2.4 KiB
ENP.One Documentation
A system is only as good as its documentation -- A proverb, probably
Some documentation is better than no documentation, but no documentation is better than wrong documentation -- me, all the time
My homelab has gotten well out of hand. Back in 2014 when I pulled a busted up server out an actual dumpster I had no idea that five years later I'd be running two clustered servers, a control node, a dozen different services, and have two different uplink points. Halp.
But here I am. And I figured I'd best start documenting this stuff before I lose my mind and everything flies apart.
Note that these docs do not cover deployment/management details. Please see the Ansible repository.
Why have a homelab?
Excellent question. I maintain my homelab for exactly three reasons:
- Education
- Fun
- Independence
Education
My homelab provides me opportunities to learn how new tools and environments work in a context where I have more control than I do in a professional setting. This lets me try things out to see how they work without needing to get approval or risk breaking something important. I am definitely a "learn by doing" person.
As a result of this, the state of my homelab largely reflects the state of my current employer. When I worked at a company that ran an MS Active Directory core my homelab ran Active Directory and Hyper-V. Now that I am at an organization that runs a Linux stack, I run CentOS and KVM.
Fun
This one shouldn't need explanation. I find maintaining this equipment fun in a challenging sort of way. To me it's a challenge of looking at something like Google Drive and saying "I bet I could host that myself". Which leads me to my final point...
Independence
I believe strongly in people's right to a free and open internet, and I believe that private corporations owning infrastructure critical to everyday user's ability to participate in online environments is actively hindering that. And while I certainly don't think everyone should run their own homelab, it is the way I choose to solve what I see as a problem.
External Links
- Personal Homepage
- Version Control System
- Cloud File System
- Secure Storage Vault
- Content Delivery Network
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