I write down what worked, before I forget it
Everything here runs at home on hardware I paid for and broke myself. These are working notes: the compose file that actually came up, the flag that fixed the permission error, the step the official docs left out. Copy what's useful, ignore what isn't.
Read it top to bottom and you get the build order hypervisor first, then the host, then the containers, then the cluster.
layer 01 · metal
Proxmox
The hypervisor everything else sits on. Install, storage layout, and the VM that ends up running the Docker stack.
- Proxmox VE install — bare metal to first VM
- Windows & Debian VMs — a hand-built Windows box, and a Debian template you clone forever
layer 02 · host
Host setup
What I do to every fresh box before anything gets deployed to it.
- SSH — keys, hardening, and not locking yourself out
- Docker — engine and compose on a clean host
- Mapped network drive — shares that survive a reboot
- Remote desktop — when SSH isn't enough
layer 03 · containers
Docker containers
The bulk of the lab. Each writeup has the compose file, the reverse proxy config, and the part that bit me.
- Media stack — Prowlarr, the *arrs, downloaders, and Seerr as one unit
- Traefik and Nginx Proxy Manager — getting traffic to the right container
- AdGuard, wg-easy, CrowdSec — DNS, VPN, and keeping the noise out
- Tinyauth and Vaultwarden — one login, and somewhere to keep the rest
- Portainer, Dockhand, Nexterm — managing it all from a browser
- Uptime Kuma, Prometheus, Grafana, Diun — knowing before the family does
- Glance and Homepage — the tab that stays open
- Mealie, Karakeep, Firefly III, IT-Tools — the small useful ones
layer 04 · cluster
Kubernetes
Where the single-host stack goes once one host stops being enough.
- Set up K3s — a cluster small enough to understand
- Helm — installing charts without hand-writing manifests
- cert-manager — wildcard TLS that renews itself
Something wrong, out of date, or missing? Open an issue or a PR on GitHub. If a guide saved you an evening, you can buy me a coffee.