README.md

Homelab

This repository contains resources related to my homelab, currently called lamport. I give each of my servers a unique name so that I can keep track of them over time.

Currently my server is managed with Kubernetes. I've used Docker, Ansible, and bash scripts in the past. Kubernetes has been an interesting experiment and I think it's overall worthwhile since the ecosystem is so rich.

Details

I've spent a lot of time making this project pleasant to work with. Here are some things I'm proud of:

• Close to zero host setup
  • It's literally just a few commands to deploy my entire cluster
• Entirely written in TypeScript built with cdk8s and Deno
• Automated backups
  • The applications I care about are regularly backed up to BorgBase
• HTTPS ingress with Tailscale
• All secrets managed with 1Password
• Jenkins CI w/ Earthly used by my open-source projects
• Entirely automated deployment for updates, upgrades, etc.
  • Commit-to-deployment takes about 1min
• Automated dependency updates
  • For Docker images (w/ pinned SHAs)
  • For Helm charts
  • For Kubernetes/k3s
  • For Jenkins plugins
  • For Deno dependencies
  • My approach allows all of my dependencies to be pinned and updated regularly

Installation

These instructions are for future me, so that I can re-create my cluster from scratch if needed.

Host Setup

At some point I should automate these steps, either as a part of a script, my dotfiles, ansible, etc.

• Install Tailscale

• Install Linuxbrew

• Install fish, vim, helix, rtx, languages (Deno), etc.

• Set fish as the default shell

• Configure fish

• Setup auto-updates with Ubuntu

  • https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutomaticSecurityUpdates

• Set KUBE_CONFIG

• Update kernel parameters: https://docs.k3s.io/security/hardening-guide#set-kernel-parameters

• Increase number of file watchers:

  sudo sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_watches=1990692
  sudo sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_instances=512
  sudo sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_queued_events=65536
  

Cluster Setup

1. Copy k3s to /etc/rancher/k3s/

   sudo cp -r k3s/. /etc/rancher/k3s/
   

2. Install k3s.

   curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -
   

3. Copy the Kubernetes configuration

   rm -rfv ~/.kube && mkdir ~/.kube && sudo cp /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml ~/.kube/config && sudo chown $USER:$USER ~/.kube/config && chmod 600 ~/.kube/config
   

4. Install helm.

   brew install helm
   

5. Install Argo CD manually.

   [!NOTE] This will be imported into Argo CD itself as part of the CDK8s manifest

   kubectl create namespace argocd
   helm repo add argo https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm
   helm install argocd argo/argo-cd --namespace argocd
   

6. Set the credentials in the secrets directory.

   • Be sure not to commit any changes to these files so that secrets don't leak.

   • These should be the only credentials that are manually set. Everything else can be retrieved from 1Password.

   • Annoyingly, the credential in 1password-secret.yaml must be base64 encoded.

     cat 1password-credentials.json | base64 -w 0
     

     kubectl create namespace 1password
     kubectl apply -f secrets/1password-secret.yaml
     kubectl apply -f secrets/1password-token.yaml
     

7. Build and deploy the manifests in this repo

   cd cdk8s && deno task up
   

8. Get the initial Argo CD admin password.

   kubectl -n argocd get secret argocd-initial-admin-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 -d
   

9. Change Argo CD the admin password.