homelab

As I prepare for an upcoming move, I’m redesigning my homelab to transition from scattered equipment to a proper rack-mounted setup that supports my current and future technical experiments. In this first installment, I outline my core requirements—such as a 10 Gigabit backbone, high availability for virtual machines, and dedicated IoT networks—while beginning the process of consolidating my gear into a standardized cabinet.

If you are curious about the reality of self-managing a home construction project, I share our progress update and the unexpected hurdles we’ve faced nine months into the build. While we are slightly ahead of schedule for our March 2022 move-in, navigating surprise costs and bureaucratic red tape has required significant resilience and constant decision-making.

Drawing on my extensive experience building digital solutions, I am turning my attention to the complex reality of constructing a physical home in Helsinki’s competitive housing market. I will document my journey from deciding to build rather than buy to navigating the challenges of limited land and high costs, offering practical insights for others considering a similar undertaking.

I’ll show you how I built an on-premises Kubernetes cluster using three affordable, low-power Raspberry Pi 4 devices to learn container orchestration without breaking the bank. This post walks through my entire process, from rack-mounting the hardware and configuring headless SSH access to deploying the Kubernetes environment itself.

If you want to stay informed about critical events in your Tailscale network, this guide shows you how I built a custom notification engine using Azure Logic Apps and webhooks. During my winter holiday, I set up a simple solution that triggers HTTP requests to Azure whenever specific Tailnet management or device misconfiguration events occur, ensuring I never miss important alerts.