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The server
Gitea here is a straightforward binary install: the gitea service listening on port 3000, a lightweight database behind it, and its config in one file (app.ini). HAProxy at the edge publishes it as https://git.example.com. GIT-Server (10.100.100.2) gitea (s...
The API: where automation hooks in
A forge earns its keep through its API. Gitea exposes a full REST API, authenticated with a token, and that's how the rest of the platform automates against it: creating repos, managing CI secrets, reading workflow status, even creating the registration token ...
Lessons on the Git server
Owning the forge closes the loop. Code → CI → registry → cluster, all in one network you control. Light is fine. A single Go binary forge is plenty for a lab (and many small teams), and it's a joy to operate. Lean on the API. It's the seam where automation pl...
Why a wiki (and why this one)
A lab you can't explain is just a pile of running processes. Documentation is what turns it into a portfolio and a teaching resource — which, for this lab, is the entire point. So it gets a real home: BookStack (Docs-Server, 10.100.100.3), the wiki you're read...
The stack behind it
BookStack is a PHP web application, so the box runs a fairly classic web stack: Docs-Server (10.100.100.3) nginx (:80) - serves the app, fronted by HAProxy -> docs.example.com PHP - the BookStack application itself MariaDB ...
Shelves, books, pages
BookStack's content model is just three levels, and these docs use them deliberately: Shelf "Building a Kubernetes Platform on Proxmox" Book "Kubernetes Cluster (kubeadm + Calico)" Page "Joining the workers (and the firewall that blocked them)" ...
The fun part: these docs wrote themselves (via the API)
Here's the meta bit. BookStack has a full REST API, and every shelf, book, and page in this documentation was created through it, not typed into the web editor. Covers included. POST /api/books (name, description, + a generated cover image) POST /api/shelve...
Lessons on documenting the lab
Document for the reader you were. The most valuable pages explain the why and the mistakes, because that's what you couldn't find when you started. Let the tool's structure guide you. Shelf → book → page keeps things findable; fight it and you get sprawl. One...
Why metrics
Logs tell you what happened; metrics tell you how things are trending. Is the host running out of memory? Is disk filling up? Is CPU pegged? Those are numbers over time, and you want them charted and alertable, not discovered by accident. The lab runs a metric...
The pipeline
Metrics flow in one direction, from source to dashboard: Proxmox host --(built-in metric server)--> InfluxDB --> Grafana (CPU, RAM, (10.100.100.4) dashboards disk, I/O) bucket: proxmox ...
Two pillars, one pane of glass
Grafana is doing double duty in this lab, and that's deliberate. It's the dashboard front-end for metrics (from InfluxDB) and — because Grafana can query multiple data sources — the front-end for logs (from Loki; see the next book). Grafana (10.100.100.4) |...
Lessons on monitoring
Watch the foundation first. The Proxmox host's CPU/RAM/disk is the most important thing to graph — everything else depends on it staying healthy. Learn the universal shape: source → time-series DB → dashboards. InfluxDB or Prometheus, the pattern is the same....
Why one place for every log
With more than a couple of machines, "SSH in and grep the log" stops scaling. You don't know which box the interesting line is on, logs rotate away, and correlating across machines is hopeless. The fix is to ship every log line to one searchable place. This la...
Loki, the store
Loki runs as a single binary on its own VM, storing log streams on local disk with a generous retention window. It's reached over the private network on port 3100. A deliberate simplification: Loki here runs with authentication disabled, because it's only ever...
Promtail everywhere, and good labels
The agent (Promtail) runs on every host, and what it ships — and how it's labelled — is what makes the logs useful. A label is how you slice the haystack later. Across the fleet, Promtail ships and labels: host shipped streams ...
Lessons on centralized logging
Ship logs from day one. Bake the agent into the VM template so every host reports from birth; retrofitting later is painful. Pick tools that fit your scale. Loki indexing labels (not full text) is what keeps it light enough for a lab. Labels are the product. ...
Why run your own registry
The CI runner builds images; they have to live somewhere the cluster can pull them. You could push to a public registry, but a self-hosted one keeps the whole artifact flow inside the lab — and it's a great thing to understand, because a registry is conceptual...
The stack
Two containers, run with Docker Compose, plus a sprinkle of auth: Registry-Server (10.100.100.6) registry (registry:2) :5000 - the registry API registry-ui (joxit UI) :8080 - a browser front-end auth: htpasswd (user <REDAC...