Best of Infrastructure — January 2025

1. 1
   Article

   Community Picks·1y

   What is a Homelab and Why Should You Have One?

   A homelab is a local server setup for hosting various applications and virtualized systems for learning, development, or home usage. It provides a playground for technical skills, privacy-conscious backups, and engaging projects for families. Essential uses include media servers, development/test environments, DVR systems, remote access servers, and personal backups. Setting one up involves basic hardware and software like Linux, VirtualBox, or ProxMox.

   47

   3
2. 2
   Article

   Community Picks·1y

   Docker on MacOS is still slow?

   Two years after analyzing Docker performance on MacOS, significant improvements have been noted. VirtIOFS now provides better speed, with new solutions like open-source Lima and Docker's file synchronization feature offering enhanced performance. The most stable setup remains a hybrid approach combining bind mounts with volumes. Users should choose between solutions like Lima for a fast, open-source option, Docker Desktop with file synchronization for maximum speed, or any solution with the hybrid approach for stable performance.

   46

   3
3. 3
   Article

   Hacker News·1y

   So You Want to Build Your Own Data Center

   Railway decided to build its own data center to overcome the limitations posed by hyperscalers like Google Cloud Platform, which affected pricing, service levels, and engineering constraints. After nine months, their first site in California was up and running, and additional regions are being set up. The post covers the entire process, from choosing the space, managing power and cooling, and ensuring optimal network connectivity, to the installation of hardware and configuration. It emphasizes the importance of redundancy, professional cabling, and detailed documentation for a successful data center build.

   24

   2
4. 4
   Article

   freeCodeCamp·1y

   How to Use Keycloak for Identity and Access Management

   Keycloak is an enterprise-ready, open source identity and access management (IAM) solution that supports SSO, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, and more. It integrates with LDAP, Active Directory, and social media logins, and provides MFA, role-based access control, and API support. Though setup is straightforward using Docker, full configuration and scaling may require experienced teams. Keycloak offers cost benefits by avoiding license fees and vendor lock-in.

   23
5. 5
   Article

   NetBox Labs·1y

   How to Automate Proxmox Virtual Machine Configuration with NetBox and Ansible AWX/Tower/Automation Platform (AAP)

   NetBox is a popular Network Source of Truth (NSoT) that can be integrated with Proxmox to automate and manage virtual machine (VM) states using Ansible AWX/Tower/Automation Platform (AAP). This integration leverages event-driven automation with webhooks and event rules in NetBox to trigger automated actions in Proxmox using predefined Ansible playbooks. Version 1.1.0 of netbox-proxmox-automation facilitates this setup, requiring a running AWX instance, defined projects, credentials, and job templates. Users must configure necessary scripts and settings to ensure seamless automation.

   14
6. 6
   Article

   Community Picks·1y

   solo-io/gloo: The Cloud-Native API Gateway and AI Gateway

   Gloo Gateway is now fully conformant with the Kubernetes Gateway API, offering robust ingress control, API gateway features, and support for hybrid applications involving legacy apps, microservices, and serverless. Built on Envoy proxy, it provides function-level routing, integrates with various open-source projects, and features automated discovery for rapid deployment and updates.

   12