Homelab

Managing DNS records for a homelab with dozens of services is tedious. Every time you deploy something new, you have to remember to add a DNS record. I solved this by using external-dns to automatically create Pi-hole DNS entries from Kubernetes ingress resources. The Goal When I create an ingress like this: apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1 kind: Ingress metadata: name: frigate annotations: external-dns.alpha.kubernetes.io/hostname: frigate.bowerha.us spec: rules: - host: frigate.bowerha.us # ... I want Pi-hole to automatically create a DNS record pointing frigate.bowerha.us to my ingress controller’s IP. No manual steps, no forgetting to update DNS. ...

One of the challenges of running a homelab with dozens of services is keeping track of what’s running and where. I recently deployed Homepage - a modern, fully static dashboard that automatically discovers services from Kubernetes ingresses. Why Homepage? I evaluated several dashboard options including Homarr and Heimdall. Homepage stood out for a few reasons: Kubernetes-native service discovery - no manual configuration needed Real-time pod status - shows if services are actually running Clean, modern UI - dark theme, customizable layout Lightweight - just a static site with no database The Setup Homepage runs as a simple deployment in Kubernetes with a ServiceAccount that has read access to the cluster. The magic happens through ingress annotations. ...

I manage two Kubernetes environments - a home cluster (bowerhaus) and a cloud cluster (rustycloud) - using GitOps with Kustomize and ArgoCD. After running this setup for a while, I’ve learned what works, what doesn’t, and some non-obvious gotchas. The Architecture kustomize/ ├── base/ # Shared, environment-agnostic configs │ ├── media/ │ │ ├── lidarr/ │ │ ├── radarr/ │ │ └── sonarr/ │ ├── home-automation/ │ │ ├── home-assistant/ │ │ └── frigate/ │ └── data-analytics/ │ ├── prometheus/ │ └── grafana/ ├── environments/ │ ├── bowerhaus/ │ │ ├── applicationsets/ # ArgoCD ApplicationSet │ │ └── apps/ # Per-app overlays │ │ ├── frigate/ │ │ ├── home-assistant/ │ │ └── prometheus/ │ └── rustycloud/ │ ├── applicationsets/ │ └── apps/ │ ├── plex/ │ ├── sonarr/ │ └── grafana/ The key principle: base contains environment-agnostic resources, environments contain overlays that customize for each cluster. ...