Mauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ท3d ago

Poll time! I think I overdid it: I have 7 storage classes in my cluster. There are 3 for local storage (Longhorn) and 4 for network storage (Synology). The good thing is that it gives me flexibility.

Storage classes:
- longhorn (reclaim=delete) - replicated across 2 nodes
- longhorn-retain - also replicated
- longhorn-fw1-local (reclaim=delete) - not replicated, exists only in a dedicated NVMe in the fw1 node, with much more space than the replicated classes
- {iscsi,nfs}-{delete,retain} - self-explanatory

I'm wondering if the classes with reclaim policy retain is overkill, since any important data that I care about is backed up outside the cluster anyway. Feel free to cast a vote below, but I would appreciate if you also comment why.

#HomeLab #TalosLinux #Longhorn #Synology @homelab

Retain is overkill
60%
Retain is useful
40%
Poll ended at .
Mauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ท4d ago
New blog post! How to configure the Lenovo M720Q Tiny (and probably any other Lenovo) to boot Talos Linux in Secure Boot mode.
#HomeLab #TalosLinux #Lenovo #blog @homelab
https://mteixeira.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/booting-talos-linux-on-a-lenovo-m720q-tiny/
Booting Talos Linux on a Lenovo M720Q Tiny

A couple of weeks ago I acquired 3 x Lenovo M720Q Tiny, which I wanted to add as extra nodes to my home lab Talos Linux Kubernetes cluster. They also has UEFI secure boot problems, just like my Fraโ€ฆ

I do what I can
Show threadMauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ทDec 23
One interesting side-effect of a cluster rebuild is finding stuff that was done manually and not added to GitOps.  
#HomeLab #TalosLinux @homelab
Show threadMauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ทDec 23

The Talos upgrade to v1.12.0 GA (and Kubernetes 1.35.0 GA) was easy and flawless. Also a good test to see if things re-schedule properly (which they did).

#HomeLab #TalosLinux @homelab

Show threadMauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ทDec 22

@homelab
After a lot of sweat and tears, I have a fully functional 3-node cluster!

I took this opportunity to make a bunch of changes in the configs, so I just nuked everything and started over. That whole experience taught me a lot of new things, and helped surface a lot of mistakes I made during my "organic" initial setup.

Most of the learnings are going to surface here as Mastodon posts. At least one will be a proper blog post. Unsure how many others can be.

You will notice on the screenshot below that I am running Talos 1.12.0 rc1. That's because I want the newest kernel to test some improvements with the integrated GPU. In theory the GA version will come tomorrow, so it should be a very simple upgrade.

#HomeLab #TalosLinux #Lenovo @homelab

Show threadMauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ทDec 19

The holiday break starts now! Time to upgrade the home lab adding new nodes to my Talos cluster.

#HomeLab #TalosLinux #Lenovo @homelab

Mauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ทDec 12

(due to a snafu, this is a re-post)

New blog post! After reading @mmeier's blog post about monitoring his Kubernetes cluster certificates, I decided to take a look at how this is done with Talos, and learned a lot from it. You can read my solution in my blog post, as well as Michael's (which I link in my post, and also below in this thread.

#HomeLab #TalosLinux #StepCA #Certificates #Kubernetes #Blog @homelab
https://mteixeira.wordpress.com/2025/12/07/monitoring-the-kubernetes-certificates-on-a-talos-cluster/

Monitoring the Kubernetes certificates on a Talos cluster

Iโ€™ve been following Michael Meierโ€™s saga on Mastodon, where heโ€™s trying to figure out how to properly monitor his Kubernetes certificates. In the end he came up with some clever iโ€ฆ

I do what I can
Mauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ทDec 12

(To the anti-AI people: please feel free to ignore/skip this post.)

New blog post! A few people have asked me how I run AI/LLM tools (ollama and llama.cpp) in my Talos Kubernetes cluster, so I decided to give it a proper explanation. This is quite a long and complex post, but I hope it's useful for someone.

#HomeLab #TalosLinux #Framework #ollama #llamacpp #AI #LLM #AMD #StrixHalo @homelab

https://mteixeira.wordpress.com/2025/12/12/running-ollama-and-llama-cpp-on-talos-linux-on-an-amd-strix-halo-cpu/

Running ollama and llama.cpp on Talos Linux on an AMD Strix Halo CPU

For about two months Iโ€™ve been running ollama and llama.cpp on a Talos Linux Kubernetes cluster, on top of a desktop PC with the AMD Strix Halo CPU (AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395). This blog post is โ€ฆ

I do what I can
Show threadMauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ทDec 11

"Kubernetes is overkill for a Home Lab", exhibit 512 (made up number): KubeVirt tagged my nodes with 200+ tags, and that caused a metrics overload, so I had to increase the pod requests in the collectors, which increased my power usage.

Then a few days later I started getting alerts of expired certs, and realized that KubeVirt has been creating thousands of one-off certificates, but not reusing them. Increasing the certificate duration not only stopped the alerts, but also *reduced the power usage*.

All this trouble and I don't even have a single VM running yet. I hope this is all worth the trouble.

#HomeLab #TalosLinux #KubeVirt @homelab
https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/issues/13548

KubeClientCertificateExpiration is constantly triggered ยท Issue #13548 ยท kubevirt/kubevirt

What happened: With kube-prom-stack pre-installed in my cluster, I keep getting flapping alerts about a ClientCertificate expiring within the next 24 hours. I have tracked the issue back to when I ...

GitHub
Mauricio Teixeira ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ทDec 11

The spice must flow, and the home lab must grow! I have acquired 3 refurbished Lenovo M720q Tiny.

In the picture below you will see my Framework Desktop on the right, which is currently running my single-node Talos Kubernetes cluster. Two of the Lenovo will be added as nodes to the cluster. I still haven't decided what I am going to do with the third, but most likely it will become a NAS at some point.

The Lenovos have been acquired via a store named "Untrusted Source". Don't let the name fool you. They're incredibly friendly and knowledgeable about the craft of refurbishing hardware (see link below).

#HomeLab #TalosLinux #Lenovo @homelab