Khue’s Homelab

Features • Get Started • Documentation

This project utilizes Infrastructure as Code and GitOps to automate provisioning, operating, and updating self-hosted services in my homelab. It can be used as a highly customizable framework to build your own homelab.

What is a homelab?

Homelab is a laboratory at home where you can self-host, experiment with new technologies, practice for certifications, and so on. For more information, please see the r/homelab introduction and the Home Operations Discord community (formerly known as k8s-at-home).

If you encounter an issue, please create a bug report (avoid asking for support about issues specific to this project in other communication channels).

Overview

Project status: ALPHA

This project is still in the experimental stage, and I don’t use anything critical on it. Expect breaking changes that may require a complete redeployment. A proper upgrade path is planned for the stable release. More information can be found in the roadmap below.

Hardware

4 × NEC SFF PC-MK26ECZDR (Japanese version of the ThinkCentre M700):
- CPU: Intel Core i5-6600T @ 2.70GHz
- RAM: 16GB
- SSD: 128GB
TP-Link TL-SG108 switch:
- Ports: 8
- Speed: 1000Mbps

Features

Common applications: Forgejo, Immich, OpenCloud, Matrix…
Automated bare metal provisioning with PXE boot
Automated Kubernetes installation and management
Installing and managing applications using GitOps
Automatic OS rolling upgrade
Automated version update (with approval)
Modular architecture, easy to add or remove features/components
Automated certificate management
Automatically update DNS records for exposed services
VPN (Tailscale or WireGuard)
Expose services to the internet securely with Cloudflare Tunnel
CI/CD platform
Private container registry
Distributed storage
Support multiple environments (staging, production)
Monitoring and alerting
Automated backup and restore
Single sign-on
Infrastructure testing

Some demo videos and screenshots are shown here. They can’t capture all the project’s features, but they are sufficient to get a concept of it.

Demo

Deploy with a single command (after updating the configuration files)

PXE boot

Observe network traffic with Kiali

Homepage powered by… Homepage

Monitoring dashboard powered by Grafana

Git server powered by Forgejo

Matrix chat (FluffyChat UI)

Photo library powered by Immich

File storage powered by OpenCloud

Container registry powered by Zot

Continuous integration with Woodpecker CI

Continuous deployment with ArgoCD

ntfy displaying received alerts

Tech stack

Logo	Name	Description
	Argo CD	GitOps tool built to deploy applications to Kubernetes
	cert-manager	Cloud native certificate management
	Cloudflare	DNS, Tunnel and R2 for OpenTofu state
	ExternalDNS	Synchronizes exposed Kubernetes Services and HTTPRoutes with DNS providers
	Forgejo	Self-hosted Git service
	Go	Custom CLI and infrastructure tests with Terratest
	Grafana	Observability platform
	Helm	The package manager for Kubernetes
	Istio	Kubernetes service mesh and gateway
	K3s	Lightweight distribution of Kubernetes
	Kanidm	Modern and simple identity management platform
	kube-vip	Provides virtual IPs and load balancer for the Kubernetes API and Services
	Kubernetes	Container-orchestration system, the backbone of this project
	Loki	Log aggregation system
	NixOS / Nix	Base OS and convenient development shell
	Nixie	Open-source bare metal provisioning engine for NixOS
	OpenBao	Secrets management
	OpenTofu	Open-source Infrastructure as Code
	Prometheus	Systems monitoring and alerting toolkit
	Renovate	Automatically update dependencies
	Rook Ceph	Cloud-Native Storage for Kubernetes
	Terragrunt	Coordinate OpenTofu modules
	Velero	Backs up and restores Kubernetes
	Woodpecker CI	Simple yet powerful CI/CD engine with great extensibility
	Zot Registry	Private container registry

Get Started

Deploy on real hardware for production workload

Roadmap

See roadmap and open issues for a list of proposed features and known issues.

Contributing

Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

Please see contributing guide for more information.

License

Distributed under the GPLv3 License.

Acknowledgements

References:

Here is a list of the contributors who have helped to improve this project. Big shout-out to them!

If you feel you’re missing from this list, please feel free to add yourself in a PR.

Stargazers over time

Prerequisites

Fork this repository

Because this project applies GitOps practices, it’s the source of truth for my homelab, so you’ll need to fork it to make it yours:

Fork khuedoan/homelab

By using this project you agree to the license.

Important

License TL;DR

This project is free to use for any purpose, but it comes with no warranty

You must use the same GPLv3 license in docs/reference/license.md

You must keep the copy right notice and/or include an acknowledgement

Your project must remain open-source

Hardware requirements

Initial controller

Note

The initial controller is the machine used to bootstrap the cluster, we only need it once, you can use your laptop or desktop

A Linux machine with Nix and sudo access (for privileged ports when PXE booting with Nixie).
An SSH agent, preferably with a TPM-backed key to keep the private key in hardware.
Add your public SSH key to infra/src/modules/metal/flake/authorized_keys.

Servers

Any modern x86_64 computer(s) should work, you can use old PCs, laptops or servers.

Note

This is the requirements for each node

Component	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	2 cores	4 cores
RAM	8 GB	16 GB
Hard drive	128 GB	512 GB (depending on your storage usage, the base installation will not use more than 128GB)
Node count	1 (checkout the single node cluster adjustments tutorial)	3 or more for high availability

Additional capabilities:

Ability to boot from the network (PXE boot)
Wake-on-LAN capability, used to wake the machines up automatically without physically touching the power button

Network setup

All servers must be connected to the same wired network with the initial controller
Access to your domain’s DNS settings in Cloudflare

External resources

A domain managed by Cloudflare is required.

Although I try to keep the amount of external resources to the minimum, there’s still need for a few of them. Below is a list of external resources and why we need them (also see some alternatives below).

Provider	Resource	Purpose
Cloudflare	R2 bucket	OpenTofu state and encrypted volume backups
Cloudflare	DNS	DNS and DNS-01 challenge for certificates
Cloudflare	Tunnel	Public services to the internet without port forwarding
ntfy.sh	Upstream	Push relay for self-hosted ntfy notifications

Create credentials

Cloudflare

Add your domain to Cloudflare if you haven’t already
Log in from the development shell:

cf auth login

Grant the following permissions:

Account API Tokens Write
R2 bucket and object access
DNS
Tunnel

If your existing login lacks these permissions, run cf auth login --force and approve them.

Alternatives

To avoid vendor lock-in, each external provider must have an equivalent alternative that is easy to replace:

Cloudflare R2:
- Update the backend and bootstrap hook in infra/root.hcl for another state backend
Cloudflare Tunnel:
- Use port forwarding if it’s available
- Create a small VPS in the cloud and use WireGuard to route traffic via it
- Access everything via VPN
- See also awesome tunneling

BIOS setup

Note

You need to do it once per machine if the default config is not sufficient, usually for consumer hardware this can not be automated (it requires something like IPMI to automate).

Common settings:

Enable Wake-on-LAN (WoL) and network boot
Use UEFI mode and disable CSM (legacy) mode
Disable secure boot

Boot order options (select one, each has their pros and cons):

Only boot from the network if no operating system found: works on most hardware but you need to manually wipe your hard drive or delete the existing boot record for the current OS
Prefer booting from the network if turned on via WoL: more convenience but your BIOS must support it, and you must test it thoroughly to ensure you don’t accidentally wipe your servers

Note

Example

Below is my BIOS setup for reference. Your motherboard may have a different name for the options, so you’ll need to adapt it to your hardware.
Devices:
  NetworkSetup:
    PXEIPv4: true
    PXEIPv6: false
Advanced:
  CPUSetup:
    VT-d: true
Power:
  AutomaticPowerOn:
    WoL: Automatic  # Use network boot if Wake-on-LAN
Security:
  SecureBoot: false
Startup:
  CSM: false

Gather information

MAC address for each machine
OS disk name (for example /dev/sda)
Choose a static IP address for each machine (just the desired address, we don’t set anything up yet)
Choose an unused IP range for LoadBalancer Services (e.g. 192.168.1.224/27) and a control-plane VIP (e.g. 192.168.1.100)
Subnet prefix length and gateway

Configuration

Configure nodes

Edit infra/production/metal/hosts.json with your machines’ static IPs, MAC addresses, and disk paths. Installation erases the disks.

Note

Example

{
  "homelab-1": {"ip": "192.168.1.110", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:01", "disk": "/dev/sda"},
  "homelab-2": {"ip": "192.168.1.111", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:02", "disk": "/dev/sda"},
  "homelab-3": {"ip": "192.168.1.112", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:03", "disk": "/dev/sda"},
  "homelab-4": {"ip": "192.168.1.113", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:04", "disk": "/dev/sda"}
}

Configure the cluster

Edit infra/production/cluster/config.json with your network settings. Set init_host to a host in the inventory:

{
  "init_host": "homelab-1",
  "vip": "192.168.1.100",
  "load_balancer_cidr": "192.168.1.224/27",
  "network": {"prefix_length": 24, "gateway": "192.168.1.1"}
}

Configure services

Update the following settings in infra/production/:

domain in the cloudflare, argocd, and platform Terragrunt units
zone_name in the Cloudflare unit

Review the settings in apps/*.yaml, including image registries and homepage links.

After examining the diff, commit and push the changes. Continue with deployment.

Deployment

Open the development shell if you haven’t already:

nix develop

Build the lab:

just deploy production

Yes it’s that simple!

It will take a while to download everything, you can read the architecture document while waiting for the deployment to complete.

Post-installation

Access the cluster

Export the environment’s kubeconfig, e.g., production:

export KUBECONFIG="$PWD/infra/production/kubeconfig.yaml"

Create users

Follow the user onboarding guide to create accounts and assign access. Use SSO to sign in to applications.

Verify backups

Follow the backup and restore guide to check backups and restore data.

Run tests

Run offline checks:

just test

Run live tests against staging:

just test e2e staging

See the testing reference for individual checks.

VPN setup

You can choose between Tailscale, WireGuard, or use both like me. I primarily use WireGuard but keep Tailscale as a backup for when the WireGuard server is down.

Tailscale (requires third-party account)

Tailscale provides access through a subnet router in the cluster.

Select the environment’s kubeconfig:

export KUBECONFIG="$PWD/infra/production/kubeconfig.yaml"

Read the router’s login URL:

kubectl -n tailscale logs deployment/tailscale

Open the login URL and enroll the device in your tailnet.
Approve its advertised subnet in the Tailscale admin console.
Install Tailscale on your devices, sign in, and enable subnet routes where required by the client.

You can invite users to your tailnet.

WireGuard (requires port-forwarding)

WireGuard Portal is available at https://vpn.<domain> with SSO.

Prerequisites

Configure port forwarding in your router for the WireGuard service.

Note

Example

Each router is different, here’s mine for reference:

Protocol: UDP

Start Port: 51820

End Port: 51820

Local IP Address: 192.168.1.226 (find it with kubectl get service -n wireguard wireguard-wireguard)

Start Port Local: 51820

End Port Local: 51820

Configure the server

Name: wg0
Address: 10.44.0.1/24
Listen port: 51820
Enable default peer creation
Client network: 10.44.0.0/24
Client endpoint: wg.<domain>:51820
Client allowed IPs: 10.44.0.0/24 and your application LoadBalancer subnet

Choose a tunnel network that doesn’t overlap your LAN, pod, or Service networks.

Add a new device

WireGuard Portal will create one device by default. Users can add more if needed.

Install WireGuard, then download the configuration as wg0.conf or scan its QR code. Keep the configuration private.

Mobile

Scan the QR code from the portal using the official WireGuard app.

Linux

Import the WireGuard configuration using NetworkManager:

nmcli connection import type wireguard file wg0.conf

Activate the connection:

nmcli connection up wg0

Connect and test access to a private application while outside your LAN.

Headscale

Headscale is a self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale control server that does not require a third-party account. To set it up, take a look at the changes proposed by this PR.

User onboarding

For user

Create user

Ask an admin to create your account, provide the following information:

Full name (John Doe)
Select a username (johndoe)
Email address (johndoe@example.com)

Install companion apps

For all users:

A password manager (I personally recommend Bitwarden)
A Matrix chat client (optional, you can use the web version)

For technical users:

Docker
Nix and direnv (optional, but highly recommended)
Lens (optional, you can use kubectl in the development shell)

For admin

Create the account:

just user production johndoe "John Doe" johndoe@example.com

Share the one-time link privately for the user to set up passkeys or password + TOTP.

To include additional access groups when creating the account, pass a comma-separated list:

just user production johndoe "John Doe" johndoe@example.com admins,developers

Group	Access
`users`	Use applications and view dashboards (added by default)
`developers`	Edit dashboards and push to the GitOps repository
`admins`	Admin access to applications

PXE boot

sequenceDiagram
    participant Nixie
    participant Router as Router (DHCP)
    participant Machines

    Nixie->>Nixie: Load hosts.json
    Nixie->>Machines: Check recorded machine IDs over SSH
    Note over Nixie: Skip recorded hosts, even if unreachable<br/>or their identity differs. Stop if all are recorded.

    Nixie->>Nixie: Build NixOS installer with Nix
    Nixie->>Nixie: Start ProxyDHCP, TFTP, HTTP, and API services
    loop Each uninstalled machine
        Nixie->>Machines: Send Wake-on-LAN packet
    end

    par Machines boot and install concurrently
        Note over Machines: UEFI PXE boot
        Machines->>Router: Broadcast DHCP discovery
        Machines->>Nixie: Same broadcast
        par IP configuration
            Router-->>Machines: Assign IP address
        and PXE discovery
            Nixie-->>Machines: Offer PXE boot server (ProxyDHCP)
        end
        Machines->>Nixie: Discover boot file (UDP 4011)
        Nixie-->>Machines: iPXE bootloader path
        Machines->>Nixie: Request bootloader (TFTP)
        Nixie-->>Machines: iPXE bootloader

        Note over Router,Machines: iPXE repeats DHCP discovery<br/>ProxyDHCP supplies the boot-script URL
        Machines->>Nixie: Request boot script, then kernel and initrd (HTTP)
        Nixie-->>Machines: Boot script, kernel, and initrd
        Note over Machines: Boot NixOS installer<br/>systemd starts nixie-agent

        Machines->>Nixie: POST /install with MAC address
        Nixie->>Nixie: Select host flake by MAC<br/>Use request's source IP for SSH
        Nixie->>Machines: Run nixos-anywhere to install NixOS over SSH
        Note over Machines: Reboot into installed system
        Nixie->>Machines: Read installed /etc/machine-id over SSH
        Machines-->>Nixie: Machine ID
        Nixie->>Nixie: Save IP and machine ID hash to hosts.json<br/>Mark host installed
    end

    Note over Nixie: Shut down after all hosts are installed

Here’s how it looks like in action (this is an old clip so the logs look different now):

Secrets management

Overview

Secrets are stored in OpenBao.
Integrate with GitOps using the Bank-Vaults secrets webhook.
Secrets that can be generated are automatically generated and stored in OpenBao.

flowchart TD
  operator[Bank-Vaults operator] -- generate --> OpenBao
  setup[Just recipes] -- sync infrastructure secrets --> OpenBao
  webhook[Secrets webhook] -- read --> OpenBao

  subgraph app-namespace[application namespace]
    Secret --> App
  end

  webhook -- inject --> Secret

Generated and external secrets

Bank-Vaults generates secrets configured in infra/src/modules/platform/openbao.tf, keeping existing values.
just deploy syncs infrastructure credentials from OpenTofu’s secrets outputs, along with SSO and Forgejo credentials.

Infra secret outputs

To publish secrets from an OpenTofu module, add a sensitive secrets output.

output "secrets" {
  sensitive = true
  value = {
    "cert-manager/cloudflare" = { # OpenBao path
      api_token = cloudflare_account_token.cert_manager.value # secret values
    }
  }
}

just deploy production writes these under OpenBao’s secret KV mount.

Secret injection

Secrets use <namespace>/<name> paths, for example forgejo/admin. Applications can only read secrets for their own namespace.

When you apply a labeled Secret, for example:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: forgejo-admin
  namespace: forgejo
  labels:
    homelab.khuedoan.com/bao-secret: "true"
stringData:
  username: forgejo_admin
  password: bao:secret/data/forgejo/admin#password

The webhook reads the password from OpenBao and stores it in the Kubernetes Secret. The OpenBao record must already exist. Argo CD ignores the injected values.

References are resolved when the Secret is created or updated. After rotation, reapply the references and restart the applications using the Secret.

Please see the official documentation for more information.

Certificate management

Certificates are generated and managed by cert-manager with Let’s Encrypt, and renewed automatically.

cert-manager watches Gateway resources across the cluster. When you create a Gateway with the issuer annotation:

apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Gateway
metadata:
  annotations:
    cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: acme
  name: gateway
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  gatewayClassName: istio
  listeners:
    - name: https
      hostname: '*.example.com'
      port: 443
      protocol: HTTPS
      tls:
        mode: Terminate
        certificateRefs:
          - name: wildcard-tls
      allowedRoutes:
        namespaces:
          from: All

flowchart LR
  User -- 6 --> Gateway

  subgraph cluster[Homelab cluster]
    Gateway --- Secret
    Gateway -. 1 .-> Certificate
    Certificate -. 5 .-> Secret
    Certificate -- 2 --> CertificateRequest -- 3 --> Order -- 4 --> Challenge
  end

  Order -.- ACMEServer[ACME server]

  subgraph dnsprovider[DNS provider]
    TXT
  end

  Challenge -- 4.a --> TXT
  ACMEServer -.- Challenge
  ACMEServer -. "4.b" .-> TXT

cert-manager creates a corresponding Certificate resource
Based on the Certificate resource, cert-manager creates a CertificateRequest resource to request a signed certificate from the configured ClusterIssuer
The CertificateRequest will create an order with an ACME server (we use Let’s Encrypt), which is represented by the Order resource
Then cert-manager will perform a DNS-01 Challenge:
1. Create a DNS TXT record (contains a computed key)
2. The ACME server retrieve this key via a DNS lookup and validate that we own the domain for the requested certificate
cert-manager stores the certificate (typically tls.crt and tls.key) in the Secret specified in the Gateway configuration
Now you can access the HTTPS website with a valid certificate

A much more detailed diagram can be found in the official documentation under certificate lifecycle.

Development shell

The development shell makes it easy to get all of the dependencies needed to interact with the homelab.

Prerequisites

Note

NixOS users can skip this step.

Install Nix using one of the following methods:

If you’re using the official installer, add the following to your ~/.config/nix/nix.conf to enable Flakes:

experimental-features = nix-command flakes

How to open it

Run the following command:

nix develop

It will open a shell with all the dependencies defined in ./flake.nix:

[khuedoan@ryzentower:~/Documents/homelab]$ which kubectl
/nix/store/0558zzzqynzw7rx9dp2i7jymvznd1cqx-kubectl-1.30.1/bin/kubectl

Tip

If you have direnv installed, you can run direnv allow once and it will automatically enter the Nix shell every time you cd into the project.

Testing the system

tests/ cover cluster access, networking, storage, backups, GitOps, secrets, etc.

just test
just test e2e staging

See the testing reference for more.

Expose services to the internet

Note

This tutorial is for Cloudflare Tunnel users, please skip if you use port forwarding.

Apply the environment’s Cloudflare unit to create a tunnel if you haven’t already, then attach your HTTPRoute to the public Gateway (replace example.com with your domain):

apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: website
  namespace: website
  annotations:
    external-dns.kubernetes.io/cloudflare-proxied: "true"
spec:
  parentRefs:
    - name: public
      namespace: istio-system
      sectionName: https
  hostnames:
    - www.example.com
  rules:
    - backendRefs:
        - name: website
          port: 3000

The public Gateway supplies the DNS target for the environment’s tunnel.

Backup and restore

Prerequisites

Keep access to your Cloudflare account and existing OpenTofu state in R2. The state contains the backup credentials and Kopia repository password.

From the development shell, select the environment and its kubeconfig:

env=production
export KUBECONFIG="$PWD/infra/$env/kubeconfig.yaml"

Back up the cluster

Velero runs hourly backups. To create one now:

velero backup create --from-schedule cluster --wait
velero backup get
velero backup describe BACKUP_NAME --details

Check the result for warnings and failed uploads.

Restore an application

Pause the affected Argo CD Applications and their ApplicationSet, then stop the workloads.

Start in read-only mode:

export TF_VAR_backup_read_only=true
(cd "infra/$env/platform" && terragrunt run apply)

Check that app reconciliation remains paused after applying the platform.

Select a backup and restore the app namespace:

velero backup get
velero restore create --from-backup BACKUP_NAME --include-namespaces APP_NAMESPACE --wait
velero restore get
velero restore describe RESTORE_NAME --details

Verify the restored data before resuming workloads and GitOps reconciliation. Then resume scheduled backups:

unset TF_VAR_backup_read_only
(cd "infra/$env/platform" && terragrunt run apply)

Dependency updates

We use Renovate to update dependencies automatically. In Woodpecker, under the homelab project:

Start a manual pipeline on the default branch.
Select the renovate workflow.
Review its PRs and merge them.

Use both GitHub and Forgejo

Even though we self-host Forgejo, you may still want to use GitHub as a backup and for discovery.

Add both push URLs (replace my repositories with yours):

git remote set-url --add --push origin https://git.khuedoan.com/ops/homelab.git
git remote set-url --add --push origin git@github.com:khuedoan/homelab

Now you can just run git push like usual and it will push to both GitHub and Forgejo.

Add or remove nodes

Or how to scale horizontally. To replace the same node with a clean OS, remove it and add it again.

Add new nodes

Tip

You can add multiple nodes at the same time

Add its details to the inventory:

 {
  "homelab-1": {"ip": "192.168.1.110", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:01", "disk": "/dev/sda"},
  "homelab-2": {"ip": "192.168.1.111", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:02", "disk": "/dev/sda"},
  "homelab-3": {"ip": "192.168.1.112", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:03", "disk": "/dev/sda"},
+ "homelab-4": {"ip": "192.168.1.113", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:04", "disk": "/dev/sda"}
 }

Install the OS and join the cluster:

just deploy production

Then verify the new node:

export KUBECONFIG="$PWD/infra/production/kubeconfig.yaml"
kubectl get nodes

That’s it!

Remove a node

Warning

It is recommended to remove nodes one at a time

Use the environment’s kubeconfig:

export KUBECONFIG="$PWD/infra/production/kubeconfig.yaml"

Drain the node:

kubectl drain ${NODE_NAME} --delete-emptydir-data --ignore-daemonsets --force

Remove the node from the cluster

kubectl delete node ${NODE_NAME}

Shutdown the node:

ssh root@${NODE_IP} poweroff

Remove it from the inventory:

 {
  "homelab-1": {"ip": "192.168.1.110", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:01", "disk": "/dev/sda"},
  "homelab-2": {"ip": "192.168.1.111", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:02", "disk": "/dev/sda"},
  "homelab-3": {"ip": "192.168.1.112", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:03", "disk": "/dev/sda"},
- "homelab-4": {"ip": "192.168.1.113", "mac_address": "02:00:00:00:00:04", "disk": "/dev/sda"}
 }

Reapply the environment with just deploy production. Don’t replace the initializer with a fresh server in an existing cluster.

Optionally, after Ceph finishes recovering, clean up the removed node’s OSD records using the Rook guide.

Single node cluster adjustments

Warning

This is not officially supported and I don’t regularly test it, I highly recommend using multiple nodes.

Using a single node could lead to data loss unless your backup strategy is rock solid, make sure you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN this is what you want.

Make the following changes, then commit and push.

Configure the node

Keep one host in infra/production/metal/hosts.json.
Set it as init_host in infra/production/cluster/config.json.

Remove storage redundancy

Set ceph_replica_count to 1 in the inputs block of infra/production/platform/terragrunt.hcl:

ceph_replica_count = 1

Updating documentation (this website)

This project uses the Diátaxis technical documentation framework. The website is generated using mdBook and can be viewed at homelab.khuedoan.com.

There are 4 main parts:

Getting started (tutorials): learning-oriented
Concepts (explanation): understanding-oriented
How-to guides: goal-oriented
Reference: information-oriented

Local development

To edit and view locally, run:

just docs

Then visit localhost:8000

Deployment

It’s running on GitHub Pages under the pages branch (so even if my homelab goes down everyone can still read the documentation).

To publish:

just publish

PXE boot

PXE server logs

View the Nixie output in the terminal running just deploy production (or staging). To retry metal provisioning:

just --dotenv-path infra/production/.env infra apply production --filter metal

Nodes not booting from the network

Plug a monitor and a keyboard to one of the bare metal node if possible to make the debugging process easier
Check if the controller (PXE server) is on the same subnet with bare metal nodes (sometimes Wifi will not work or conflict with wired Ethernet, try to turn it off)
Check if bare metal nodes are configured to boot from the network
Check if Wake-on-LAN is enabled
Check the controller’s firewall config to make sure that the following ports are open:
- UDP 67 and 68 for DHCP
- UDP 69 for TFTP
- UDP 4011 for the PXE boot service
- TCP 80 for the boot files
- TCP 5000 for the installer callback API
Check if the servers are booting to the correct OS (NixOS installer instead of the previously installed OS), if not try to select it manually or remove the previous OS boot entry
Examine the network boot process with Wireshark or Termshark

Verify your authorized SSH keys and trusted host keys if provisioning succeeds but enrollment fails.

Overview

Components

Main components:

./infra: bare metal management, Kubernetes, and platform services
./apps: user facing applications

Support components:

./docs: all documentation go here, this will generate a searchable web UI
./tests: automated tests for the entire system

Provisioning flow

After editing the configuration files, run a single just command to:

(1) Apply the metal and cluster units:
- Create an ephemeral, stateless PXE server
- Install NixOS on all servers in parallel
- Build a Kubernetes cluster (based on k3s)
- Export and verify its kubeconfig
(2) Bootstrap GitOps with ArgoCD
(3) Deploy platform components
(4) Push the GitOps repo to Forgejo
(5) Deploy applications in ./apps with ArgoCD

flowchart TD
  subgraph metal[metal]
    pxe[PXE Server] -.-> linux[NixOS Server] --> k3s --> kubeconfig[Verified kubeconfig]
  end

  metal --> argocd[ArgoCD] --> platform
  cloudflare[Cloudflare resources]

  subgraph platform[platform]
    istio[Istio gateways]
    rook-ceph[Rook Ceph]
    cert-manager
    external-dns[External DNS]
    cloudflared
    OpenBao
    Kanidm
    Forgejo
    Woodpecker
    Grafana
  end

  letsencrypt[Let's Encrypt] -.-> cert-manager
  cloudflare -.-> cert-manager
  cloudflare -.-> external-dns
  cloudflare -.-> cloudflared

  subgraph apps[./apps]
    homepage[Homepage]
    budget[Actual Budget]
    drive[OpenCloud]
    matrix[Matrix]
  end

  platform --> sync[Lab setup and GitOps push] --> apps
  cloudflare --> sync
  backup[Backup storage] --> sync
  backup --> velero[Velero]

Networking

flowchart TD
  subgraph LAN
    laptop/desktop/phone <--> LoadBalancer
    subgraph k8s[Kubernetes cluster]
      Gateway --> Service
      Service --> Pod

      LoadBalancer[kube-vip Service VIP]
      Gateway[Istio gateways]

      cloudflared
      cloudflared <--> Gateway
    end
    LoadBalancer <--> Gateway
  end

  cloudflared -- outbound --> Cloudflare
  Internet -- inbound --> Cloudflare

Flannel provides pod networking.
kube-vip provides the control-plane VIP and Service load balancing.
Tailscale and WireGuard provide remote access when you’re not at home.
Istio gateways route HTTP traffic to applications.
Cloudflare Tunnel exposes services to the internet through an outbound connection.
Istio ambient mesh encrypts traffic between application Pods without sidecars, with traffic visualization using Kiali.

Decision records

These are the records of design decisions for future reference in order to understand why things are the way they are. They are not permanent, we can change them in the future if better alternatives become available.

Template

Description of the the change

Context

CHANGEME

Decision

CHANGEME

Consequences

CHANGEME

Use Velero for backups

Context

Requirements:

All apps backed up by default, without additional configuration for new apps.
The backups need to work even if we lose the entire cluster.

We used to use VolSync, but its Restic workflow requires per-volume replication resources and credentials, and the backup & restore flow is not really declarative. We would need additional resource generation and orchestration to provide this experience.

Decision

Use Velero to back up cluster resources and supported persistent volumes:

Use CSI snapshot data movement to copy volume data into object storage, so recovery does not depend on the original Ceph cluster.
Use Velero’s ReadOnly recovery mode to prevent backup creation and deletion while restoring and verifying data.

Consequences

The backup schedule includes all apps, without backup resources or storage credentials to distribute to app namespaces.
Backup and restore operations use Velero’s native resources and CLI.
Velero requires broad cluster permissions.
Database applications may still need backup hooks or native exports for consistent backups.

Switch metal provisioning from Ansible to Nixie

Context

The metal nodes used to use Ansible to install Fedora. When we switched to NixOS, while technically we can still use Ansible to do the same thing, but it’s still hard to test and debug.

Decision

Build a custom bare metal orchestration engine for NixOS - nixie.

Consequences

Single binary with native OS process instead of complex Ansible & Docker Compose setup (& its host networking baggage)
It has much better integration to the OS, since it’s built specically for NixOS
It’s much more reliable and testable (Nixie has a full test suite in QEMU)
There’s much better visibility into the PXE boot process with tracing
The PXE installer can be reused with other projects (e.g., my dotfiles), not just this homelab.

Using NixOS as the base OS

Context

With Fedora and Ansible, I sometimes make manual changes and forget to put them back in the playbooks. If a playbook fails halfway, it’s also hard to roll back to the previous system.

Talos is smaller and has better integration for Kubernetes operations, but I want a general-purpose OS that can stay even if we move away from Kubernetes. I don’t want the OS to depend on a single company that could change its license, and I already use NixOS on my other machines.

Decision

Use NixOS as the base OS.

Consequences

System changes have to go through the NixOS configuration, so it’s easier to keep the system clean and reproducible.
NixOS builds the new system before switching to it, and we can roll back to a previous generation. Switching to the new system is almost fully atomic, except for service activation and restarts, which are still imperative.
We can use Nix for both the OS and development shells, without installing project dependencies into the base system.
We can test the same configurations in QEMU before applying them to real hardware.
We can keep the OS even if we replace Kubernetes later.
The system is larger than Talos, with a larger attack surface, and we need to coordinate rolling upgrades ourselves.

See the original discussion and NixOS cured my OCD for more background.

Remove the Docker wrapper for Nix shell

Context

The Docker wrapper was originally added because not everyone has Nix installed. However, it is not a good abstraction. Depending on how Docker (or Podman) was installed, there may be permission issues, and it is slower than running Nix directly on the host.

Decision

Remove the Docker wrapper and run the Nix development shell directly. While not everyone has Nix installed, not everyone has the same Docker setup either.

Consequences

Requires an additional step to install Nix, but this is a one-time setup.
The make tools command has been removed, you now need to run nix develop directly. Although it can be added to the Makefile, this requires make to be installed, and not everyone has the same version of make.

Remove HashiCorp Vault

Status: we added back OpenBao, the community fork of Vault. It has more management overhead than our previous global secret store, but its security features, API for dynamic configuration, and removal of External Secrets are worth the additional complexity. See Secrets management.

Context

HashiCorp changed their license, and it’s no longer free/libre software. One of the highest priorities of this project is to minimize the usage of non-free software as much as possible, so I don’t really want to keep Vault, especially considering the next point.
Vault is fairly complex to maintain properly. This project only uses Vault for two things: basic key-value secret store and its API to create and manage secrets dynamically. With the new Kubernetes secret provider in External Secrets, both features can be replaced with Kubernetes’s built-in secrets and API server.
A related goal of using Vault as an identity provider for SSO will be discarded, and we’ll use Authelia instead, which has a beta identity provider feature (or use another alternative).

Decision

Replace Vault with a simpler in-cluster global secret store.

Consequences

Unlike secret path in Vault, Kubernetes does not support / in object name. We need to change secret convention from path to name and replace / with ..

Update secret generator config:

-- path: gitea/admin
+- name: gitea.admin
   data:
     - key: password
       length: 32

Update secret references in kind: ExternalSecret:

 remoteRef:
-  key: /gitea/admin
+  key: gitea.admin

Manage package versions in development shell

Status: we no longer need this, since we use Nix from the development shell to NixOS on the nodes.

Context

While Nix is reproducible, we need a way to control the versions of the tools and keep them up-to-date. For example, if we update the nixpkgs hash (in flake.nix) from abcd1234 to defa5678:

ansible: 2.12.1 -> 2.12.6
terraform: 1.2.0 -> 1.2.2
foobar: 1.8.0 -> 1.9.0

That looks good. But when we update it from defa5678 to cdef9012:

ansible: 2.12.6 -> 2.13.0
terraform: 1.2.2 -> 1.3.1
foobar: 1.9.0 -> 2.0.0

This time it breaks foobar because the new major version contains a breaking change.

We can pin the specific version of each dependency in flake.nix, however, the maintenance burden is too high (even with Renovate) because we need to update the version of each package regularly rather than just the nixpkgs hash. Instead, we can just bump the nixpkgs hash and run some tests to ensure there is no breaking change.

Decision

Update the tests to ensure that the versions remain within the desired range (i.e. no breaking change).

Consequences

We have the rail guard from the tests to ensure that we don’t upgrade to a new major version with breaking changes, and we can make a conscious decision to take the necessary steps prior to upgrading to the new major version.

Refactor the tools container from plain Dockerfile to Nix

Status: the Docker wrapper was later removed in Remove the Docker wrapper for Nix shell.

Context

The previous implementation of the tools container is not reproducible, if someone builds it a few weeks after me, they will receive different versions of the tools. Also, if you change something in the tool list, everything will be downloaded again, with no caching.

Decision

Move to Nix shell with a Docker wrapper, in case Nix is not available (see commit adbaf32).

Consequences

All versions are pinned
When you change the list of tools, rebuilding is much faster

Combine dhcpd and tftpd to dnsmasq in PXE server

Status: replaced by Nixie.

Context

Original proposal from @Bourne-ID:

Issue statement

The use of dhcpd is great for air-gap solutions where a new DHCP is required. However for some home networks which does not have the VLAN capability or for users who would like to use common router DHCP services, the use of DHCPD will cause duplicate DHCP servers and will result in potential network disruption, or will limit the ability to auto-provision the Metal stage of this project.

Proposed Solution: DHCP Proxy

Use DHCP Proxy services to add PXE features such as Next Server into this project. This allows for users to use the existing DHCP servers which may be locked down or incapable of using Next Server/PXE settings on their network to be able to auto-provision hardware through PXE (with certain common configurations, like static IP allocation or reduction in DHCP request ranges on the DHCP server)

Proposed Application: DNSMasq

DNSMasq in Proxy mode interoperates with existing DHCP servers over IPv4 to add features such as next-server, TFTP, etc. where such hardware is either locked or unconfigurable for such services. This would be an opt-in change, configurable through the pxe_server defaults file.

Proposed Target Audience

Users who either do not want to create their own VLAN or lack the hardware to configure such services. Users who want to use common router services for DHCP and have router access to configure static IP and/or DHCP allocation ranges.

Additional Risks with Proposed Change

Additional Surface Area for Break-Out Attacks: Originally this project is locked to its own DHCP/VLAN, so any break-outs should be contained accordingly. Using common home networks increases the surface area of break-out attacks if the deployment is compromised.

Mitigation: Enrolment into this change is opt in only.

Proposed Next Steps

Trial/Adopt/Halt - A discussion with all or a decision by the project maintainers to identify if this change should exist in this project or live on a fork.

Documentation (This is in flight in any situation).

Decision

Migrate to dnsmasq (see commit f650c89, thanks to @Bourne-ID)

Consequences

DHCP proxy is enabled by default because most people have a standard home network with existing DHCP server, but it can still be disabled to restore the previous behavior

Migrate documentation from mdBook to MkDocs

Status: I no longer plan to use Backstage for this homelab (I may build something else), so it’s back to mdBook, which has fewer dependencies and is faster.

Context

mdBook is very minimal and light weight, which I personally prefer. However, Backstage TechDocs which I plan to use currently only supports mkDocs.

Decision

Migrate documentation from mdBook to MkDocs (see commit cd41343).

Consequences

We can no longer include only a portion of a file, see facelessuser/pymdown-extensions#1462.

Using Fedora as the base OS

Status: superseded by Using NixOS as the base OS

Context

I’ve tried several distributions, and each has advantages and disadvantages. Fedora has a good (enough) balance between stability and new features.

Alternatives considered:

Fedora CoreOS (moved to Rocky in 7667254):
- Pros: automatic and atomic upgrade, immutable, quick installation
- Cons: hard to run Ansible on (Python is not included)
CentOS/Rocky Linux (moved to Fedora in 022b816):
- Pros: relatively stable (however we did encounter a breaking change #63, still not sure why)
- Cons: kernel and packages are too old
Debian: couldn’t get it to work with PXE boot and Rocky Linux was sufficient so I didn’t push any further
Cluster API (previous attempt in a8e4a85, I hope to get this to work someday):
- Pros: control bare metal machines via Kubernetes API, open the possibility for autoscaling and autohealing
- Cons: doesn’t support simple WoL and shutdown via SSH (or similar)

Decision

Use Fedora as the base OS.

Consequences

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

CLI

Use just to run common tasks.

just --list

Command	Purpose
`just deploy ENV`	Deploy the lab and configure services
`just user ENV NAME "FULL NAME" EMAIL [GROUPS]`	Create a user and print an enrollment link; optional groups are comma-separated
`just infra tfstate ENV`	Create the state bucket and credentials
`just infra apply ENV`	Apply infrastructure
`just infra secrets ENV`	Copy OpenTofu secret outputs to OpenBao
`just infra sso ENV`	Configure SSO and sync OAuth credentials
`just infra forgejo ENV`	Configure Forgejo and push committed `HEAD`
`just test`	Run local checks
`just lint`	Check Go and infrastructure code
`just fmt`	Format code
`just docs`	Preview the documentation

just deploy loads the environment’s credentials. For individual apply or setup commands, load them explicitly:

just --dotenv-path infra/production/.env infra secrets production

See the testing reference for integration tests and benchmarks.

Testing

Run these commands from the repository root.

Local checks

just test

List available tests:

just test list

Integration tests

Run tests against staging:

just test e2e staging

Check	What it tests
API	API readiness, node identities, and membership through the VIP
Networking	DNS, pod traffic, and Service traffic across nodes when available
NetworkPolicy	Selective egress denial and connectivity from unselected pods
LoadBalancer	HTTP traffic through Istio’s advertised gateway addresses
Storage	Data persistence with RBD and CephFS, including shared mounts
Snapshots	CSI snapshot creation and restore
Backups	Velero backup and restore through object storage
Secrets	OpenBao Secret injection and namespace permissions
Registry	HTTPS registry API, not image push or pull
GitOps	Argo CD deployment and self-healing
Apps	HTTPS responses from application routes

You can also run individual checks:

just test e2e staging networking

Benchmarks

just test benchmarks staging

Check	What it tests
Storage	Storage performance
Security	K3s CIS checks

License

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Version 3, 29 June 2007

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All other non-permissive additional terms are considered “further restrictions” within the meaning of section 10. If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term. If a license document contains a further restriction but permits relicensing or conveying under this License, you may add to a covered work material governed by the terms of that license document, provided that the further restriction does not survive such relicensing or conveying.

If you add terms to a covered work in accord with this section, you must place, in the relevant source files, a statement of the additional terms that apply to those files, or a notice indicating where to find the applicable terms.

Additional terms, permissive or non-permissive, may be stated in the form of a separately written license, or stated as exceptions; the above requirements apply either way.

8. Termination.

You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11).

However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.

Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice.

Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently reinstated, you do not qualify to receive new licenses for the same material under section 10.

9. Acceptance Not Required for Having Copies.

You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program. Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance. However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so.

10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.

Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this License.

An “entity transaction” is a transaction transferring control of an organization, or substantially all assets of one, or subdividing an organization, or merging organizations. If propagation of a covered work results from an entity transaction, each party to that transaction who receives a copy of the work also receives whatever licenses to the work the party’s predecessor in interest had or could give under the previous paragraph, plus a right to possession of the Corresponding Source of the work from the predecessor in interest, if the predecessor has it or can get it with reasonable efforts.

You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it.

11. Patents.

A “contributor” is a copyright holder who authorizes use under this License of the Program or a work on which the Program is based. The work thus licensed is called the contributor’s “contributor version”.

A contributor’s “essential patent claims” are all patent claims owned or controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or hereafter acquired, that would be infringed by some manner, permitted by this License, of making, using, or selling its contributor version, but do not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of the contributor version. For purposes of this definition, “control” includes the right to grant patent sublicenses in a manner consistent with the requirements of this License.

Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor’s essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.

In the following three paragraphs, a “patent license” is any express agreement or commitment, however denominated, not to enforce a patent (such as an express permission to practice a patent or covenant not to sue for patent infringement). To “grant” such a patent license to a party means to make such an agreement or commitment not to enforce a patent against the party.

If you convey a covered work, knowingly relying on a patent license, and the Corresponding Source of the work is not available for anyone to copy, free of charge and under the terms of this License, through a publicly available network server or other readily accessible means, then you must either (1) cause the Corresponding Source to be so available, or (2) arrange to deprive yourself of the benefit of the patent license for this particular work, or (3) arrange, in a manner consistent with the requirements of this License, to extend the patent license to downstream recipients. “Knowingly relying” means you have actual knowledge that, but for the patent license, your conveying the covered work in a country, or your recipient’s use of the covered work in a country, would infringe one or more identifiable patents in that country that you have reason to believe are valid.

If, pursuant to or in connection with a single transaction or arrangement, you convey, or propagate by procuring conveyance of, a covered work, and grant a patent license to some of the parties receiving the covered work authorizing them to use, propagate, modify or convey a specific copy of the covered work, then the patent license you grant is automatically extended to all recipients of the covered work and works based on it.

A patent license is “discriminatory” if it does not include within the scope of its coverage, prohibits the exercise of, or is conditioned on the non-exercise of one or more of the rights that are specifically granted under this License. You may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with a third party that is in the business of distributing software, under which you make payment to the third party based on the extent of your activity of conveying the work, and under which the third party grants, to any of the parties who would receive the covered work from you, a discriminatory patent license (a) in connection with copies of the covered work conveyed by you (or copies made from those copies), or (b) primarily for and in connection with specific products or compilations that contain the covered work, unless you entered into that arrangement, or that patent license was granted, prior to 28 March 2007.

Nothing in this License shall be construed as excluding or limiting any implied license or other defenses to infringement that may otherwise be available to you under applicable patent law.

12. No Surrender of Others’ Freedom.

If conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot convey a covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not convey it at all. For example, if you agree to terms that obligate you to collect a royalty for further conveying from those to whom you convey the Program, the only way you could satisfy both those terms and this License would be to refrain entirely from conveying the Program.

13. Use with the GNU Affero General Public License.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License into a single combined work, and to convey the resulting work. The terms of this License will continue to apply to the part which is the covered work, but the special requirements of the GNU Affero General Public License, section 13, concerning interaction through a network will apply to the combination as such.

14. Revised Versions of this License.

The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the GNU General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

If the Program specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of the GNU General Public License can be used, that proxy’s public statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Program.

Later license versions may give you additional or different permissions. However, no additional obligations are imposed on any author or copyright holder as a result of your choosing to follow a later version.

15. Disclaimer of Warranty.

THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

16. Limitation of Liability.

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

17. Interpretation of Sections 15 and 16.

If the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability provided above cannot be given local legal effect according to their terms, reviewing courts shall apply local law that most closely approximates an absolute waiver of all civil liability in connection with the Program, unless a warranty or assumption of liability accompanies a copy of the Program in return for a fee.

END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.

To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively state the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the “copyright” line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

    <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
    Copyright (C) <year>  <name of author>

    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

If the program does terminal interaction, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:

    <program>  Copyright (C) <year>  <name of author>
    This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
    This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
    under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

The hypothetical commands `show w’ and `show c’ should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, your program’s commands might be different; for a GUI interface, you would use an “about box”.

You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or school, if any, to sign a “copyright disclaimer” for the program, if necessary. For more information on this, and how to apply and follow the GNU GPL, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

The GNU General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Lesser General Public License instead of this License. But first, please read https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html.

Changelog

v0.0.8

Notable changes:

build: run post install scripts by default
build: set KUBECONFIG from global Makefile
feat(external-dns)!: add cluster name as owner ID
feat(tools): install yamllint, ansible-lint and k9s
feat(tools): set KUBECONFIG by default
feat: add pre-commit hooks
feat: add script to setup Gitea tokens and OAuth apps
perf(argocd): turning on selective sync
refactor(docs): migrate to mkdocs
refactor(metal): migrate to Fedora 36 for newer packages
refactor(pxe)!: combine dhcpd and tftpd to dnsmasq
Many bug fixes

Please see git log for full change log.

0.0.7-alpha

Replace standard Vault with Vault Operator
Automatically initialize and unseal Vault
Declarative secret generation and management
Declarative Gitea configuration with YAML
Automatic OS rolling upgrade
Automatic Kubernetes rolling upgrade
Automatic application updates using Renovate (still require manual token generation)
Add script to wait for essential services after deployment
Add icons and bookmarks to the home page
Deploy Matrix chat
Replace Authentik with Dex for SSO (still require manual token generation)
Switch to Mermaid for diagrams in documentation
Replace Vagrant with k3d for development environment
Use nip.io domain for development environment
Remove Backblaze (S3 Glacier and/or Minio will be added in future version)
Enable monitor for the majority of applications
Many code refactorings and bug fixes

0.0.6-alpha

Upgrade to Kubernetes 1.23
Support external resources:
- Cloudflare DNS and Tunnel
- Backblaze for backup
- Auto inject secrets to required namespaces
Replace self-signed certificates with Let’s Encrypt production (with API token injected from the external layer)
Add DNS records automatically using external-dns
Easy Cloudflare Tunnel configuration with annotations
Offsite backup to Backblaze B2 bucket using k8up-operator
Add private container registry
Remove Knative to save resources (temporarily)
Enable encryption at rest for Kubernetes Secrets
Add more Tekton tasks and pipelines
Initialize GitOps repository on Gitea automatically after install
Generate MetalLB address pool automatically (default to the last /27 subnet)
Some bug fixes

0.0.5-alpha

Add convenience scripts
Add Loki for logging
Add custom health check for Application and ApplicationSet
Use Vault with dev mode on (temporarily until we hit beta)
Replace Authelia with Authentik
Upgrade to Kubernetes 1.22
Upgrade most services to the latest version
Set ingress class and storage class explicitly
Initial Linkerd and Knative setup (not working yet)
Set up Hajimari for home page with automatic ingress discovery
Add dev VM for local development or evaluation
Optimize bare metal provisioning performance
Replace Syncthing with Seafile (may use both in the feature)
Enable Gitea SSH cloning via Ingress
Various code clean up
Add more documents

0.0.4-alpha

Switch to Rocky Linux
Some optimization for bare metal provisioning
Switch to k3s and combine Kubernetes cluster config in ./infra layer to ./metal layer (because k3s is also configured using Ansible)
Split boostrap Helm charts in ./infra layer to ./bootstrap layer (with new ArgoCD pattern) and ./system layer
Add ./platform layer for some applications like Gitea, Tekton…
User only need to provision ./metal and bootstrap layer, the ./bootstrap layer will deploy the remaining layers
Provisioning time from empty disk to running services is significantly reduced (thanks to k3s and new bootstrap pattern)
Use mdBook for documents
Replace Drone CI with Tekton
Enable TLS on all Ingresses (using cert-manager)
Add some new applications

0.0.3-alpha

Generate Terraform backend config automatically
Switch to CoreOS
Better PXE boot setup
Diagrams as code

0.0.2-alpha

Ensure idempotency for bare metal provisioning
Extract instead of mounting the OS ISO file
Easy initial controller setup (with only Docker)
Switch to Fedora
Remove LXD
Move etcd (Terraform state backend) back to Docker

0.0.1-alpha

Bare metal provisioning with PXE
LXD cluster
Terraform state backend (etcd)
RKE cluster
Core services (Vault, Gitea, ArgoCD,…)
Public services to the internet (via port forwarding or Cloudflare Tunnel)

Roadmap

Note

Current status: ALPHA

Alpha requirements

Literally anything that works.

Beta requirements

Good enough for tinkering and personal usage, and reasonably secure.

Automated bare metal provisioning
- Controller set up (Nix development shell)
- OS installation (PXE boot)
Automated cluster creation (k3s)
Automated application deployment (ArgoCD)
Automated DNS management
Initialize GitOps repository on Forgejo automatically
Observability
- Monitoring
- Logging
- Alerting
SSO
Reasonably secure
- Automated certificate management
- Declarative secret management
- Replace all default passwords with randomly generated ones
- Expose services to the internet securely with Cloudflare Tunnel
Only use open-source technologies (except external managed services)
Everything is defined as code
Backup solution (3 copies, 2 separate devices, 1 offsite)
Define SLOs:
- 70% availability (might break in the weekend due to new experimentation)
Core applications
- Forgejo
- Woodpecker
- Private container registry
- Homepage

Stable requirements

Can be used in “production” (for family or even small scale businesses).

A single command to deploy everything
Verify deployment time from empty disks to running services
Fully automatic, not just automated
- Automated flake updates and node configuration deployment for OS and Kubernetes upgrades
- Kured reboot coordination after kernel changes
- Application version upgrade
- Encrypted backups
- Secrets rotation
- Self healing
Secure by default
- Host security hardening
- Default application network policies
Static code analysis
Chaos testing
Minimal dependency on external services
Complete documentation
- Diagram as code
- Book (this book)
- Walkthrough tutorial and feature demo (video)
User onboarding (with just user)
More dashboards and alert rules
SLOs:
- 99,9% availability (less than 9 hours of downtime per year)
- 99,99% data durability
Clear upgrade path
Additional applications
- Matrix with bridges
- VPN server
- PeerTube
- Blog

Unplanned

Nice to have

Air-gap install
Automated testing

Contributing

How to contribute

Bug report

You can create a new GitHub issue with the bug report template.

Submitting patches

Because you may have a lot of changes in your fork, you can’t create a pull request directly from your master branch. Instead, create a branch from the upstream repository and commit your changes there:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/khuedoan/homelab
git fetch upstream
git checkout upstream/master
git checkout -b contrib-fix-something

# Make your changes here
#
# nvim docs/README.md
# git cherry-pick a1b2c3
#
# commit, push, etc. as usual

Then you can send the patch using GitHub pull request or git send-email to mail@khuedoan.com.

FAQ

Is it necessary to install Linux on my servers before setting up the homelab?

No, and that’s the beauty of this setup. You start with empty hard drives, type a single command on your laptop/PC, and it will install the operating system for you automatically and in parallel over the network.

Is it necessary to keep the PXE server running?

No, the ephemeral PXE server is stateless, once Linux is installed on your servers, you can shut it down (or not, ideally, you don’t even need to be aware of its existence). The Terragrunt metal module runs Nixie when you apply it.

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Khue's Homelab

Migrate documentation from mdBook to MkDocs