One of the key elements of managing a home lab is documenting every single step and keeping that documentation updated. There are many platforms suitable for this purpose, but I prefer WordPress because it is convenient, flexible, and easy to maintain. This post captures the exact steps I used to deploy a production-grade WordPress instance … Read more
Having a local Ubuntu repository mirror greatly improves package download speed and removes external dependencies during system updates. For my lab setup, I created a dedicated VM to host the mirror, exposed securely over HTTPS using Apache. This post documents the complete setup—from installing apt-mirror to configuring TLS and preparing the repository structure. Note on … Read more
Enabling SSL/TLS on every site—whether in a home lab or in production—is a good practice. While Let’s Encrypt offers free certificates suitable for most setups, I prefer using eMudhra’s emSign CA, especially for wildcard certificates and environments where commercial CA validation is preferred. This post documents the complete process of generating a wildcard SSL certificate … Read more
We need to reliably spin up dozens of VMs, some with vGPU, all with consistent networking and storage, so manual provisioning is no longer sustainable. The management server hosts a lightweight orchestration system that automates the creation, customization, and launch of KVM VMs. This system uses a set of template files and three shell scripts … Read more
This post documents the complete process of installing KVM on the management server and building a clean, optimized, minimal Ubuntu 22.04 VM template. This template will serve as the base image for all orchestrated VMs in the lab environment. 1. Install KVM Install KVM, libvirt, and required virtualization tools: apt -y install qemu-system-x86 libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-daemon … Read more
In a home lab that also serves as an R&D environment, frequent rebuilds, upgrades, and full reinstall cycles are inevitable. To avoid losing critical documentation, Docker repositories, source code, and other persistent assets, I decided to dedicate one physical server exclusively for management. This system now hosts all essential services and a lightweight K3s cluster … Read more