My geeked homelab k8s cluster

... automated via Flux, Renovate and GitHub Actions

        

     

                 

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Overview

This is a repository for my home infrastructure and Kubernetes cluster. I try to adhere to Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and GitOps practices using tools like Kubernetes, Flux, Renovate and GitHub Actions.

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Kubernetes

This semi hyper-converged cluster operates on Talos Linux, an immutable and ephemeral Linux distribution tailored for Kubernetes, and is deployed on bare-metal MS-01 workstations. Rook supplies my workloads with persistent block, object, and file storage, while a separate server handles media file storage. The cluster is designed to enable a full teardown without any data loss.

There is a template at onedr0p/cluster-template if you want to follow along with some of the practices I use here.

Core Components

• actions-runner-controller: Self-hosted Github runners.
• cert-manager: Creates SSL certificates for services in my cluster.
• cilium: Internal Kubernetes container networking interface.
• cloudflared: Enables Cloudflare secure access to my ingresses.
• external-dns: Automatically syncs ingress DNS records to a DNS provider.
• external-secrets: Managed Kubernetes secrets using 1Password Connect.
• ingress-nginx: Kubernetes ingress controller using NGINX as a reverse proxy and load balancer.
• multus: Multi-homed pod networking.
• rook: Distributed block storage for peristent storage.
• sops: Managed secrets for Kubernetes which are commited to Git.
• spegel: Stateless cluster local OCI registry mirror.
• volsync: Backup and recovery of persistent volume claims.

GitOps

Flux monitors my kubernetes folder (see Directories below) and implements changes to my cluster based on the YAML manifests.

Flux operates by recursively searching the kubernetes/apps folder until it locates the top-level kustomization.yaml in each directory. It then applies all the resources listed in it. This kustomization.yaml typically contains a namespace resource and one or more Flux kustomizations. These Flux kustomizations usually include a HelmRelease or other application-related resources, which are then applied.

Renovate monitors my entire repository for dependency updates, automatically creating a PR when updates are found. When some PRs are merged, Flux applies the changes to my cluster.

Directories

This Git repository contains the following directories under kubernetes.

📁 kubernetes      # Kubernetes cluster defined as code
├─📁 apps          # Apps deployed into my cluster grouped by namespace (see below)
├─📁 bootstrap     # Flux installation
└─📁 flux          # Main Flux configuration of repository

Cluster layout

This is a high-level look how Flux deploys my applications with dependencies. Below there are 3 Flux kustomizations postgres, postgres-cluster, and atuin. postgres is the first app that needs to be running and healthy before postgres-cluster and once postgres-cluster is healthy atuin will be deployed.

graph TD;
  id1>Kustomization: cluster] -->|Creates| id2>Kustomization: cluster-apps];
  id2>Kustomization: cluster-apps] -->|Creates| id3>Kustomization: postgres];
  id2>Kustomization: cluster-apps] -->|Creates| id5>Kustomization: postgres-cluster]
  id2>Kustomization: cluster-apps] -->|Creates| id8>Kustomization: atuin]
  id3>Kustomization: postgres] -->|Creates| id4[HelmRelease: postgres];
  id5>Kustomization: postgres-cluster] -->|Depends on| id3>Kustomization: postgres];
  id5>Kustomization: postgres-cluster] -->|Creates| id10[Postgres Cluster];
  id8>Kustomization: atuin] -->|Creates| id9(HelmRelease: atuin);
  id8>Kustomization: atuin] -->|Depends on| id5>Kustomization: postgres-cluster];

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Networking

Click to see a high-level network diagram

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DNS

In my cluster there are two instances of ExternalDNS running. One for syncing private DNS records to my UDM Pro Max using ExternalDNS webhook provider for UniFi, while another instance syncs public DNS to Cloudflare. This setup is managed by creating ingresses with two specific classes: internal for private DNS and external for public DNS. The external-dns instances then syncs the DNS records to their respective platforms accordingly.

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Hardware

Click to see my rack

Device	Count	OS Disk Size	Data Disk Size	Ram	Operating System	Purpose
MS-01 (i9-13900H)	3	1.92TB M.2	3.84TB U.2 + 1.92TB M.2	96GB	Talos	Kubernetes
Synology NAS RS1221+	1	-	8x22TB HDD	32GB	DSM 7	NFS
PiKVM (RasPi 4)	1	64GB (SD)	-	4GB	PiKVM	KVM
TESmart 8 Port KVM Switch	1	-	-	-	-	Network KVM (for PiKVM)
UniFi UDM Pro Max	1	-	2x16TB HDD	-	UniFi OS	Router & NVR
UniFi USW Pro Aggregation	1	-	-	-	UniFi OS	10G/25Gb Core Switch
UniFi USW Pro Max 24 PoE	1	-	-	-	UniFi OS	2.5Gb PoE Switch
UniFi USP PDU Pro	1	-	-	-	UniFi OS	PDU
APC SMT15000RM2UNC	1	-	-	-	-	UPS

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Stargazers

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Gratitude and Thanks

Many thanks to my friend @onedrop and all the fantastic people who donate their time to the Home Operations Discord community. Be sure to check out kubesearch.dev for ideas on how to deploy applications or get ideas on what you may deploy.

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Changelog

See the latest release notes.

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License

See LICENSE.