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Production-Grade Kubernetes Infrastructure

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Table of Contents

A production-grade Kubernetes infrastructure demonstrating modern DevOps practices, GitOps workflows, and cloud-native technologies that work on bare-metal or cloud servers.

Overview #

This project showcases a complete infrastructure-as-code setup running on bare-metal Hetzner servers, designed for high reliability, security, and low operational cost.

Key Goals:

  • Fully automated provisioning and deployment
  • GitOps-based continuous delivery
  • Production-grade security and observability
  • Bare-metal optimized (but cloud-compatible)

Architecture #

graph TB User[Users/Clients] Git[Git Repository] K8s[Kubernetes Cluster
Bare Metal or Cloud] Flux[GitOps
FluxCD] Networking[Networking & Ingress
Traefik, MetalLB, Flannel] Storage[Storage
Local Path Provisioner] Observability[Observability
Prometheus, Grafana] Security[Security
SOPS + Age] Apps[Applications
WebSocket, REST APIs, Data Pipelines,
Static Sites, Mobile Backends] CICD[CI/CD Pipeline
Image Builder + Automation] %% Main flow User -->|HTTPS| Networking Git -->|Pull Changes| Flux Flux -->|Deploy| K8s K8s -->|Manages| Networking K8s -->|Manages| Storage K8s -->|Manages| Observability Networking -->|Route| Apps Storage -.->|Persist| Apps Observability -->|Monitor| Apps Observability -->|Monitor| K8s %% Security & CI/CD Git -.->|Encrypted Secrets| Security Security -.->|Decrypt| Flux Git -->|Trigger| CICD CICD -->|Update Manifests| Git style Git fill:#C71585,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px style Flux fill:#326CE5,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px style K8s fill:#326CE5,stroke:#333,stroke-width:3px style User fill:#2E8B57,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px linkStyle default stroke:#8B4789,stroke-width:2px

Core Technologies #

Orchestration & Automation #

  • Kubernetes: Container orchestration
  • FluxCD: GitOps continuous delivery
  • Ansible: Server provisioning and configuration
  • Custom CI/CD: Self-hosted image builds and deployments with automated dev promotion

Networking & Ingress #

  • Traefik: Ingress controller with automatic Let’s Encrypt certificates
  • MetalLB: Bare-metal load balancer
  • Flannel: CNI for pod networking

Storage & Data #

  • Local Path Provisioner: Fast local storage
  • PostgreSQL: Primary database for applications
  • Redis: Caching layer

Security #

  • SOPS + Age: Encrypted secrets in Git
  • OS Hardening: Automated security configurations via Ansible
  • Network Policies: Pod-level security controls
  • Self-hosted CI/CD: No external build systems

Observability #

  • Prometheus: Metrics collection and alerting
  • Grafana: Dashboards and visualization
  • Custom Dashboards: Infrastructure and application metrics

Architecture Highlights #

GitOps Workflow:

  • All infrastructure defined declaratively in Git
  • FluxCD automatically syncs cluster state
  • Dev environment: Auto-promotes new images
  • Prod environment: Manual promotion with approvals

Infrastructure as Code:

  • Zero manual server configuration
  • Reproducible deployments
  • Version-controlled infrastructure changes

Multi-Environment:

  • Separate dev/prod namespaces
  • Environment-specific configurations
  • Automated dev deployments, controlled prod releases
  • Partial multi-cluster deployment support

Demo Applications #

→ View all projects

The cluster hosts several demo applications showcasing different patterns:

  • Real-time WebSocket services
  • REST APIs with caching
  • Data pipelines (producer → queue → consumer → API)
  • React Native mobile backends
  • Static sites with git-sync deployments

Tech Stack: Node.js, PostgreSQL, Redis, React Native, Hugo

This infrastructure powers all demo applications on this site. Live demos available upon request.