Much of what I learned about Helm charting and running workloads in Kubernetes I credit to the contributors over at k8s-at-home. There expansive chart collection helped me start to jump in to Kubernetes. Last year, they announced they were deprecating their repositories. I am not surprised: the sheer volume of charts they had meant they… Continue reading Tech Tips – Moving away from k8s-at-home
Tag: Kubernetes
Automated RKE2 Cluster Management
One of the things I like about cloud-hosted Kubernetes solutions is that they take the pain out of node management. My latest home lab goal was to replicate some of that functionality with RKE2. Did I do it? Yes. Is there room for improvement? Of course, its a software project. The Problem With RKE1, I… Continue reading Automated RKE2 Cluster Management
Moving On: Testing RKE2 Clusters in the Home Lab
After recovering from an RKE crash, I figured it was time to look into different Kubernetes options. I ended up with a new offering from a familiar friend.
Home Lab – No More iSCSI – Backup Plans
This post is part of a short series on migrating my home hypervisor off of iSCSI. It is worth nothing (and quite ironic) that I went through a fire drill last week when I crashed my RKE clusters. That event gave me some fresh eyes into the data that is important to me. How much… Continue reading Home Lab – No More iSCSI – Backup Plans
Nothing says “Friday Night Fun” like crashing an RKE Cluster!
Yes… I crashed my RKE clusters in a big way yesterday evening, and I spent a lot of time getting them back. I learned a few things in the process, and may have gotten the kickstart I need to investigate new Kubernetes flavors. It all started with an upgrade… All I wanted to do was… Continue reading Nothing says “Friday Night Fun” like crashing an RKE Cluster!
Home Lab – No More iSCSI: Transfer, Shutdown, and Rebuild
This post is part of a short series on migrating my home hypervisor off of iSCSI. Observations – Migrating Servers The focus of my hobby time over the few days has been moving production assets to the temporary server. Most of it is fairly vanilla, but I have a few observations worth noting. Let me… Continue reading Home Lab – No More iSCSI: Transfer, Shutdown, and Rebuild
Lessons in Managing my Kubernetes Cluster: Man Down!
I had a bit of a panic this week as routine tasks took me down a rabbit hole in Kubernetes. The more I manage my home lab clusters, the more I realize I do not want to be responsible for bare metal clusters at work. It was a typical upgrade… With ArgoCD in place, the… Continue reading Lessons in Managing my Kubernetes Cluster: Man Down!
Hitting for the cycle…
Well, I may not be hitting for the cycle, but I am certainly cycling Kubernetes nodes like it is my job. The recent OpenSSL security patches got me thinking that I need to cycle my cluster nodes. A Quick Primer In Kubernetes, a “node” is, well, a machine performing some bit of work. It could… Continue reading Hitting for the cycle…
What’s in a (Release) Name?
With Rancher gone, one of my clusters was dedicated to running Argo and my standard cluster tools. Another cluster has now become home for a majority of the monitoring tools, including the Grafana/Loki/Mimir/Tempo stack. That second cluster was running a little hot in terms of memory and CPU. I had 6 machines running what 4-5… Continue reading What’s in a (Release) Name?
A Lesson in Occam’s Razor: Configuring Mimir Ruler with Grafana
Occam’s Razor posits “Of two competing theories, the simpler explanation is to be preferred.” I believe my high school biology teacher taught the “KISS” method (Keep It Simple, Stupid) to convey a similar principle. As I was trying to get alerts set up in Mimir using the Grafana UI, I came across an issue that… Continue reading A Lesson in Occam’s Razor: Configuring Mimir Ruler with Grafana