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322 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
322 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
# Ced's HomeLab — Live Infrastructure & Observability Platform
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> A production-style homelab running real infrastructure, real workloads, and a live NOC dashboard — built by a Digital Systems Engineer at GE Aerospace who needed a place to practice what he preaches.
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[](https://noc.chasedumphord.com)
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[](https://chasedumphord.com)
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[](#infrastructure-layer)
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[](#network--vlan-architecture)
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---
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## Why I Built This
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I work on the Digital Team at GE Aerospace building data pipelines and dashboards for industrial systems.
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But Ced's NOC didn't start there.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The homelab reflects that. If I can't see it, I don't trust it.
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---
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## Architecture Overview
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```mermaid
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graph TB
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subgraph Internet
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CF[Cloudflare Edge]
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end
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subgraph Access["Access Layer"]
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TUNNEL[Cloudflare Tunnel]
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NPM[Nginx Proxy Manager]
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end
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subgraph Network["Network — UniFi UDR"]
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MAIN[Main VLAN 10.10.10.0/24]
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IOT[IoT VLAN 10.10.20.0/24]
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LAB[HomeLab VLAN 10.10.30.0/24]
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GUEST[Guest VLAN 10.10.99.0/24]
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end
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subgraph Desktop["Primary Workstation"]
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PS[PrimeStation]
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end
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subgraph Proxmox["Compute — Proxmox Cluster (6 Nodes)"]
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BW[BigWorld — Primary]
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BG[Biggie]
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SN[Snoop]
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TS[TooShort]
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TP[Tupac]
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DD[DrDre]
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end
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subgraph K3s["Orchestration — K3s Cluster (12 Nodes)"]
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subgraph CP["Control Plane"]
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CP1[k3s-django-1]
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CP2[k3s-django-2]
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CP3[k3s-django-3]
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end
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subgraph INGRESS["Workers — Ingress"]
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W1[k3s-node-1]
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W2[k3s-node-2]
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W3[k3s-node-3]
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end
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subgraph DATA["Workers — Data"]
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W4[k3s-node-4]
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W5[k3s-node-5]
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W6[k3s-node-6]
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end
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subgraph MON["Workers — Monitoring"]
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W7[k3s-node-7]
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W8[k3s-node-8]
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W9[k3s-node-9]
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end
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end
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subgraph Storage["Storage — TrueNAS"]
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TN[TrueNAS]
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end
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subgraph NOC["Observability — Ced's NOC"]
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PROM[Prometheus]
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GRAF[Grafana]
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KUMA[Uptime Kuma]
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DASHY[Dashy]
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end
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subgraph Home["Home Automation"]
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HA[Home Assistant]
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end
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CF --> TUNNEL --> NPM
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NPM --> LAB
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LAB --> BW
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BW --- BG & SN & TS & TP & DD
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BW --> TN
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TN -->|NFS| BW
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CP1 --- CP2 & CP3
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CP1 --> W1 & W2 & W3
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CP1 --> W4 & W5 & W6
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CP1 --> W7 & W8 & W9
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W7 & W8 & W9 --> PROM
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PROM --> GRAF
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KUMA --> GRAF
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PS --> LAB
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HA --> IOT
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```
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---
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## Node Inventory
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### Proxmox Cluster — 6 Nodes
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| Node | Role |
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|------|------|
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| BigWorld | Primary Proxmox node — cluster anchor, original lab server |
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| Biggie | Compute node |
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| Snoop | Compute node |
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| TooShort | Compute node |
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| Tupac | Compute node |
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| DrDre | Compute node |
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### K3s Cluster — 12 Nodes
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| Node | Role |
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|------|------|
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| k3s-django-1 | Control Plane |
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| k3s-django-2 | Control Plane |
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| k3s-django-3 | Control Plane |
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| k3s-node-1 | Worker — Ingress |
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| k3s-node-2 | Worker — Ingress |
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| k3s-node-3 | Worker — Ingress |
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| k3s-node-4 | Worker — Data |
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| k3s-node-5 | Worker — Data |
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| k3s-node-6 | Worker — Data |
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| k3s-node-7 | Worker — Monitoring |
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| k3s-node-8 | Worker — Monitoring |
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| k3s-node-9 | Worker — Monitoring |
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### Services
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| Service | Role |
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|---------|------|
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| TrueNAS | ZFS storage — NFS for Proxmox, SMB for media |
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| Prometheus | Metrics collection and storage |
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| Grafana | Dashboards and visualization |
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| Uptime Kuma | Service-level uptime monitoring and alerting |
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| Nginx Proxy Manager | Reverse proxy for all internal services |
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| Dashy | Internal service dashboard |
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| Home Assistant | IoT automation — isolated on IoT VLAN |
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| PrimeStation | Primary workstation — HomeLab VLAN |
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---
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## Infrastructure Layers
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### Infrastructure Layer — Proxmox Cluster
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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.
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📁 Configs: [`proxmox/`](./proxmox/) · [`truenas/`](./truenas/) · [`home-assistant/`](./home-assistant/)
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---
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### Orchestration Layer — K3s on Raspberry Pi
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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.
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📌 Full cluster documentation: **[ced-k3s-homelab →](https://github.com/ced4568/ced-k3s-homelab)**
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---
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### Network & VLAN Architecture
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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.
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| VLAN | Subnet | Purpose |
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|------|--------|---------|
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| Main | `10.10.10.0/24` | Daily-use devices, workstations |
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| IoT | `10.10.20.0/24` | Smart home devices, consoles, TVs |
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| HomeLab | `10.10.30.0/24` | All servers, K3s nodes, storage, services |
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| Guest | `10.10.99.0/24` | Guest Wi-Fi — no internal access |
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**Traffic flow for external access:**
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```
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Internet → Cloudflare Edge → Tunnel → Nginx Proxy Manager → Internal Service
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```
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Zero open ports. No port forwarding. All external access goes through Cloudflare Tunnel.
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📁 Configs: [`cloudflare/`](./cloudflare/) · [`npm/`](./npm/) · [`docs/Add_New_Service_Guide.md`](./docs/Add_New_Service_Guide.md)
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---
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### Observability — Ced's NOC
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The centerpiece of this lab. A live Network Operations Center dashboard giving real-time visibility into every layer of the infrastructure.
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| Tool | Role |
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|------|------|
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| Prometheus | Metrics collection and storage |
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| Grafana | Dashboards and visualization |
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| Node Exporter | Per-host system metrics (CPU, RAM, disk, network) |
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| Blackbox Exporter | External endpoint and service probing |
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| Uptime Kuma | Service-level uptime monitoring and alerting |
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**What's monitored:**
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- Proxmox host performance and VM resource usage
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- K3s cluster node health and pod status
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- Per-service uptime with configurable alert thresholds
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- Network latency across VLANs
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- TrueNAS pool health and disk utilization
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📺 **[View Live NOC Dashboard →](https://noc.chasedumphord.com)**
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📁 Configs: [`monitoring/`](./monitoring/)
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---
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## Screenshots
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### Proxmox — Hypervisor Overview
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### Proxmox — Active Workloads
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### K3s — Cluster Nodes & Pods
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### Nginx Proxy Manager — Reverse Proxy Routes
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### Uptime Kuma — Service Monitoring
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### Grafana — Infrastructure Dashboard
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---
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## Repository Structure
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```
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ceds-homelab/
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├── cloudflare/ # Tunnel configs and DNS setup
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├── docs/ # Architecture diagrams, guides, roadmap
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│ ├── Add_New_Service_Guide.md
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│ ├── Ced_Homelab_Diagrams.md
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│ └── roadmap.md
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├── home-assistant/ # HA configuration and automation
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├── k3s/ # K3s manifests and configs
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├── monitoring/ # Prometheus, Grafana, Uptime Kuma configs
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├── npm/ # Nginx Proxy Manager configs
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├── proxmox/ # Proxmox VM/LXC templates and notes
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├── screenshots/ # Infrastructure screenshots for docs
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├── soc-lab/ # Security operations lab project
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└── truenas/ # TrueNAS pool and dataset configs
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```
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---
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## Roadmap
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- [x] Proxmox 6-node cluster (BigWorld, Biggie, Snoop, TooShort, Tupac, DrDre)
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- [x] 12-node K3s cluster on Raspberry Pi with role-based worker groups
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- [x] VLAN segmentation via UniFi (Main, IoT, HomeLab, Guest)
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- [x] Cloudflare Tunnel + Nginx Proxy Manager — zero open ports
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- [x] Prometheus + Grafana observability stack
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- [x] Uptime Kuma service monitoring
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- [x] Live NOC dashboard (noc.chasedumphord.com)
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- [x] TrueNAS ZFS storage with NFS exports
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- [x] Home Assistant on isolated IoT VLAN
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- [ ] GitOps with ArgoCD for K3s deployments
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- [ ] Helm chart library for self-hosted services
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- [ ] Cloudflare Zero Trust access policies
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- [ ] Internal container registry
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- [ ] Automated alerting with Grafana OnCall
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- [ ] Full Prometheus alerting rules library
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---
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## Security Practices
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This repository contains **no secrets, tokens, API keys, or passwords.**
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- All sensitive values are stored locally or passed via environment variables
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- Template/example files use placeholder values only (`.example` suffix)
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- External access is zero-trust via Cloudflare Tunnel — no exposed ports
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- VLANs enforce hard network segmentation between device classes
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- Internal IPs are intentionally omitted from public documentation
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---
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## Related Projects
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| Project | Description |
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| [ced-k3s-homelab](https://github.com/ced4568/ced-k3s-homelab) | Full documentation for the 12-node Raspberry Pi K3s cluster |
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| [ceds-aprs-igate](https://github.com/ced4568/ceds-aprs-igate) | Dual-node APRS RF-to-internet iGate (KJ5JCO) |
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| [ced-portfolio](https://github.com/ced4568/ced-portfolio) | Source for chasedumphord.com |
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---
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## Author
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**Chase Dumphord (Ced)**
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Digital Systems Engineer · GE Aerospace · Oxford, MS
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Building systems that connect industrial hardware to actionable data.
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[](https://chasedumphord.com)
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[](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chase-dumphord/)
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[](https://github.com/ced4568)
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[](https://noc.chasedumphord.com) |