docs: complete README rewrite with architecture diagram and node inventory

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2026-05-06 01:08:41 -05:00
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## Why I Built This
I work on the Digital Team at GE Aerospace building data pipelines, dashboards, and digital inspection systems. Every day I'm working with production infrastructure where downtime has real consequences — and I needed a lab environment that could keep up with that.
I work on the Digital Team at GE Aerospace building data pipelines and dashboards for industrial systems.
This isn't a tutorial setup. Every service running here solves a real problem, every VLAN exists for a real reason, and every monitoring alert has a real threshold. I built this the same way I build at work: start with architecture, document as you go, and make it observable from day one.
But Ced's NOC didn't start there.
**What this lab is for:**
- Practicing infrastructure patterns I apply directly at GE
- Building a live, always-on NOC that demonstrates real observability skills
- Running workloads that would otherwise require expensive cloud resources
- Documenting systems well enough that anyone can understand them
It started about five years ago with an old Dell tower I found in the trash, a few cheap upgrades, and way too much curiosity. I didn't even know what a homelab was. I just knew I wanted to see if I could make it do something useful. That server became BigWorld — the primary node that still anchors this cluster today.
What started as a media server and a couple of small VMs went down a rabbit hole and never came back. Five years later it's a 6-node Proxmox cluster, a 12-node Raspberry Pi K3s cluster, a VLAN-segmented network, and a full observability stack running 24/7.
What my work at GE did was change *why* I build the way I do now. When you're working with industrial systems where downtime has real consequences, you stop treating monitoring as optional. You build it first.
The homelab reflects that. If I can't see it, I don't trust it.
---
@@ -31,71 +33,138 @@ graph TB
CF[Cloudflare Edge]
end
subgraph Access Layer
subgraph Access["Access Layer"]
TUNNEL[Cloudflare Tunnel]
NPM[Nginx Proxy Manager]
end
subgraph Network - UniFi UDR
MAIN[Main VLAN<br/>10.10.10.0/24]
IOT[IoT VLAN<br/>10.10.20.0/24]
LAB[HomeLab VLAN<br/>10.10.30.0/24]
GUEST[Guest VLAN<br/>10.10.99.0/24]
subgraph Network["Network — UniFi UDR"]
MAIN[Main VLAN 10.10.10.0/24]
IOT[IoT VLAN 10.10.20.0/24]
LAB[HomeLab VLAN 10.10.30.0/24]
GUEST[Guest VLAN 10.10.99.0/24]
end
subgraph Compute - Proxmox VE
PVE[Proxmox Hypervisor<br/>VMs + LXC Containers]
HA[Home Assistant VM]
SERVICES[Service VMs]
subgraph Desktop["Primary Workstation"]
PS[PrimeStation]
end
subgraph Orchestration - K3s
CTRL[Control Plane]
W1[Worker Node x4]
W2[Worker Node x4]
W3[Worker Node x4]
subgraph Proxmox["Compute — Proxmox Cluster (6 Nodes)"]
BW[BigWorld — Primary]
BG[Biggie]
SN[Snoop]
TS[TooShort]
TP[Tupac]
DD[DrDre]
end
subgraph Storage - TrueNAS
ZFS[ZFS Pool]
NFS[NFS Exports]
SMB[SMB Shares]
subgraph K3s["Orchestration — K3s Cluster (12 Nodes)"]
subgraph CP["Control Plane"]
CP1[k3s-django-1]
CP2[k3s-django-2]
CP3[k3s-django-3]
end
subgraph INGRESS["Workers — Ingress"]
W1[k3s-node-1]
W2[k3s-node-2]
W3[k3s-node-3]
end
subgraph DATA["Workers — Data"]
W4[k3s-node-4]
W5[k3s-node-5]
W6[k3s-node-6]
end
subgraph MON["Workers — Monitoring"]
W7[k3s-node-7]
W8[k3s-node-8]
W9[k3s-node-9]
end
end
subgraph Observability - Ced's NOC
subgraph Storage["Storage — TrueNAS"]
TN[TrueNAS]
end
subgraph NOC["Observability — Ced's NOC"]
PROM[Prometheus]
GRAF[Grafana]
KUMA[Uptime Kuma]
NODE[Node Exporter]
BLACK[Blackbox Exporter]
DASHY[Dashy]
end
subgraph Home["Home Automation"]
HA[Home Assistant]
end
CF --> TUNNEL --> NPM
NPM --> LAB
LAB --> PVE
LAB --> CTRL
PVE --> ZFS
ZFS --> NFS --> PVE
CTRL --> W1 & W2 & W3
NODE --> PROM
BLACK --> PROM
LAB --> BW
BW --- BG & SN & TS & TP & DD
BW --> TN
TN -->|NFS| BW
CP1 --- CP2 & CP3
CP1 --> W1 & W2 & W3
CP1 --> W4 & W5 & W6
CP1 --> W7 & W8 & W9
W7 & W8 & W9 --> PROM
PROM --> GRAF
KUMA --> GRAF
PS --> LAB
HA --> IOT
```
---
## Node Inventory
### Proxmox Cluster — 6 Nodes
| Node | Role |
|------|------|
| BigWorld | Primary Proxmox node — cluster anchor, original lab server |
| Biggie | Compute node |
| Snoop | Compute node |
| TooShort | Compute node |
| Tupac | Compute node |
| DrDre | Compute node |
### K3s Cluster — 12 Nodes
| Node | Role |
|------|------|
| k3s-django-1 | Control Plane |
| k3s-django-2 | Control Plane |
| k3s-django-3 | Control Plane |
| k3s-node-1 | Worker — Ingress |
| k3s-node-2 | Worker — Ingress |
| k3s-node-3 | Worker — Ingress |
| k3s-node-4 | Worker — Data |
| k3s-node-5 | Worker — Data |
| k3s-node-6 | Worker — Data |
| k3s-node-7 | Worker — Monitoring |
| k3s-node-8 | Worker — Monitoring |
| k3s-node-9 | Worker — Monitoring |
### Services
| Service | Role |
|---------|------|
| TrueNAS | ZFS storage — NFS for Proxmox, SMB for media |
| Prometheus | Metrics collection and storage |
| Grafana | Dashboards and visualization |
| Uptime Kuma | Service-level uptime monitoring and alerting |
| Nginx Proxy Manager | Reverse proxy for all internal services |
| Dashy | Internal service dashboard |
| Home Assistant | IoT automation — isolated on IoT VLAN |
| PrimeStation | Primary workstation — HomeLab VLAN |
---
## Infrastructure Layers
### Infrastructure Layer — Proxmox VE
### Infrastructure Layer — Proxmox Cluster
The hypervisor layer runs on a dedicated server hosting all VMs and LXC containers. TrueNAS provides centralized ZFS storage with NFS exports for VM disk images and SMB shares for media workloads.
| Component | Role |
|-----------|------|
| Proxmox VE | Primary hypervisor — VMs and LXC containers |
| TrueNAS | ZFS storage backend — NFS for Proxmox, SMB for media |
| Home Assistant | IoT automation, isolated on its own VLAN |
Six-node Proxmox VE cluster anchored by BigWorld — the original server that started this whole lab. TrueNAS provides centralized ZFS storage with NFS exports for VM disk images and SMB shares for media workloads.
📁 Configs: [`proxmox/`](./proxmox/) · [`truenas/`](./truenas/) · [`home-assistant/`](./home-assistant/)
@@ -103,14 +172,7 @@ The hypervisor layer runs on a dedicated server hosting all VMs and LXC containe
### Orchestration Layer — K3s on Raspberry Pi
A 12-node K3s cluster running on Raspberry Pi hardware. Designed to mirror real Kubernetes production patterns at small scale — not just "run some pods."
| Layer | Detail |
|-------|--------|
| Cluster size | 12 nodes (Raspberry Pi) |
| Ingress | MetalLB + NGINX Ingress Controller |
| DNS | Wildcard `*.cedshomelab.com` via Cloudflare |
| Workloads | Monitoring stack, containerized services, future GitOps |
A 12-node K3s cluster running on Raspberry Pi hardware with workers segmented by role — mirroring real Kubernetes production patterns at lab scale. Three dedicated control plane nodes ensure high availability. Worker groups are purpose-built for ingress routing, data workloads, and monitoring collection.
📌 Full cluster documentation: **[ced-k3s-homelab →](https://github.com/ced4568/ced-k3s-homelab)**
@@ -118,7 +180,7 @@ A 12-node K3s cluster running on Raspberry Pi hardware. Designed to mirror real
### Network & VLAN Architecture
All traffic runs through a UniFi Dream Router with hard VLAN segmentation. The HomeLab VLAN is fully isolated from daily-use devices — the same principle I apply to industrial OT/IT network segmentation at work.
All traffic runs through a UniFi Dream Router with hard VLAN segmentation. The HomeLab VLAN is fully isolated from daily-use devices — the same network segmentation principle I apply to industrial OT/IT environments at work.
| VLAN | Subnet | Purpose |
|------|--------|---------|
@@ -140,16 +202,14 @@ Zero open ports. No port forwarding. All external access goes through Cloudflare
### Observability — Ced's NOC
The centerpiece of this lab. A live Network Operations Center dashboard that gives real-time visibility into every layer of the infrastructure.
**Stack:**
The centerpiece of this lab. A live Network Operations Center dashboard giving real-time visibility into every layer of the infrastructure.
| Tool | Role |
|------|------|
| Prometheus | Metrics collection and storage |
| Grafana | Dashboards and visualization |
| Node Exporter | Per-host system metrics (CPU, RAM, disk, network) |
| Blackbox Exporter | External endpoint/service probing |
| Blackbox Exporter | External endpoint and service probing |
| Uptime Kuma | Service-level uptime monitoring and alerting |
**What's monitored:**
@@ -176,7 +236,7 @@ The centerpiece of this lab. A live Network Operations Center dashboard that giv
![K3s Nodes](./screenshots/K3s-nodes.png)
### Nginx Proxy Manager — Reverse Proxy Routes
![NGM](./screenshots/NGN.png)
![NPM](./screenshots/NGN.png)
### Uptime Kuma — Service Monitoring
![Uptime Kuma](./screenshots/uptime-kuma.png)
@@ -209,19 +269,21 @@ ceds-homelab/
## Roadmap
- [x] Proxmox hypervisor with VM/LXC workloads
- [x] 12-node K3s cluster on Raspberry Pi
- [x] VLAN segmentation via UniFi
- [x] Cloudflare Tunnel + Nginx Proxy Manager
- [x] Proxmox 6-node cluster (BigWorld, Biggie, Snoop, TooShort, Tupac, DrDre)
- [x] 12-node K3s cluster on Raspberry Pi with role-based worker groups
- [x] VLAN segmentation via UniFi (Main, IoT, HomeLab, Guest)
- [x] Cloudflare Tunnel + Nginx Proxy Manager — zero open ports
- [x] Prometheus + Grafana observability stack
- [x] Uptime Kuma service monitoring
- [x] Live NOC dashboard (noc.chasedumphord.com)
- [x] TrueNAS ZFS storage with NFS exports
- [x] Home Assistant on isolated IoT VLAN
- [ ] GitOps with ArgoCD for K3s deployments
- [ ] Helm chart library for self-hosted services
- [ ] Cloudflare Zero Trust access policies
- [ ] Internal container registry
- [ ] Automated alerting with PagerDuty or Grafana OnCall
- [ ] Full Proxmox cluster expansion (6-node)
- [ ] Automated alerting with Grafana OnCall
- [ ] Full Prometheus alerting rules library
---
@@ -233,6 +295,7 @@ This repository contains **no secrets, tokens, API keys, or passwords.**
- Template/example files use placeholder values only (`.example` suffix)
- External access is zero-trust via Cloudflare Tunnel — no exposed ports
- VLANs enforce hard network segmentation between device classes
- Internal IPs are intentionally omitted from public documentation
---