4 ms·

I don't understand some home labs. You see a beefy, but old rack server that has next to none single-thread performance (relatively). Usually servery underutili

by 0x457 1y ago

I don't understand some home labs. You see a beefy, but old rack server that has next to none single-thread performance (relatively). Usually servery underutilized un running Proxmox (issa lab after all) and RPi doing something for some reason? Those setups always pure "home-lab" because it's too small or macgyvered together for anything, but the smallest businesses...where it will be an overkill. Sometimes it's people running 2-3 node k8s cluster to run a few static workloads. You're not going to learn much about k8s from that, but you will waste CPU cycles on running the infra.

_dain_ 1y ago
the point of the hobby is to have something to tinker with. if it were too easy it wouldn't be any fun.
- 0x457 1y ago
  I know, that's why I have my own "lab". I just don't get why most of other labs are so cookie-cutter proxmox + home assistant + (unifi controller) + pihole and there is always RPi somewhere next to a chunky server.
  - perdomon 1y ago
    Because people have fun creating those sorts of setups. There are many tutorials for those setups, the hardware can be found relatively affordably, and it isn't something someone needs to have experience in enterprise networking to build. The purpose of the hobby is to have fun. If you aren't having fun, or if other people's fun is ruining your day, consider finding a new hobby. I suggest fly fishing. You could probably use more vitamin D.
    - 0x457 1y ago
      > You could probably use more vitamin D. Nah, I get enough of that from being by the pool, managing my home lab.
unethical_ban 1y ago
Someone who successfully configures and tests a k8s cluster at home knows more about it than I do.
- 0x457 1y ago
  You overestimate the complexity. Even if you don't use k8s installer/distribution and do it from scratch - you are not going to learn much about operating/using k8s.
otter-in-a-suit 1y ago
> none single-thread performance (relatively) I find horizontal scaling with many smaller cores and lots of memory more impactful for virtualization workloads than heavy single core performance (which, fwiw, is pretty decent on these Xeon Golds). The biggest bottleneck is I/O performance, since I rely on SAS drives (since running full VMs has a lot of disk overhead), rather than SSDs, but I cannot justify the expense to upgrade to SSDs, not to mention NVME. > Those setups always pure "home-lab" because it's too small or macgyvered together for anything, but the smallest businesses...where it will be an overkill. That is a core part of the hobby. You do some things very enterprise-y and over-engineered (such as redundant PSUs and UPSs), while simultaneously using old hard drives that rely on your SMART monitor and pure chance to work (to pick 2 random examples). I also re-use old hardware that piles up around the house constantly, such as the Pi. I commented elsewhere that I just slapped an old gaming PC into a 4U case since I want to play/tinker with/learn from GPU passthrough. I would not do this for a business, but I'm happy to spend $200 for a case and rails and stomach an additional ~60W idle power draw to do such. I don't even know what exactly I'll be running on it yet. But I _do_ know that I know embarrassingly little about GPUs, X11, VNC, ... actually work and that I have an unused GTX 1080. Some of this is simply a build-vs-buy thing (where I get actual usage out of it and have something subjectively better than an off the shelf product), others is pure tinkering. Hacking, if you will. I know a website that usually likes stuff like that. > You're not going to learn much about k8s from that It's possible you and I learn things very differently then (and I mean this a lot less snarky than it sounds). I built Raft from scratch in Scala 3 and that told me a lot about Raft and Scala 3, despite being utterly pointless as a product (it's on my website if you care to read it). I have the same experience with everything home lab / Linux / networking - I always learn something new. And I work for a networking company...
- 0x457 1y ago
  > It's possible you and I learn things very differently then (and I mean this a lot less snarky than it sounds). I built Raft from scratch in Scala 3 and that told me a lot about Raft and Scala 3, despite being utterly pointless as a product (it's on my website if you care to read it). I have the same experience with everything home lab / Linux / networking - I always learn something new. And I work for a networking company... Building k8s from scratch, you're going to learn how to build k8s from scratch. Not how to operate and/or use k8s. Maybe you will learn some configuration management tool along the way unless your plan is to just copy-paste commands from some website into terminal. > find horizontal scaling with many smaller cores and lots of memory more impactful for virtualization workloads than heavy single core performance (which, fwiw, is pretty decent on these Xeon Golds). Yeah, if you run a VM for every thing that should be a systemd service, it scales well that way.
NathanKP 1y ago
Running stuff on an underpowered Raspberry Pi is a good way to sniff test whether an infrastructure or software setup is sane. Powerful computers can hide horrible decisions for a long time, while less powerful devices make it immediately obvious if you need to switch a more efficient configuration. I think this is one of the main reasons why Raspberry Pi has such a strong representation in homelabs, including my own.
- 0x457 1y ago
  > I think this is one of the main reasons why Raspberry Pi has such a strong representation in homelabs, including my own. I'd bet you're minority. People use Pi because it lets them assemble a cluster for under 200 bucks.
udev4096 1y ago
I see people like you on /r/homelab all the time. "What's the point of this?" "k8s is not for you". Shut the fuck up man. It's called homelab for a reason. People can design it however they want, even if it's underutilized. And, you can learn a lot by running k8s cluster at home. Start with k3s, configure ingress/services/deployment, install ingress controller for cluster wide routing, install service meshes (istio, cilium), write a controller, mess around with gateway API. The possibilities are endless. Stop bitching and maybe have a real argument instead of shitting on homelabbers
- 0x457 1y ago
  > you can learn a lot by running k8s cluster at home. That is my argument, you're not learning much if your cluster 2-3 machines and a few RPis. > Stop bitching and maybe have a real argument instead of shitting on homelabbers Why so rude? I have a homelab myself, it's just for running things and not LARPing as sysadmin.
  - udev4096 1y ago
    Only a real sysadmin, which you clearly aren't, would know if someone is "LARPing as a sysadmin". So stop trying to pretend like a know-all smartass and GTFO. As the other comment said, get some vitamin D instead of spreading totally misleading statements on things you clearly don't know anything about

by 0x457 1y ago

_dain_ 1y ago

the point of the hobby is to have something to tinker with. if it were too easy it wouldn't be any fun.

0x457 1y ago
I know, that's why I have my own "lab". I just don't get why most of other labs are so cookie-cutter proxmox + home assistant + (unifi controller) + pihole and there is always RPi somewhere next to a chunky server.
- perdomon 1y ago
  Because people have fun creating those sorts of setups. There are many tutorials for those setups, the hardware can be found relatively affordably, and it isn't something someone needs to have experience in enterprise networking to build. The purpose of the hobby is to have fun. If you aren't having fun, or if other people's fun is ruining your day, consider finding a new hobby. I suggest fly fishing. You could probably use more vitamin D.
  - 0x457 1y ago
    > You could probably use more vitamin D. Nah, I get enough of that from being by the pool, managing my home lab.

unethical_ban 1y ago

Someone who successfully configures and tests a k8s cluster at home knows more about it than I do.

0x457 1y ago
You overestimate the complexity. Even if you don't use k8s installer/distribution and do it from scratch - you are not going to learn much about operating/using k8s.

otter-in-a-suit 1y ago

> none single-thread performance (relatively) I find horizontal scaling with many smaller cores and lots of memory more impactful for virtualization workloads than heavy single core performance (which, fwiw, is pretty decent on these Xeon Golds). The biggest bottleneck is I/O performance, since I rely on SAS drives (since running full VMs has a lot of disk overhead), rather than SSDs, but I cannot justify the expense to upgrade to SSDs, not to mention NVME. > Those setups always pure "home-lab" because it's too small or macgyvered together for anything, but the smallest businesses...where it will be an overkill. That is a core part of the hobby. You do some things very enterprise-y and over-engineered (such as redundant PSUs and UPSs), while simultaneously using old hard drives that rely on your SMART monitor and pure chance to work (to pick 2 random examples). I also re-use old hardware that piles up around the house constantly, such as the Pi. I commented elsewhere that I just slapped an old gaming PC into a 4U case since I want to play/tinker with/learn from GPU passthrough. I would not do this for a business, but I'm happy to spend $200 for a case and rails and stomach an additional ~60W idle power draw to do such. I don't even know what exactly I'll be running on it yet. But I _do_ know that I know embarrassingly little about GPUs, X11, VNC, ... actually work and that I have an unused GTX 1080. Some of this is simply a build-vs-buy thing (where I get actual usage out of it and have something subjectively better than an off the shelf product), others is pure tinkering. Hacking, if you will. I know a website that usually likes stuff like that. > You're not going to learn much about k8s from that It's possible you and I learn things very differently then (and I mean this a lot less snarky than it sounds). I built Raft from scratch in Scala 3 and that told me a lot about Raft and Scala 3, despite being utterly pointless as a product (it's on my website if you care to read it). I have the same experience with everything home lab / Linux / networking - I always learn something new. And I work for a networking company...

0x457 1y ago
> It's possible you and I learn things very differently then (and I mean this a lot less snarky than it sounds). I built Raft from scratch in Scala 3 and that told me a lot about Raft and Scala 3, despite being utterly pointless as a product (it's on my website if you care to read it). I have the same experience with everything home lab / Linux / networking - I always learn something new. And I work for a networking company... Building k8s from scratch, you're going to learn how to build k8s from scratch. Not how to operate and/or use k8s. Maybe you will learn some configuration management tool along the way unless your plan is to just copy-paste commands from some website into terminal. > find horizontal scaling with many smaller cores and lots of memory more impactful for virtualization workloads than heavy single core performance (which, fwiw, is pretty decent on these Xeon Golds). Yeah, if you run a VM for every thing that should be a systemd service, it scales well that way.

NathanKP 1y ago

Running stuff on an underpowered Raspberry Pi is a good way to sniff test whether an infrastructure or software setup is sane. Powerful computers can hide horrible decisions for a long time, while less powerful devices make it immediately obvious if you need to switch a more efficient configuration. I think this is one of the main reasons why Raspberry Pi has such a strong representation in homelabs, including my own.

0x457 1y ago
> I think this is one of the main reasons why Raspberry Pi has such a strong representation in homelabs, including my own. I'd bet you're minority. People use Pi because it lets them assemble a cluster for under 200 bucks.

udev4096 1y ago

I see people like you on /r/homelab all the time. "What's the point of this?" "k8s is not for you". Shut the fuck up man. It's called homelab for a reason. People can design it however they want, even if it's underutilized. And, you can learn a lot by running k8s cluster at home. Start with k3s, configure ingress/services/deployment, install ingress controller for cluster wide routing, install service meshes (istio, cilium), write a controller, mess around with gateway API. The possibilities are endless. Stop bitching and maybe have a real argument instead of shitting on homelabbers

0x457 1y ago
> you can learn a lot by running k8s cluster at home. That is my argument, you're not learning much if your cluster 2-3 machines and a few RPis. > Stop bitching and maybe have a real argument instead of shitting on homelabbers Why so rude? I have a homelab myself, it's just for running things and not LARPing as sysadmin.
- udev4096 1y ago
  Only a real sysadmin, which you clearly aren't, would know if someone is "LARPing as a sysadmin". So stop trying to pretend like a know-all smartass and GTFO. As the other comment said, get some vitamin D instead of spreading totally misleading statements on things you clearly don't know anything about