From a4660164dacde5a97a9e50a76ed63418b504df98 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Chase Dumphord <60725859+ced4568@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2026 23:16:25 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] Add README.md for SOC Lab project

Added comprehensive documentation for the SOC Lab project, detailing infrastructure, Kubernetes environment, monitoring, security, and future enhancements.
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+# 🧠 SOC Lab – Monitoring, Logging & Security Simulation
+
+## 🚀 Overview
+
+This SOC Lab is a focused project within my homelab environment designed to simulate real-world monitoring, logging, and basic security detection workflows.
+
+The goal is to replicate how modern infrastructure teams observe system behavior, detect anomalies, and maintain service reliability.
+
+---
+
+## 🖥️ Infrastructure Backbone
+
+* Proxmox VE (virtualization platform)
+* Virtual Machines and LXC containers
+* Segmented network environment (VLANs)
+
+![Proxmox](../screenshots/proxmox-overview.png)
+
+---
+
+## ☸️ Kubernetes Environment
+
+* 12-node K3s cluster (Raspberry Pi)
+* Control plane + worker node architecture
+* Workload segmentation:
+
+  * ingress
+  * data
+  * monitoring
+
+```bash
+kubectl get nodes -o wide
+kubectl get pods -A
+```
+
+![K3s](../screenshots/K3s-nodes.png)
+
+---
+
+## 🌐 Traffic & Service Routing
+
+* Nginx Proxy Manager (reverse proxy)
+* Cloudflare Tunnel (secure external access)
+* Subdomain-based service exposure
+
+![Nginx](../screenshots/NGN.png)
+
+---
+
+## 📊 Monitoring & Observability
+
+* Prometheus (metrics collection)
+* Grafana (dashboard visualization)
+* Uptime Kuma (service monitoring)
+
+### Key Capabilities:
+
+* System performance tracking
+* Service uptime monitoring
+* Infrastructure visibility
+
+![Uptime Kuma](../screenshots/uptime-kuma.png)
+
+---
+
+## 🔐 Security Layer (In Progress)
+
+* CrowdSec (intrusion detection & prevention)
+* Basic firewall and access control concepts
+* Monitoring suspicious traffic patterns
+
+---
+
+## 📜 Logging Pipeline (Planned)
+
+* Grafana Loki (log aggregation)
+* Centralized log visibility
+* Correlation between logs and system activity
+
+---
+
+## ⚔️ Attack Simulation (Planned)
+
+To validate monitoring and logging systems, the following simulations are planned:
+
+* Network scanning (nmap)
+* Failed authentication attempts
+* Traffic pattern analysis
+
+```bash
+nmap -A <target-ip>
+```
+
+---
+
+## 🧪 Skills Demonstrated
+
+* Infrastructure design and deployment
+* Kubernetes cluster management
+* Monitoring and observability implementation
+* Reverse proxy and traffic routing
+* System-level thinking and troubleshooting
+
+---
+
+## 🎯 Future Enhancements
+
+* Full logging pipeline (Loki integration)
+* Alerting (Grafana alerts)
+* Security event tracking
+* Automated deployments (CI/CD)
+
+---
+
+## 💡 Key Takeaway
+
+This lab demonstrates the ability to design, build, and operate a distributed system with monitoring and observability, reflecting real-world infrastructure and platform engineering practices.