I'm Deb — a BCA student learning cloud and SRE by running a small homelab: a VPS + my laptop, joined by a private Tailscale. This is my build log — what I did, what broke, and what I learned.
New here? Start with the homelab mental model(concepts, no commands) or your first VPS: a safe baseline(a copy-paste first hour). The rest are build-along guides you can replicate.
- 2026-09-06I killed my own VPN server
I ran my own Tailscale control plane for months. Then I deleted it and went back to SaaS — and that was the right call.
- 2026-08-29Start here: the homelab mental model
Before any commands — the 7 concepts that make every self-hosting guide on this blog make sense. Read this first.
- 2026-08-29Your first VPS: a safe baseline
A copy-pasteable first hour on a fresh Linux server — non-root user, SSH keys, firewall, and Docker. The floor every other guide here stands on.
- 2026-08-29DNS 101 for self-hosters
DNS for self-hosters: what DNS does, A/AAAA/CNAME/TXT records, Cloudflare as registrar+CDN, proxied (orange cloud) vs DNS-only, how a subdomain reaches your VPS.
- 2026-08-29Docker 101 for self-hosters
Docker for self-hosters: images vs containers, compose, volumes, networks — plus a copy-paste run-your-first-container example.
- 2026-08-29Networking 101 for self-hosters
Networking basics for self-hosters: IPs, ports, public vs private (RFC1918), NAT, DNS, what a reverse proxy is, HTTPS/TLS in plain language.
- 2026-08-21Self-hosting Forgejo with CI/CD
A complete guide to deploying Forgejo with Docker-in-Docker Actions runners, OIDC login, and email — including every pitfall I hit.
- 2026-08-09CrowdSec + plain Caddy
How I run a self-hosted WAF in front of a single plain Caddy container — native CrowdSec tailing Caddy's JSON logs via Docker acquisition, with the nftables bouncer dropping attackers at the kernel.
- 2026-08-09Self-hosting Headscale + Headplane
Run your own private Tailscale with Headscale and Headplane — a full guide, with a primer for newcomers.
- 2026-08-01Fixing CrowdSec and SearXNG on a datacenter IP