213 lines
16 KiB
Markdown
213 lines
16 KiB
Markdown
# Homelab
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A self-hosted homelab running on Docker Compose, built and maintained on an Ubuntu Server. This repo documents the actual infrastructure-as-code behind it — deployment configs only, no runtime data or secrets.
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## Overview
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This is a real, running homelab — not a demo. It's deployed on a home Ubuntu server and managed entirely through Docker Compose, with each service isolated in its own folder, and updated through a shared Ansible role run via Semaphore. Configs here are the actual files running in production, with all secrets, API keys, and runtime state stripped out and replaced with `.env.example` placeholders.
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## Services
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| Service | Folder | Purpose |
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| **Monitoring stack** | `docker-compose/monitoring-grafana-promethues-cadvisor-node-exporter/` | Prometheus for metrics, Grafana for dashboards, cAdvisor for per-container resource stats, node-exporter for host-level metrics, plus Loki + Grafana Alloy for centralized container log aggregation — see [Monitoring Stack](docs/Monitoring-Stack.md) |
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| **Pi-hole** | `docker-compose/pihole/` | Network-wide DNS-level ad and tracker blocking |
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| **Portainer** | `docker-compose/portainer/` | Web UI for managing and monitoring all Docker containers on the host |
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| **DockScope** | `docker-compose/dockscope/` | 3D visual dashboard mapping containers, networks, and dependencies, with anomaly detection and crash diagnostics — see [DockScope](docs/DockScope.md) |
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| **n8n** | `docker-compose/n8n/` | Workflow automation engine, backed by Postgres |
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| **Samba** | `docker-compose/samba/` | Network file sharing across LAN devices |
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| **Filebrowser** | `docker-compose/filebrowser/` | Web-based file manager for the server's storage |
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| **Media stack** | `docker-compose/mediastack/` | Plex (media server), Sonarr/Radarr/Prowlarr (media automation and indexing), qBittorrent (download client) |
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| **Minecraft** | `docker-compose/minecraft/` | Self-hosted game server |
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| **Sentinel** | `docker-compose/sentinel/` | Disk health monitoring integrated with smartctl, dumps output to container logs |
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| **smartctl** | `docker-compose/smartctl/` | Disk health monitoring (S.M.A.R.T. data) |
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| **OpenHands** | `docker-compose/openhands/` | Self-hosted AI coding agent (OpenHands/agent-canvas) backed by Ollama — see [AI Coding Agent](docs/AI-Agent.md) |
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| **Nginx Proxy Manager** | `docker-compose/nginx-proxy-manager/` | Reverse proxy giving every service a friendly `.home` hostname with locally-trusted HTTPS — see [Reverse Proxy](docs/Reverse-Proxy.md) |
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| **Semaphore** | `docker-compose/semaphore/` | Self-hosted Ansible UI (alternative to AWX) — see [Semaphore Guide](docs/Semaphore.md) |
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| **Ansible playbooks** | `ansible/` | Shared update role (pull → recreate → health-check → prune) reused across every stack, run via Semaphore — see [Ansible Playbooks](docs/AnsiblePlaybooks.md) |
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| **GitLab CI/CD** | `docker-compose/gitlab/` | Self-hosted GitLab Omnibus + Docker-executor Runner, tuned for this hardware and integrated with the monitoring stack — see [GitLab CI/CD](docs/GitLab-CICD.md) |
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| **Custom CI images** | `docker-compose/gitlab/ci-images-reference/` | Self-built, minimal Docker images for CI pipelines, stored in a self-hosted Container Registry, rebuilt biweekly — see [Custom CI Runner Images](docs/CI-Custom-Images.md) |
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| **Voting app CI/CD** | `voting-app-monorepo` (self-hosted GitLab, referenced here) | Full pipeline: build, test, vulnerability scan, 3-environment deploy with rollback, load test, DB backup to MinIO — see [Voting App — Mono-Repo](docs/Voting-App-Monorepo.md) |
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| **Object storage** | `docker-compose/minio/` | Self-hosted MinIO (S3-compatible), `-cpuv1` release tag for CPU compatibility — backup target for the voting app's Postgres dumps |
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## Learning labs (not always-on)
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Not everything in this repo runs permanently. Some folders are kept purely as reference from one-off learning exercises for my DevOps cert coursework — the compose files work, but they're not part of the day-to-day stack above.
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| Lab | Folder | Purpose |
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| **Elastic Stack (ELK)** | `docker-compose/elk/` | Elasticsearch + Kibana, security-enabled, sized for this hardware — a modern-workflow (Elastic Agent/Fleet) alternative to an older Filebeat/Metricbeat-based course reference. Not run continuously since Loki now covers centralized logging here — see [Elastic Stack (ELK)](docs/ElasticStack.md) |
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## Repository structure
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```
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homelab/
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├── docker-compose/
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│ ├── monitoring-grafana-promethues-cadvisor-node-exporter/
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│ │ ├── docker-compose.yml
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│ │ ├── alloy/
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│ │ │ └── config.alloy
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│ │ ├── grafana/
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│ │ │ └── provisioning/
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│ │ │ └── datasources/
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│ │ │ └── loki.yml
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│ │ └── prometheus/
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│ │ └── prometheus.yml
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│ ├── pihole/
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│ │ ├── docker-compose.yml
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│ │ └── .env.example
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│ ├── portainer/
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│ │ └── docker-compose.yml
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│ ├── dockscope/
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│ │ └── docker-compose.yml
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│ ├── n8n/
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│ │ ├── docker-compose.yaml
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│ │ └── .env.example
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│ ├── samba/
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│ │ ├── docker-compose.yml
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│ │ └── .env.example
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│ ├── filebrowser/
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│ │ └── docker-compose.yml
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│ ├── mediastack/
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│ │ ├── plex/docker-compose.yml
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│ │ ├── sonarr/docker-compose.yml
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│ │ ├── radarr/docker-compose.yml
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│ │ ├── prowlarr/docker-compose.yml
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│ │ ├── whisparr/docker-compose.yml
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│ │ └── download-client-qbittorent/docker-compose.yml
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│ ├── minecraft/
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│ │ └── docker-compose.yml
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│ ├── minio/
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│ │ └── docker-compose.yml
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│ ├── sentinel/
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│ │ └── docker-compose.yml
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│ ├── smartctl/
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│ │ └── docker-compose.yml
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│ ├── openhands/
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│ │ └── docker-compose.yaml
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│ ├── nginx-proxy-manager/
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│ │ └── docker-compose.yaml
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│ ├── semaphore/
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│ │ ├── docker-compose.yml
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│ │ └── README.md
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│ ├── gitlab/
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│ │ ├── docker-compose.yml
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│ │ ├── config.toml.example
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│ │ ├── ci-images-reference/
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│ │ │ ├── README.md
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│ │ │ ├── .gitlab-ci.yml
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│ │ │ └── images/
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│ │ │ └── ssh-alpine/
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│ │ │ └── Dockerfile
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│ │ └── backups/
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│ │ └── gitlab-backup.sh
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│ └── elk/
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│ ├── docker-compose.yml
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│ └── .env.example
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├── ansible/
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│ └── playbooks/
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│ ├── roles/
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│ │ └── docker_compose_update/
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│ │ └── tasks/main.yml
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│ ├── update-filebrowser.yml
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│ ├── update-n8n.yml
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│ ├── update-npm.yml
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│ ├── update-pihole.yml
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│ ├── update-plex.yml
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│ ├── update-portainer.yml
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│ ├── update-prowlarr.yml
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│ ├── update-radarr.yml
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│ ├── update-samba.yml
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│ ├── update-sentinel.yml
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│ ├── update-smartctl.yml
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│ ├── update-sonarr.yml
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│ ├── update-whisparr.yml
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│ ├── update-agent-canvas.yml
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│ ├── update-grafana.yml
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│ └── ping.yml
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├── docs/
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│ ├── Home.md
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│ ├── Architecture-and-Hardware.md
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│ ├── Monitoring-Stack.md
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│ ├── Network-Services.md
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│ ├── Media-Automation.md
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│ ├── Workflow-Automation.md
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│ ├── Storage-Health.md
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│ ├── AI-Agent.md
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│ ├── Reverse-Proxy.md
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│ ├── Lessons-Learned.md
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│ ├── Semaphore.md
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│ ├── DockScope.md
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│ ├── AnsiblePlaybooks.md
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│ ├── GitLab-CICD.md
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│ ├── CI-Custom-Images.md
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│ ├── Voting-App-Monorepo.md
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│ ├── ElasticStack.md
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│ └── images/
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├── dashboards/
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│ └── gitlab-application-runner-metrics.json
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└── .gitignore
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```
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## Running a service
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Each folder is a standalone Compose stack:
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```bash
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cd docker-compose/pihole
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cp .env.example .env # fill in real values
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docker compose up -d
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```
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## Updating a service
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Rather than pulling and recreating manually, every always-on stack has a matching Ansible playbook that pulls the latest images, recreates containers, verifies they're healthy, and prunes unused images — run through Semaphore's web UI. See [Ansible Playbooks](docs/AnsiblePlaybooks.md) for details on how the shared role works.
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## Security notes
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- All `.env` files, runtime config directories, and databases are excluded via `.gitignore` — only deployment definitions (`docker-compose.yml`) and `.env.example` placeholders are tracked.
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- Passwords referenced in compose files are injected via environment variables, never hardcoded.
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- The AI coding agent (`docker-compose/openhands/`) currently uses a third-party API aggregator as its LLM backend — see [AI Coding Agent](docs/AI-Agent.md) for details and caveats. It has no access to the Docker socket or other containers on the host.
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- **DockScope** (`docker-compose/dockscope/`) mounts `/var/run/docker.sock`, the same as Portainer — this grants it effectively root-equivalent access to the Docker host, and it currently has no built-in authentication on its web UI, so it's kept LAN-only and not exposed through the reverse proxy. See [DockScope](docs/DockScope.md).
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- **Grafana Alloy** (part of the monitoring stack) also mounts `/var/run/docker.sock` read-only, needed to discover containers and tail their logs.
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## Lessons learned
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- Splitting each service into its own folder with its own Compose file made it much easier to reason about dependencies and update services independently, instead of one giant Compose file.
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- Runtime config/state (API keys, session tokens, library databases) needs to be gitignored at the directory level (`**/config/`, `**/data/`) — a plain text/secret grep alone isn't enough, since it silently skips over app-specific binary and XML config files.
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- Centralized monitoring (Prometheus + Grafana + cAdvisor + node-exporter) made it possible to actually see resource usage per container, which mattered a lot on lower-spec hardware.
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- Free-tier cloud AI APIs enforce regional access restrictions automatically — worth checking a provider's terms before building around "free tier" as an assumption. See [AI Coding Agent](docs/AI-Agent.md).
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- Wildcard TLS certs (`*.home`) are rejected by browsers on single-label local domains — certificates for local reverse proxies need explicit hostnames listed instead. See [Reverse Proxy](docs/Reverse-Proxy.md).
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- Grouping all Compose stacks under one `docker-compose/` folder (rather than flat at repo root) kept the structure readable once Ansible playbooks were added as a sibling — a flat repo mixing deployment configs and automation code got confusing fast.
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- Newer Docker images can silently raise the minimum CPU generation required (base-OS changes, not anything in the compose file itself) — hit this running Elasticsearch 9.x on older hardware. See [Elastic Stack (ELK)](docs/ElasticStack.md).
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- **Promtail is end-of-life as of March 2026** and removed outright as of Loki 3.7.3 — any current Loki setup should use Grafana Alloy for log shipping instead. Worth checking a project's actual current-recommended tooling before following an older tutorial, since agent names and workflows in this space have moved fast.
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- Bind-mounted container data directories can end up owned by the wrong UID after mixing `sudo` and non-`sudo` commands on the same folder — this silently broke Loki's ability to write its own working directory, surfacing only as a `permission denied` deep in its startup logs.
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- Community Grafana dashboards built for older Loki/Promtail label conventions (e.g. `container_name`) don't automatically work against a fresh Alloy-based label schema (`container`, `service_name`) — worth checking a dashboard's expected labels against your actual pipeline's labels before assuming an import error means something's broken on your end.
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- GitLab Omnibus's default RAM footprint assumes dedicated hardware — running it alongside an existing stack requires trimming Puma/Sidekiq workers explicitly, and disabling GitLab's own bundled monitoring in favor of the stack already running here.
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- `registry.gitlab.com` is geo-blocked under U.S. sanctions for several countries at the infrastructure level, independent of any account or token — surfaced as a Docker-executor helper-image pull failure. Fix was sourcing the helper image from Docker Hub instead. See [GitLab CI/CD](docs/GitLab-CICD.md).
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- Files written by a root-running container into a bind-mounted volume (GitLab's `config/`, `data/backups/`) are root-owned on the host — a backup script touching these needs to run as root and `chown` its own output back to the regular user, or every later interaction with the backup needs `sudo`.
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- Tailscale actively manages `/etc/resolv.conf` on a host it's installed on, silently overriding local DNS resolvers (Pi-hole) even when `systemd-resolved` is configured correctly — worth checking `/etc/resolv.conf`'s own header before assuming a DNS setup is broken. See [Custom CI Runner Images](docs/CI-Custom-Images.md).
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- GitLab's Container Registry ties every image path to a real, existing project — unlike Docker Hub, pushing to an arbitrary namespace that has no matching project fails with a generic-looking `denied: requested access` error that reads like an auth problem but isn't one.
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- Docker images with `ENTRYPOINT` hardcoded to the tool itself (Trivy, k6, MinIO's `mc`) break GitLab CI's default script invocation with a confusing "unknown command sh" error — fixed the same way every time with `entrypoint: [""]`. See [Voting App — Mono-Repo](docs/Voting-App-Monorepo.md).
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- In Docker-outside-of-Docker setups, bind mounts (`-v host:container`) always resolve against the **host's** filesystem regardless of which container issued the `docker run` command — `docker cp` is the correct way to move a file into a container across that boundary, not a shared path assumption.
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- MinIO's current images require `x86-64-v2` CPU instructions and crash outright on older hardware (Phenom II here) with a `Fatal glibc error` — fixed by pinning to a `-cpuv1` release tag, a legacy compatibility branch MinIO still publishes for exactly this case.
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## Roadmap
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- [x] ~~Add a self-hosted Gitea instance for private repos and CI runners~~ — done via self-hosted GitLab instead, see [GitLab CI/CD](docs/GitLab-CICD.md)
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- [ ] Auto-deploy via Watchtower on image updates
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- [ ] Expand monitoring with alerting rules
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## Author
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**Reza** — Computer Networks student, LPIC-1
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[GitHub](https://github.com/rezayaghobi-dev)
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