Overhaul intro README: accurate content, fixed/updated social links
Body text was describing a setup that no longer exists (GitLab pipelines, a private registry) - replaced with what's actually running (Gitea, Caddy/Authentik, Ansible/Kestra/n8n) and pointed the "what you'll find" section at the new per-repo folder structure. Fixed the LinkedIn link (was missing its scheme), added Instagram/TikTok/YouTube, dropped the Bookstack wiki link.
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I’m a curious, self-taught technologist with a passion for breaking things, fixing them, and understanding *why* systems behave the way they do. What started as a hobby homelab project has grown into a full-on journey into DevOps, automation, infrastructure, and security.
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I’m a curious, self-taught technologist who runs a real, multi-host homelab as a production-grade playground: a Proxmox hypervisor cluster hosting a fleet of VMs/LXCs, a two-zone Caddy reverse-proxy design fronted by Authentik SSO, self-hosted Gitea with Ansible-driven scheduled maintenance, and Terraform+Packer provisioning for bootstrapping new hosts from hardened, minimal images. What started as a hobby project has grown into a full-on journey into DevOps, automation, infrastructure, and security.
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My long-term goal is to build a career in IT — specifically in environments where learning never stops and innovation is part of the culture.
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My long-term goal is to build a career in IT — specifically in environments where learning never stops and innovation is part of the culture.
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## 👀 What I’m Exploring
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## 👀 What I’m Exploring
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I spend a lot of time experimenting in my homelab, using it as a real-world playground to deepen my understanding of core IT concepts.
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I use my homelab as a real-world playground to deepen my understanding of core IT concepts. Some of the areas I’m actively exploring include:
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Some of the areas I’m actively exploring include:
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- Infrastructure automation and Infrastructure-as-Code
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- Infrastructure-as-Code: provisioning and hardening hosts from scratch with Terraform + Packer + Ansible
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- Network design, security, and service reliability
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- Reverse-proxy architecture and identity: a dual-zone Caddy setup (internal service-to-service vs. user-facing) fronted by Authentik forward-auth
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- Containers, registries, and image hardening
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- Workflow automation: Ansible for scheduled fleet maintenance, Kestra and n8n for everything else
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- Monitoring, observability, and resilient design patterns
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- Monitoring, observability, and resilient service design
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Each project teaches me something new, and everything I learn pushes me further toward becoming a well-rounded IT/DevOps engineer.
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Each project teaches me something new, and everything I learn pushes me further toward becoming a well-rounded IT/DevOps engineer.
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## 🌱 What I’m Learning Right Now
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## 🌱 What I’m Learning Right Now
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I’m currently focused on:
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I’m currently focused on:
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- Building and maintaining secure Docker images
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- Refining the Ansible roles and playbooks that keep the fleet patched and consistent
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- Running my own private registry
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- Tightening the Caddy/Authentik reverse-proxy and SSO design as new services get added
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- Using GitLab pipelines to automate image updates, security scanning, and deployments
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- Running my own self-hosted Gitea instead of relying on external platforms
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- Improving scripting skills — Python and Bash are next on my list
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- Improving scripting skills — Python and Bash are next on my list
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I enjoy understanding not just how something works, but how to automate it, secure it, and integrate it cleanly into a larger system.
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I enjoy understanding not just how something works, but how to automate it, secure it, and integrate it cleanly into a larger system.
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@@ -42,22 +41,26 @@ I’m entirely self-taught. Every tool, trick, concept, and workflow in my repos
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## 📁 What You’ll Find in This Repository
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## 📁 What You’ll Find in This Repository
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This repo serves as a showcase of the things I build and experiment with. Inside, you’ll find:
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This repo is a sanitized mirror of the homelab I actually run day to day, organized by where each piece lives:
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- A growing collection of Docker Compose files for various services I run
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- `rocky-docker-lxc/` — the main application host: ~35 Docker Compose stacks (media, productivity, dev tools, databases)
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- Infrastructure-as-Code projects designed to spin up my entire homelab from minimal, hardened ISO images
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- `caddy-vm/` — the user-facing reverse proxy (Caddy + mTLS + Authentik forward-auth) and Hawser, its Dockhand connector agent
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- Configurations, scripts, and templates built around reproducibility, security, and operational simplicity
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- `monitoring-vm/` — Grafana, Prometheus, and Loki
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- `automation/` — the automation VM, which runs three separate repos side by side: `ansible/` (scheduled fleet maintenance), `automation-vm/` (Gitea, Kestra, n8n, NetBox, Node-RED, MQTT), and `iac/` (Terraform + Packer + provisioning Ansible)
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- `Proxmox/` — cheat-sheets and notes on the underlying hypervisor cluster
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My goal is to create solutions that are not only functional, but thoughtfully designed—and to share what I learn along the way.
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Real IPs, ports, credentials, and internal PKI details are stripped throughout — the goal is to show the actual architecture and how the pieces tie together, not to hand out a working blueprint of my network.
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### 🚀 Let’s Connect
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### 🚀 Let’s Connect
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[](www.linkedin.com/in/michael-surgey)
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[](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-surgey)
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[](https://x.com/nomadianation)
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[](https://x.com/nomadianation)
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[](https://www.instagram.com/nomadianation)
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[](https://www.tiktok.com/@nomadianation)
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[](https://www.youtube.com/@nomadianation)
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[](https://nomadianation.thesabear.net/)
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[](https://nomadianation.thesabear.net/)
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[](https://mywiki.thesabear.net/)
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