To really remove it, "Uninstall" in the Package Center.

Cleanup

Docker leaves old images behind with every update, and they take gigabytes nobody uses. The cleanup button gets them back: it deletes what no container references any more —orphaned images, loose layers— and says how much it freed. Apps and their data are not touched.

How it fits with the rest

• App data folders are normal volume folders: they go into backups and snapshots like everything else.
• If the volume is destroyed or moved, the panel relocates Docker and tells you which apps need reinstalling: it is covered in Disks, spares and replicas.
• To publish your own recipes into the catalogue there is the administration guide.