Hey everyone! I'm a homelabber eager to dive deeper into Kubernetes and get a better grasp of diagnosing issues and understanding the inner workings. My end goal is to become employable in a Kubernetes-related role someday. Currently, I'm running applications like Immich, Frigate, and Plex, but I mostly just let them be, without much tinkering. I'm particularly interested in diving into cert-manager, TLS automation, ArgoCD, GitOps, and learning the reasons behind issues instead of just relying on quick fixes.
Here's what I have to work with: a Raspberry Pi 5 (16GB RAM) — where I'm considering k3s — and a Mac with 24GB RAM, perfect for running k3d or Kind, or local clusters.
I'm curious: Would setting up a small Kubernetes cluster using cert-manager and ArgoCD be beneficial for securing and learning from my home services? Should I start locally on the Mac, intentionally break things, and then transition to the Raspberry Pi later?
If you were in my shoes, what would you deploy first? What projects made things click for you? I'd love to hear any don't-do-this-like-I-did horror stories too! I'm here to learn and break things (responsibly). Cheers!
1 Answer
Getting some old mini PCs to run a cluster sounds like a great idea! Raspberry Pis can get pricey, and having something you can actually use and tinker with over time is valuable. Instead of just running single-node setups, create something meaningful that you can maintain and learn from.
That sounds interesting! Do you think using VMs in Proxmox would be a good start for learning? Would I need to install Ubuntu on each VM to set up Kubernetes as nodes?