Operators

What’s Running Behind the Scenes

Here’s a quick look at some of the Kubernetes operators currently running in my homelab. Most of them are installed and managed via HelmRelease, because I like things declarative, repeatable, and clean.

This stack is constantly evolving, but here are a few of the key pieces I’ve got in place right now:

• CloudNativePG – My go-to for running PostgreSQL natively on Kubernetes. It plays well with backups and failovers, which keeps things tidy.
• ExternalDNS – Handles DNS updates automatically, so I don’t have to. Feels like magic.
• Falco – A little security paranoia never hurts—Falco helps monitor for unexpected behavior right at the kernel level.
• Keycloak – Centralized identity and access management. It’s how I secure most of the apps in my homelab, including Phos.
• MariaDB – Lightweight and reliable, perfect for smaller services that don’t need full-blown Postgres.
• MongoDB – My choice for flexible, document-based data—used in a few internal tools like Phos.
• Synology CSI Storage – Hooks my NAS directly into the cluster. Persistent storage without overthinking it.
• Kube Prometheus Stack – Metrics, alerts, dashboards—it’s the observability core of my cluster.

This stack gives me a strong baseline for experimenting, learning, and building without cutting corners on stability or security.