I finally did it. I worked way too hard on this. I have spent too much time thinking about and worrying over the nitty gritty details.
So without further delay, it is here: Lowell Builds Servers
I am building out my homelab to do a lot of things. First of all, it is serving as my data storage and archival. Second, it is providing me with the ability to cut all ties to external service providers, except for the internet itself. Third, I am experimenting with new technologies and learning a lot along the way.
The Journey
It has been a really long time coming. I have gone from running services on a Raspberry Pi 3b to using and old laptop. Later I upgraded to a Synology 2-bay Network Attached Storage (NAS). For a while I have had the setup I have today, but I have been lacking in documentation and organization.
As a DevSecOps Engineer, I spend a lot of time configuring services and deploying them. In that process, I make sure the configurations are saved and easily reproduciable for the next installation. Why would I not do this for my own life?
Goals
Security
I care a bit about security. I have a degree in Cyber Security and am quite familiar with common pitfalls in technical design.
This repository is going to force me to use some best practices and think about the implementation. Why? Well because I care about the products I put out there and this is kind of becoming one of those.
Simplicity
Have you ever heard the saying “the simplest answer is usually correct”? It’s called Occam’s Razor. There’s a lot of ways to configure your hardware at home and use it for a variety of different reasons. I wanted to make this approachable so someone getting into homelabing has easier access to the technology than I did.
Also simple is great because in the worst case scenario I am not around for some reason and those who depend on me or my services and they aren’t available. It’s a likely possibility in the grand scheme of things. So making the configurations simple and readable to the common person is ideal.
Free
I do a lot of this stuff for a living. It’s exciting and thrilling but I do not have the capacity to make this project a fully featured Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or anything of that sort. So I am sticking to free to use software where I can and providing my results free of charge.
Freedom is one of the reasons I am doing this. I did not want to be tied down to these service providers who continue to increase prices and reduce availability or usability. Yep, I am talking about shows that you bought getting removed from streaming services and you are left without your money. I’m talking about not paying Google or Amazon or Microsoft money to store my photos and possibly data mine them or use them to train AI.
There is so much out there and you are really only limited by your imagination. I hope my ideas and concepts provide something useful and again, at not cost to you besides time and the effort to learn.
I hope you all have a blessed day and enjoy the glimpse into my strategy.