Ansible for a Homelab — Inventory, First Playbook, and Safe Expansion
A staged Ansible introduction with a complete file-management example, explicit target selection, check-mode limits, secrets guidance and rollback.
Homelab
Prometheus and Grafana — Homelab Monitoring Stack with Docker Compose
A practical guide to deploying a full Prometheus and Grafana monitoring stack in your homelab with Docker Compose — collect CPU, RAM, disk, network, and Docker container metrics from every host, visualize with pre-built dashboards, and get alerts when things go wrong.
ZFS Pool Design — Mirrors, Recordsize, ARC Tuning for Proxmox
A practical guide to ZFS pool design and performance tuning for Proxmox homelabs — topology selection, ashift, recordsize, compression, ARC sizing, and real-world monitoring with arcstat and zpool iostat.
Docker Network Troubleshooting — Diagnostics and Fixes for Container Connectivity
A practical guide to diagnosing and fixing Docker container networking problems — DNS timeouts, port conflicts, bridge network isolation, cross-host communication, and the netshoot toolkit for homelab deployments.
Linux Disk I/O Tuning — IO Schedulers, Mount Options, and cgroup Throttling
A practical guide to Linux disk I/O performance tuning for homelab servers — IO scheduler selection for NVMe, SSD, and HDD, mount option optimization, real-time monitoring with iostat and ioping, and container IO throttling with cgroup v2.
Systemd Timer Units — Replacing Cron for Homelab Automation
Replace cron with systemd timer units for reliable, observable homelab task scheduling — persistent schedules, real journald logging, monotonic intervals, and hardened service units with practical backup, maintenance, and healthcheck examples.
WireGuard VPN on Proxmox — LXC Setup Guide for Homelab Remote Access
Deploy a lightweight WireGuard VPN server in a Proxmox LXC container — configure persistent tunnels, NAT routing, client generation, and firewall rules for secure remote access to your entire homelab network.
Linux systemd Service Hardening — Sandboxing, Capabilities, and Security Auditing
Harden Linux systemd services with built-in sandboxing directives — ProtectHome, ProtectSystem, CapabilityBoundingSet, NoNewPrivileges, PrivateTmp, and systemd-analyze security scoring. Includes real hardened service files for common homelab daemons.
Caddy Reverse Proxy Docker — Automatic HTTPS and Zero-Downtime Reloads
Set up Caddy as a Docker reverse proxy for your homelab — automatic Let’s Encrypt HTTPS with zero config, reusable Caddyfile snippets, zero-downtime reloads, Cloudflare DNS-01 wildcards, HTTP/3 support, and production security hardening.
MikroTik RouterOS 7 Firewall — Rules, FastTrack, and Connection Tracking
Configure a production-ready MikroTik RouterOS 7 firewall — understand filter, NAT, mangle, and raw tables, enable FastTrack for wire-speed forwarding, implement connection tracking state rules, and build brute force protection with dynamic address lists.