Homelab Series:

Kubernetes Cluster (App Bonanza!!!!!!)

Here’s a screenshot of my dashboard displaying most of my 50 plus servers :D

It’s still a work in progress.

What Apps am I Running?

Here are some of the apps I’m running on Kubernetes:

13ft - bypass website paywalls
code-server - VC Code inside web browser
dashy - a dashboard for homelabs
k8s-dashboard - a dashboard for the Kubernetes cluster
librespeed - an internet speeed test
open-webui - an opensource “ChatGPT” web interface
stirling-pdf - a PDF manipulator within browser
changedetection - monitors website changes
cyberchef - a SWE toolbox for data manipulation
homepage - a dashboard for homelabs
k8s-metrics-service - i forgot
mealie - a recipe manager
sockpuppetbrowser - an internal tool for changedetection
whoogle - a privacy-respecting Google

Example App Installation

Here we will install the homepage app as an example for most of the applications I’m running.

In this case, we will be creating 4 Kubernetes workloads:

homepage-pvc.yml - this allocates PersistentVolumeClaims for persistent storage the homepage will be using
homepage-deployment.yml - this defines the Deployment details needed to download and run the homepage container
homepage-svc.yml - this defines the Service that will act as the gateway to the running homepage container
homepage-ingress.yml - this will auto issue an SSL certificate

1. PersistentVolumeClaim

Create a file with the following contents

kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: cephfs-homepage
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteMany
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
  storageClassName: rook-ceph-fs
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: cephfs-homepage-public
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteMany
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
  storageClassName: rook-ceph-fs

Then apply it

kubectl apply -f homepage-pvc.yml

2. Deployment

Create a file with the following contents

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: homepage
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: homepage
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: homepage
    spec:
      automountServiceAccountToken: true
      dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst
      enableServiceLinks: true
      containers:
      - name: homepage
        image: ghcr.io/gethomepage/homepage:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 3000
        env:
        - name: HOMEPAGE_ALLOWED_HOSTS
          value: "homepage.lan"
        volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /app/config
          name: cephfs-homepage
        - mountPath: /app/public/images
          name: cephfs-homepage-public
      volumes:
      - name: cephfs-homepage
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: cephfs-homepage
          readOnly: false
      - name: cephfs-homepage-public
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: cephfs-homepage-public
          readOnly: false

Then apply it

kubectl apply -f homepage-deployment.yml

3. Service

Create a file with the following contents

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: homepage
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 80
    targetPort: 3000
  selector:
    app: homepage
  type: LoadBalancer

Then apply it

kubectl apply -f homepage-svc.yml

4. Ingress

Create a file with the following contents

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: homepage
  annotations:
    cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: "letsencrypt-prod"
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /
spec:
  ingressClassName: nginx
  tls:
  - hosts:
    - homepage.lan
    secretName: tls-homepage
  rules:
  - host: homepage.lan
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        pathType: Prefix
        backend:
          service:
            name: homepage
            port:
              number: 80

Then apply it

kubectl apply -f homepage-ingress.yml

Repeat

The example above is pretty much the template I’ve used for deploying the rest of the applications.

Of course, some may not use PersistentVolumeClaims and other may not use Ingress. So create and apply those manifest files accordingly.