Cisco networking and self-hosted homelab notes from a working network engineer.
A complete management plane hardening guide for Cisco IOS-XE: SSH v2 with modern ciphers, VTY access restrictions, Type 8/9 password hashing, privilege levels, parser views, disabling unnecessary services, NETCONF/RESTCONF security, and a practical 10-point verification checklist.
Learn how to use Cloudflare Tunnels to securely expose your homelab services, Nextcloud, Home Assistant, Grafana, and more, from the internet without opening any ports on your router. Free, automatic TLS, and optional Zero Trust authentication included.
A complete technical guide to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN (Viptela): understand the four-component architecture (vManage, vSmart, vBond, cEdge), how OMP drives the control plane, cEdge Day-0 onboarding, Application-Aware Routing, and essential IOS-XE CLI troubleshooting commands.
A hands-on guide to DMVPN Phase 2 on Cisco IOS-XE, configure mGRE tunnels, NHRP, IPsec, and EIGRP for direct spoke-to-spoke VPN connectivity without static tunnel configuration between sites. Includes real CLI examples and troubleshooting guidance.
A practical deep dive into Spanning Tree Protocol and RSTP on Cisco IOS-XE. Covers root bridge election, PortFast, BPDU Guard, Root Guard, Loop Guard, Bridge Assurance, TCN storm troubleshooting, and Catalyst 9000 gotchas with real show command output.
A complete deployment guide for Cisco AAA using TACACS+ and Identity Services Engine on IOS-XE, covering server config, command authorization, accounting, SSH hardening, and troubleshooting with real CLI output.
A tour of OneHub, my 23-container self-hosted server, and Mia Tracker, the custom app that lets AI analyze my daughter’s data without a single byte leaving my hardware. Should I open-source it?
Learn how to set up Traefik v3 as a reverse proxy for your homelab Docker stack. Covers automatic HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt, Docker service discovery via labels, reusable middleware, wildcard certs via DNS challenge, and common troubleshooting steps.
Build a probe-verified dual-ISP failover system on Cisco IOS-XE using IP SLA and Object Tracking. When your primary ISP loses internet connectivity, even if the physical link stays up, automated failover kicks in within seconds without any manual intervention.
BGP communities let you tag routes with policy metadata and use that tagging for filtering, traffic engineering, and DDoS mitigation. This guide covers standard, extended, and large communities on Cisco IOS-XE with real CLI examples, from basic send-community config to RTBH blackholing and inbound route tagging by peer type.
Learn how to configure SNMP v3 on Cisco IOS-XE devices with real CLI examples, then feed that data into LibreNMS and Grafana for production-grade network visibility.
Learn how to deploy n8n, the open-source workflow automation platform, on Docker with a PostgreSQL backend, secure it behind a reverse proxy, and build three practical homelab workflows, container health alerts, RSS news digests, and automated backup verification.
