Production-grade 3-node K3s cluster built on bare-metal Intel NUC hardware as a platform for experimenting with cloud tools, Kubernetes, and Linux distributions, and running home automation applications. This homelab is an amazing opportunity for me to develop my SRE and DevOps skills while mastering platform engineering best practices with modern, forward-looking technologies.
Lightweight Kubernetes distribution with embedded etcd for high availability. 3-node quorum enables fault tolerance and production-grade resilience.
Modern, expressive HTTP routing replacing the deprecated Nginx Ingress Controller. Future-proof choice—Nginx Ingress Controller is retiring in March 2026.
Cloud-native edge router with native Gateway API support. Automatic service discovery and dynamic configuration.
Bare-metal LoadBalancer implementation using L2/ARP mode. Dedicated IP pool for service exposure without cloud provider dependency.
Container Network Interface (CNI) with VXLAN overlay networking. Simple, reliable pod-to-pod communication across nodes.
One of the best Linux distributions for a homelab environment, providing a stable, secure foundation with extended maintenance until 2029.