Tag: homelab

k3s Node Upgrades Without Downtime

Upgrade k3s without dropping workloads: the cordon and drain sequence, then system-upgrade-controller Plans that automate it, with PDB and Longhorn gotchas.

IoT VLANs That Don't Break Chromecast

Put smart plugs and TVs on an IoT VLAN, then fix Chromecast, AirPlay and Sonos discovery with an mDNS reflector and the right firewall rules. Configs included.

Split-Horizon DNS for a Home Lab VPN

Make jellyfin.home.example.com resolve to a LAN IP at home and over WireGuard or Tailscale, and to your public IP elsewhere. Unbound and AdGuard Home configs.

Idle Watts Audit: Halve Your Lab's Draw

Find what pins your home lab at high idle power: ASPM, package C-states, disks, NICs, and chatty containers. Measure at the wall and fix one blocker at a time.

One PC, Many Players: Steam Headless

Run several Steam Headless v2 containers on one Linux box so a household can play at once, each seat streamed with Moonlight. Compose file, numbers, gotchas.

Uptime Kuma vs Gatus vs Cachet

Uptime Kuma, Gatus, and Cachet all make a status page, but only two of them check anything. Here is which one to run in a home lab, with Compose files for each.

Sizing 7 Days to Die and Other RAM Hogs

Size RAM for a 7 Days to Die server and other hogs (Palworld, Valheim, modded Minecraft). Measure real use, cap it in Docker, and restart on a schedule.

Home Lab Threat Model: What's Exposed

Mass scanners find a new home lab IP within hours. Audit what the internet can reach, from UPnP to Docker ports to IPv6, then build a threat model that fits.

Kyverno: K8s Policy Without Rego

Kyverno on k3s: validate, mutate, generate, verify signed images, handle exceptions, and test policies in CI. Plus the CEL policy types replacing ClusterPolicy.

Btrfs Send/Receive: Incremental Backups

Back up btrfs with send and receive: full and incremental streams over SSH, parent snapshots, restores, failure modes, and btrbk to automate the whole loop.

Grafana Dashboard Sprawl: 50 Panels to 10

Your Grafana dashboard is a wall of 50 panels nobody reads. Use USE and RED to cut it to ten, move the rest to drill-downs, and keep the result in git.

Solar Plus Battery for Your Home Lab

Grid-tied solar shuts off in an outage. The battery keeps your lab alive. Size it first, then the panels, with real prices for a power station vs a 48V build.