Running kubectl apply by hand works fine, until it doesn’t. You make a quick fix at 11pm and forget to commit the manifest. A ConfigMap gets edited during debugging and never makes it back into your YAML. Six months later, the cluster running in front of you no longer matches the files sitting on your […]
GitHub and GitLab are where many homelab users keep the most important parts of their infrastructure: Kubernetes manifests, Ansible playbooks, Docker Compose files, and infrastructure code. Yet unlike the services those files describe, the repositories themselves often live on someone else’s infrastructure. Once you’ve started self-hosting the rest of your homelab, that exception becomes harder […]
Your k3s cluster has been running for a while. Flannel handles the networking. Pods communicate, services resolve correctly, and everything just works. So why would you change it? Most Container Network Interface (CNI) comparison guides never answer that question. They’re written for someone setting up a brand-new cluster, or for an x86 data center where […]
Jellyfin is easy to deploy on almost any hardware. Building a media server that can actually handle real-world transcoding is much harder. Direct play tells you very little about a system’s capabilities. If every client already supports the source video, the server is little more than a file server. The real workload begins when a […]
By now your Turing Pi 2.5 is doing real work. Nextcloud is running from the self-hosted Nextcloud guide. Maybe you have Immich handling your photo library, or Home Assistant managing your smart home. Everything works beautifully on your local network. The next challenge is getting to those services from anywhere else. The traditional solution is […]
Choosing the best Kubernetes storage for an ARM homelab isn’t the same problem most Kubernetes storage guides are trying to solve. Many comparisons assume abundant RAM, dedicated storage hardware, and infrastructure that looks very different from a small k3s cluster running on ARM. This comparison focuses on four of the most common Kubernetes storage options […]
The lightweight Kubernetes ecosystem has matured to the point where ARM homelab builders have several credible options. K3s, K0s, MicroK8s, and RKE2 all support ARM64, all run on RK3588 hardware, and all promise a simpler experience than a traditional kubeadm deployment. What they do not offer is the same trade-off profile. Most comparisons focus on […]
Google Photos gives you 15GB free. After that, every additional gigabyte becomes a recurring subscription. If you’re looking for a self-hosted Google Photos alternative, there is a better option: run Immich on the Turing Pi 2.5 cluster you already own, automatically back up every photo from your phone, and keep your entire library under your […]
Self-hosted personal cloud platforms let you store, sync, and access your files from anywhere without paying monthly subscription fees or relying on third-party infrastructure. Services like Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, and OneDrive are convenient, but they come with storage limits, recurring costs, and limited control over where your data lives. If you’re already running a […]
You’ve decided to build an ARM cluster. Maybe you want to run k3s. Maybe you’re consolidating a handful of Raspberry Pis under your desk into something more intentional. You’ve done the reading, watched the YouTube videos, compared benchmark charts, and somehow ended up more confused than when you started. The Raspberry Pi CM5 is the […]