cert-manager: ACME at Scale
cert-manager makes Let's Encrypt automatic on Kubernetes, once. Then you scale, hit DNS-01 quirks, wildcard limits, and rate-limit walls. Here's the full survival guide.
Tag: self-hosting
All the articles with the tag "self-hosting".
Rootless Docker: Tips, Gotchas & Fixes
Rootless Docker tuning deep-dive: network drivers, env vars, port drivers, cgroup delegation, and real troubleshooting, anchored to Docker Engine 29.x.
Dead Container Took Down Prod
A real postmortem: how a forgotten survey-tool container, an uncapped Docker log driver, and rootless networking combined to kill prod for a Monday morning.
Mikrotik RouterOS for Home Lab
Mikrotik routers cost $50, run a real OS, and humiliate prosumer gear. RouterOS basics, VLANs, firewalling, and why your homelab probably needs one of these.
pfSense vs OPNsense in 2026
Two FreeBSD firewall distros, one bitter fork. pfSense vs OPNsense in 2026, which one to pick for your home lab, and why the licensing drama still matters.
Zeek for Home Lab Forensics
Zeek (formerly Bro) turns network traffic into structured logs you can actually query. The IDS that doesn't shout, it documents. Setup and use in a home lab.
Neo4j vs ArangoDB: Graph DB Showdown
Neo4j is the household graph DB with Cypher. ArangoDB is multi-model with AQL and free clustering. Here's which one fits your homelab graph use case.
ModSecurity vs Coraza WAF
ModSecurity 3 is end-of-life and Coraza is the open-source successor, Go-native, faster, and friendlier. Here's the migration story and what actually changes.
Photon vs ESPHome: ESP Firmware Compared
Particle Photon 2 vs ESPHome for ESP32 projects: cloud lock-in, OTA updates, Home Assistant integration, and which firmware wins for self-hosters long-term.
Postgres vs SQLite for Home Lab Apps
SQLite is brilliant until you need concurrent writes, replication, or online migrations. Here's the actual line where Postgres earns its keep.
SOPS + age: Secrets in Git
Stop the .env-in-1Password dance. SOPS encrypts secrets per-key, age provides modern crypto, and git stores them safely. Here's how to ship it without the traps.
Self-Host a Local AI Coding Workhorse
Self-host Gemma 4 or Qwen3-Coder via Ollama or llama.cpp in Docker, then let Claude delegate the grunt work to it. Free tokens, zero code leakage.