this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

My home lab has a mild amount of complexity and I'd like practice some good habits about documenting it. Stuff like, what each system does, the OS, any notable software installed and, most importantly, any documentation around configuration or troubleshooting.

i.e. I have an internal SMTP relay that uses a letsencrypt SSL cert that I need to use the DNS challenge to renew. I've got the steps around that sitting in a Google Doc. I've got a couple more google docs like that.

I don't want to get super complicated but I'd like something a bit more structured than a folder full of google docs. I'd also like to pull it in-house.

Thanks

Edit: I appreciate all the feedback I've gotten on this post so far. There have been a lot of tools suggested and some great discussion about methods. This will probably be my weekend now.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

In all honesty, it is a hodge podge. Some are in my dokuwiki, some are plain text, some are markdown, some in my phone, lots on scraps of paper. Just about the time I get it all in one place I scrap my systems and start over.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I'm kinda like that too. But I'm redoing my setup and I wanted to try and redo the way I document things. Or at least try.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I know that I would keep forgetting to update the docs, so my documentation are the ansible playbooks and docker-compose.yaml files that I use to set it all up.

That leaves anything that has to be done in some Ui undocumented, so I try to keep that to a minimum, which isn't always easy (I'm looking at you authentik!).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Ideally I'd like to move in that direction. I have some Ansible roles that I use for initial configuration but I haven't kept current. I'd like to get better about that as part of this project.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I use Ansible, Docker, and Emacs OrgMode files committed to Git. Diagrams are a mix of Miro and Graphviz. There's also a few markdowns in there too. Joplin is used for rough notes only.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Any chance you wouldn't mind sharing the SSL renewal doc? Redacted of course. Mine is coming up and I'd like to do it correctly this time. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I have a git repo for it, needless to say. And so README.md plus a network diagram from https://app.diagrams.net/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Why not push it up to GitHub? Then you also get a commit history to see your changes overtime.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Wow that sounds convinient, where can i find a guide describing this? Has zero experience with git 😅

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

There are tons of tutorials around, but the basic gist is that you only use a couple of commands (or even a good frontend) in git, especially when it's a one (wo)man show.

I highly recommend it!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I run a local MediaWiki appliance from turnkeylinux, super easy to spin up in proxmox.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I deploy as much as I possibly can via Ansible. Then the Ansible code serves as the documentation. I also keep the underlying OS the same on all machines to avoid different OS conventions. All my machines run Debian. The few things I cannot express in Ansible, such as network topology, I draw a diagram for in draw.io, but that's it.

Also, why not automate the certificate renewal with certbot? I have two reverse proxies and they renew their certificates themselves.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I use bookstack. Simple selfhosted wiki.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

+1 for bookstack. I also selfhost a kanban with the services basic info and it's related status (pilot/test, production and to be decommissioned). At the beginning I used Planka, but now switched to Nextcloud Deck.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I'm using anytype.io, it's been pretty neat so far.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I constructed a simple kbase for myself using Docbase. I love it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Hackmd.io for simple markdown docs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Comments inside the docker-compose.yml files?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I write down everything I built so for plus future plans in OneNote. This kind of defeats the purpose of self hosting but I want to keep a written copy complete off site in case if a complete loss. Plus I like OneNote. It’s actually a well designed product. Scripts, docker compose files and such are in GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I won't argue. I do think OneNote is a good product and I use it a lot for work.

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