🏠 Homelab Project

This repository is a WIP to learn more about self-hosting, kubernetes, and creating a secure homelab.

🖥️ Hardware

Current Setup

• Beelink EQ14 Mini PC x 2 - Compact but powerful mini PCs with AMD Ryzen 7 5800H, 32GB RAM, and 500GB SSD

Coming Soon

• Tecmojo 9U Wall Mount Rack - Professional 9U network cabinet for organizing network equipment and servers
• UniFi Dream Machine Pro - Enterprise-grade router/firewall with built-in Network Controller, 10G ports, and advanced security features (IPS/IDS)

🛠️ Infrastructure

Core Software

• Proxmox - Enterprise-class hypervisor for running and managing multiple virtual machines and containers
• Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS - Latest LTS release of Ubuntu Server, providing a stable and secure base OS with 5 years of support

Kubernetes Stack

• k3s - Lightweight Kubernetes distribution perfect for edge, IoT, and homelab environments (uses just 512MB RAM)
• FluxCD - GitOps toolkit for automating Kubernetes deployments using a Git repository as the source of truth
• Kustomize - Template-free way to customize Kubernetes manifests for different environments
• Aaptakube - Modern, native macOS GUI for managing Kubernetes clusters with a clean interface

🚀 Apps Running

Infrastructure & Security

• Cloudflare Tunnel - Secure, zero-trust tunnel to expose services without opening ports or managing DNS

Monitoring

• Grafana - Feature-rich platform for metrics visualization, alerting, and dashboards
• Prometheus - Time-series database and monitoring system with powerful querying and alerting capabilities

Applications

• Ghost - Modern, open-source publishing platform with a clean interface and membership capabilities
• Home Assistant - Open source home automation platform that puts local control and privacy first
• Hoarder - AI-powered bookmarking tool that automatically tags and organizes saved content
• IT Tools - Collection of utilities for developers including encoders, formatters, and generators

Databases

• PGVector - PostgreSQL extension for vector similarity search, enabling AI and ML applications

📚 Resources

• Fantastic tutorial on setting up a homelab - Comprehensive guide covering hardware selection to software deployment
• Securely expose your homelab using Cloudflare - Tutorial on implementing zero-trust access with Cloudflare
• GitOps with ArgoCD - Step-by-step guide for implementing GitOps workflows
• k3s Cluser with Ansible - Automated k3s cluster setup using Ansible playbooks

🎯 Tech Learning Roadmap

Infrastructure & OS

• Talos OS - Security-focused, minimal Linux OS designed specifically for running Kubernetes, with immutable infrastructure
• Amazon EKS via eksctl - Official CLI tool for Amazon EKS that simplifies cluster creation and management

Infrastructure as Code

• Pulumi - Modern IaC platform using familiar programming languages (TypeScript, Python, Go) instead of DSLs
• OpenTofu - Community-driven, open source fork of Terraform maintaining compatibility while ensuring long-term sustainability

Container Management

• Portainer - Lightweight container management UI with support for Docker, Kubernetes, and edge environments
• Docker Stack - Advanced Docker Compose feature for managing multi-container applications in swarm mode
• ArgoCD - Declarative GitOps tool for Kubernetes with a rich UI and automated sync capabilities

Networking & Proxy

• Caddy - Modern web server with automatic HTTPS, HTTP/3 support, and simple configuration syntax
• Traefik - Cloud-native edge router that auto-discovers services and handles SSL termination

Monitoring & Management

• RenovateBot - Automated dependency updates across multiple package ecosystems with fine-grained controls
• UptimeRobot - Website monitoring service that checks your sites every 5 minutes and alerts on downtime