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Oh hai Cameron! I'm rebuilding my homelab [1] too, actually, but deprioritizing it while I stave off a wee spot o' burnout. I'm excited to see that you're bui

Oh hai Cameron! I'm rebuilding my homelab [1] too, actually, but deprioritizing it while I stave off a wee spot o' burnout. I'm excited to see that you're building on Talos; I am too! I used to use CoreOS back in the day, like 8-9 years ago or smth, on PXE-booted VMWare VMs, and I've always missed that cleanliness. That's a large part of why I'm rebuilding right now - I based everything around Ansible + Terraform, and that's workable of course but working iteratively on a homelab leaves so much cruft around, can lead to incidental complexity, etc etc etc. Anyway, I'm pumped to keep reading! [1] https://clog.goldentooth.net/ https://clog.goldentooth.net/

cweagans 1y ago
Hey hey! Good to see you here! Talos is absolutely incredible. There's a learning curve to it, but it's not as steep as it seems. I started with Ansible, but found myself getting really annoyed at the amount of YAML I was shoveling around for basic things, so I ended up writing a series of bash scripts that rsync files out to where they need to go, run actions when a particular file changes, etc. Provisioning scripts are bundled up and piped to the remote machine over SSH. It's been pretty nice. I'm thinking about building that out into a separate project somewhere. I'd love to check out what you're working on! The link seems to be broken though.
- nathan_douglas 1y ago
  Talos (and Talhelper) seem pretty reasonable so far. Digging Sops too for managing secrets. I was using Ansible Vault before which worked but was weirdly cumbersome to automate (go figure), and Sops seems to Just Work™. > The link seems to be broken though. Yeah, I'm a world-class infra engineer. smdh. Changed how the DNS record was created but didn't push my changes so they were reverted by a scheduled job facepalm Think it's back now...
  - cweagans 1y ago
    > Digging Sops too for managing secrets. I was using Ansible Vault before which worked but was weirdly cumbersome to automate (go figure), and Sops seems to Just Work™. I considered both of those and ended up using the External Secrets Operator + 1Password for my secrets. Maybe not the _best_ solution, but it saved a fair amount of effort on my part. > Think it's back now... It's back! Looking forward to reading!
    - nathan_douglas 1y ago
      Oh, that's super cool! I somehow missed that ESO and 1Password would work together. I set up a 1Password Connect Server at one point but ended up not doing much with it. Hmm...
      - cweagans 1y ago
        Don’t even need connect! You can use a service account token. Retries if 1pass is down or whatever too!
bokohut 1y ago
I too am preparing for an entire rebuild of my home lab so the posting of this information is greatly appreciated at this time. My home lab has been rebuilt 3 times in the last 20 years and the continuous mention of energy usage within this post is a main driver and one of several primary objectives towards my effort. My 36U rack as configured now with Dell Servers having Intel Xeons E chips has served me well for all the tech stuff that interests me both in hobby and profession. My entire setup now with all devices running draws 200 watts continuously and my existing home energy renewables generation and battery storage system will greatly benefit from this home lab rebuild as I am targeting energy use and floor area recovery outright while learning many new things as well. This rebuild is also a lead into my fourth tech company I'm starting so my motivation is strongly tied to many factors not discussed. Looking forward to the future posts, Stay Healthy!
- nathan_douglas 1y ago
  I haven't had a huge issue with power draw, but I live in a place where electricity is really cheap. I had 3x Dell R720s, an R210ii, and an Aruba 48-port PoE switch and felt like I had way more power than I knew what to do with, but it still didn't seem to have a substantial impact on my power bill. Maybe I lucked out with some components. Or maybe the overall power draw in my house is so pants-on-head stupid that I just don't have realistic expectations anymore.

cweagans 1y ago

Hey hey! Good to see you here! Talos is absolutely incredible. There's a learning curve to it, but it's not as steep as it seems. I started with Ansible, but found myself getting really annoyed at the amount of YAML I was shoveling around for basic things, so I ended up writing a series of bash scripts that rsync files out to where they need to go, run actions when a particular file changes, etc. Provisioning scripts are bundled up and piped to the remote machine over SSH. It's been pretty nice. I'm thinking about building that out into a separate project somewhere. I'd love to check out what you're working on! The link seems to be broken though.

nathan_douglas 1y ago
Talos (and Talhelper) seem pretty reasonable so far. Digging Sops too for managing secrets. I was using Ansible Vault before which worked but was weirdly cumbersome to automate (go figure), and Sops seems to Just Work™. > The link seems to be broken though. Yeah, I'm a world-class infra engineer. smdh. Changed how the DNS record was created but didn't push my changes so they were reverted by a scheduled job facepalm Think it's back now...
- cweagans 1y ago
  > Digging Sops too for managing secrets. I was using Ansible Vault before which worked but was weirdly cumbersome to automate (go figure), and Sops seems to Just Work™. I considered both of those and ended up using the External Secrets Operator + 1Password for my secrets. Maybe not the _best_ solution, but it saved a fair amount of effort on my part. > Think it's back now... It's back! Looking forward to reading!
  - nathan_douglas 1y ago
    Oh, that's super cool! I somehow missed that ESO and 1Password would work together. I set up a 1Password Connect Server at one point but ended up not doing much with it. Hmm...
    - cweagans 1y ago
      Don’t even need connect! You can use a service account token. Retries if 1pass is down or whatever too!

bokohut 1y ago

I too am preparing for an entire rebuild of my home lab so the posting of this information is greatly appreciated at this time. My home lab has been rebuilt 3 times in the last 20 years and the continuous mention of energy usage within this post is a main driver and one of several primary objectives towards my effort. My 36U rack as configured now with Dell Servers having Intel Xeons E chips has served me well for all the tech stuff that interests me both in hobby and profession. My entire setup now with all devices running draws 200 watts continuously and my existing home energy renewables generation and battery storage system will greatly benefit from this home lab rebuild as I am targeting energy use and floor area recovery outright while learning many new things as well. This rebuild is also a lead into my fourth tech company I'm starting so my motivation is strongly tied to many factors not discussed. Looking forward to the future posts, Stay Healthy!

nathan_douglas 1y ago
I haven't had a huge issue with power draw, but I live in a place where electricity is really cheap. I had 3x Dell R720s, an R210ii, and an Aruba 48-port PoE switch and felt like I had way more power than I knew what to do with, but it still didn't seem to have a substantial impact on my power bill. Maybe I lucked out with some components. Or maybe the overall power draw in my house is so pants-on-head stupid that I just don't have realistic expectations anymore.