Before It Started…
When I began working as a DevOps engineer at Košík.cz, I started using Kubernetes daily for the first time. I quickly realized I had basically no clue how it worked or how to properly manage it. After reading many blogs and exploring Kubernetes for about a year, I noticed much of the setup had been done by my colleagues.
I decided to buy a Raspberry Pi 5 8GB and start my own homelab where I would set up an entire Kubernetes cluster myself. My goal was to gain fundamental knowledge about core components of cloud computing.
Homelab Progress Checklist
The links are clickable 👀 with more about the topic.
| Category | Task | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Networking | LoadBalancer setup on bare metal | ✅ |
| Networking | Configure Ingress for internet traffic | ✅ |
| Networking | Internal vs External traffic configuration | ✅ |
| Networking | VPN setup - done on Router | ✅ |
| Networking | CertManager implementation - HTTPS | ✅ |
| Networking | DNS - External DNS | ✅ |
| Networking | Make this website Google indexed | ✅ |
| Observability | Grafana - eBPF or cilium | ❌ |
| Observability | Grafana & Prometheus monitoring | ✅ |
| Observability | Kube-State-Metrics | ✅ |
| Observability | Loki & Tempo logging/tracing | In progress |
| Observability | Cluster log scraping -> Using OTEL Collector | In progress |
| ArgoCD | Installation script | ✅ |
| ArgoCD | App synchronization for cluster bootstrapping | ✅ |
| ArgoCD | ArgoCD Projects deep dive | ❌ |
| Cluster | Add additional nodes | ❌ |
| Cluster | Dedicated master for core services | ❌ |
| Cluster | Storage vs non-storage nodes configuration | ❌ |
| Security | Secrets management with ArgoCD + Kubernetes - https://external-secrets.io/latest/ or argocd plugin for Azure | ❌ |
| Security | Network security (Firewall, VPN, etc.) | ❌ |
| Projects | Plex media server | ✅ |
| Projects | Torrent server | ✅ |
| Projects | PiHole + DNS configuration | ✅ |
| Projects | Longhorn storage system | ✅ |
| Projects | Longhorn multi-node deep dive | ❌ |
| Projects | Documentation application | ❌ |
| Projects | Cloud K6 load testing | ❌ |
| Projects | Performance benchmarks 📈 | ❌ |
| Projects | Quarkus v OTEL vs Without OTEL | In progress |
Many more to be added as the homelab evolves…