My notes and stuff - Kubernetes

The Power of Hands-on Learning

2025-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

This week, I wanted to highlight briefly how important it is to be hands-on with any learning. Theory is great, and I would have learned a lot just by reading Kubernetes docs and examples. But I would never solidify that knowledge if I hadn't built my own K8s cluster.

When you are actually applying what you have learned, there is some different feedback loop in the brain that makes it stick better. I'm sure other people can explain it better. All I want to say is if you want to learn something new, just reading about it is not enough. You need to practice it. I know that's nothing new, it's a well-known fact. I'm just comprehending and appreciating it much more after doing it myself.

I find it a bit relevant with AI. I always ask it to explain to me what and why it is doing certain things so I understand. But when I actually do something similar myself, my understanding is much deeper. And that's just much more satisfying.

Using NAS as a Data Layer for K8s

2025-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

I have only had time this week for a tiny personal project. And that project was to use my NAS as a data persistence layer for at least some of the apps running in my K8s cluster. It was surprisingly easy.
The setup required tinkering with nodes and K8s manifests, but it all went very smoothly. So now I have my Minecraft server storing all the data on my NAS via NFS, so even if my lab's hardware fails, the data will not be lost. And as I'm running backups on the NAS itself, I can protect the data even more.
There is a tiny latency tradeoff. I did notice a bit of a lag in Minecraft, as it has to read and write files a lot. But because all connections are wired and the lab and NAS are on the same switch, it has not been a problem so far. If it becomes worse, I can always revert back to local storage just for one app.

Running my own Minecraft Server

2025-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

For months, if not years, creating a homelab was on my mind, but I kept postponing it because I lacked a clear goal for what I'd run there.
When I finally started working on it in October, the motivation was very simple: My oldest kid wanted to play Minecraft together! :)
It took a bit of time and a lot of extra steps to ensure I did it the way I wanted. I learned so much about Kubernetes and all the related tools along the way, which was part of the goal.
I'm happy to share I now have a Minecraft server running in my K8s homelab cluster. It is always on, there is no lag, and it's running surprisingly well.
I have other lab projects in mind, but I am very happy that the idea that started it all is now complete.

Debugging K8s Network Policies

2025-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

My focus last week (in personal projects space) was to add network policies to my homelab. I added them to all custom namespaces but, in the end, had to revert some and replace them with less restrictive ones because some things just stopped working, and I had no time to investigate why.
The biggest challenge was in the very beginning when none of the policies I added did anything. Everything looked good in the logs and on the K8s cluster. I mean, there were no errors or reports of invalid configs.
After several hours of cumulative debugging, checking all configs, and brainstorming with AI, I found that my nodes just didn't have the iptables binary! 🤦
Everything looked great in the logs, but no rules were enforced. After adding the binary and updating my bootstrap scripts, all the rules started working as intended.

The Joy of Scope Creep in a Homelab

2025-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

Last week was a classic case of scope creep (for a personal project): I started one task and it instantly spawned five more. On one hand, it's a good learning process; on the other, it feels less productive because my To-Do list got bigger, not smaller.
All I wanted was to set up some security scanner for my homelab K8s cluster. After researching different tools, I spun one up and got a summary report, which was great. Time to start fixing vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, right?
Well, I thought I needed to set up alerting first so I know the number does not go up. But for that, I need to set up secret management so alerts can be sent via email. And each part requires quite a bit of reading, research, and evaluation of which solution will work best for my case.
And so, by the end of the week, my To-Do list for the homelab is twice as big as it was when the week started. And I love it. I am learning so much with this project.

My Homelab is Ready!

2025-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

I'm very happy to share that I've finished setting up my homelab!
It took about a month to go from "I want to run a homelab on Kubernetes" to successfully using my first self-hosted app. I thought it would take much longer with my limited time, so this is a big personal milestone.
I have two old laptops I got from friends sitting in my garage, running a Kubernetes cluster leveraging Debian and k3s. At the moment, it's a full monitoring stack (Prometheus + Grafana) and a simple app, all running smoothly. Seeing the metrics in Grafana for the first time was incredibly satisfying.
This entire setup relies on a GitOps flow, specifically using FluxCD to manage all deployments. I had to fight a number of quirks setting everything up, obviously, but that's just a part of the learning process.
Next up: adding some security layers, then deploying more useful applications.
If you want the technical details, check out my Homelab repository</a> on GitHub.

Docker in Docker

2025-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

For people who already knew this, it might be trivial, but I learned something interesting last week.
I knew you can run pretty much anything in Docker. And I knew Docker with Compose or equivalent tools can be used to run a whole dev environment or something like Testcontainers. I'd even heard at some point that you can potentially run Docker inside Docker, but I either didn't pay attention or had no use for it. And that's what blew my mind when I tried it last week.
As I'm building out my homelab, I set up a full Kubernetes cluster in a devcontainer, and I can easily test new deployments locally. Using my own YAML or Helm—it doesn't matter. Everything is in a container. The whole K8s cluster inside Docker. What? It still blows my mind.
If you want to see how I set it up, check out my Homelab DevContainer configuration</a> on GitHub.