24 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
24 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
# Architecture and Hardware
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## Hardware
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The homelab runs on a repurposed always-on Ubuntu Server box — modest specs by design, which shaped a lot of the decisions documented across this wiki (lightweight images, careful resource limits, monitoring everything so problems show up before they cause outages).
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| Component | Spec |
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|---|---|
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| OS | Ubuntu Server |
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| Orchestration | Docker + Docker Compose |
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| Management UI | Portainer |
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| Storage | Mixed SSD + HDD, monitored via Hard Disk Sentinel |
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## Design principles
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1. **One Compose stack per service.** Each service lives in its own folder with its own `docker-compose.yml`, instead of one giant file. Easier to update, restart, or debug a single service without touching the rest.
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2. **Monitor everything.** Prometheus + Grafana + cAdvisor + node-exporter run from day one, not bolted on later — resource pressure on modest hardware shows up fast, and having metrics from the start made it possible to catch it.
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3. **Secrets stay out of git.** Every service that needs credentials uses a `.env` file (gitignored) with a matching `.env.example` committed as a template.
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4. **DNS-level filtering at the network edge.** Pi-hole sits in front of all DNS traffic rather than relying on per-device ad blockers.
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## Network
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All services communicate over Docker's internal bridge networks, with only the ports that need external access published to the host. See [[Network Services]] for details on Pi-hole and Portainer specifically.
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