I do the reverse… all configs are ansible scripts and files and I just push them to the servers. That way I can spin up a new machine from scratch, completely automated within minutes… just the time it takes the machine to set itself up.

On the host running unraid.

Just run Ubuntu server. You don’t want something so stripped down it lacks the basics… that’s more for embedded applications or in some cases containers. Ubuntu runs fine with 512MB of RAM on a 386 from the 1980’s… that’s the magic of Linux.