(Justin)

Tech nerd from Sweden

Matrix: @jlh:jlh.name

  • 0 Posts
  • 65 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 10th, 2023
  • Justin@lemmy.jlh.nametoSelfhosted@lemmy.world•Hosting multiple types of fediverse instances on the same server?English
    1·
    1 month ago

    Of the services OP is asking about, I’ve only run Lemmy, but I will say that running fediverse services are quite advanced, which is exactly what k8s is made for - Running advanced web applications.

    I’m firmly on the “k8s at any scale” team. If you can figure out how to run the k3s install command and are willing to look at some yaml documentation, you will have a much easier time setting up database and networking, running backups, porting your infrastructure to other providers, and maintaining everything, than with legacy control panels or docker compose. The main reason why Docker Compose is so much more accessible for self-hosters is because of the quantity of noob-focused documentation for Docker Compose, But learning either system requires learning the same concepts of containers, IP adresses, storage, etc. Docker Compose also has some disk and networking shortcuts for single-server workloads, but they also have their downsides (what is a macvlan?).

    The main reason why I think Kubernetes is critical for this specific workload is the number of production-critical databases that OP will need to run. OP will be running something like 4-8 postgres databases, with high uptime and 100% durability requirements. Trying to do that manually with Docker compose just isn’t feasible unless you’re willing to code. Kubernetes makes all of that automated with CNPG. See how easy it is to create a database and have automated backups to S3 with Kubernetes

    The biggest challenge for kubernetes is probably that the smaller applications don’t come with example configs for Kubernetes. I only see mastodon having one officially. Still, I’ve provided my config for Lemmy, and there are docker containers available for Friendica and mbin (though docker isn’t officially supported for these two). I’m happy to help give yaml examples for the installation of the applications.

  • Justin@lemmy.jlh.nametoSelfhosted@lemmy.world•What to do if your podman leaks an IP addressEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Oh definitely, everything in kubernetes can be explained (and implemented) with decades-old technology.

    The reason why Kubernetes is so special is that it automates it all in a very standardized way. All the vendors come together and support a single API for management which is very easy to write automation for.

    There’s standard, well-documented “wizards” for creating databases, load-balancers, firewalls, WAFs, reverse proxies, etc. And the management for your containers is extremely robust and extensive with features like automated replicas, health checks, self-healing, 10 different kinds of storage drivers, cpu/memory/disk/gpu allocation, and declarative mountable config files. All of that on top of an extremely secure and standardized API.

    With regard for eBPF being used for load-balancers, the company who writes that software, Isovalent, is one of the main maintainers of eBPF in the kernel. A lot of it was written just to support their Kubernetes Cilium CNI. It’s used, mainly, so that you can have systems with hundreds or thousands of containers on a single node, each with their own IP address and firewall, etc. IPtables was used for this before. But it started hitting a performance bottleneck for many systems. Everything is automated for you and open-source, so all the ops engineers benefit from the development work of the Isovalent team.

    It definitely moves fast, though. I go to kubecon every year, and every year there’s a whole new set of technologies that were written in the last year lol

  • Justin@lemmy.jlh.nametoSelfhosted@lemmy.world•What to do if your podman leaks an IP addressEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Ah, but your dns discovery and fail over isn’t using the built-in kubernetes Services? Is the nginx using Ingress-nginx or is it custom?

    I would definitely look into Ingress or api-gateway, as these are two standards that the kubernetes developers are promoting for reverse proxies. Ingress is older and has more features for things like authentication, but API Gateway is more portable. Both APIs are implemented by a number of implementations, like Nginx, Traefik, Istio, and Project Contour.

    It may also be worth creating a second Kubernetes cluster if you’re going to be migrating all the services. Flannel is quite old, and there are newer CNIs like Cilium that offer a lot more features like ebpf, ipv6, Wireguard, tracing, etc. (Cilium’s implementation of the Gateway API is bugger than other implementations though) Cillium is shaping up to be the new standard networking plugin for Kubernetes, and even Red Hat and AWS are starting to adopt it over their proprietary CNIs.

    If you guys are in Europe and are looking for consultants, I freelance, and my employer also has a lot of Kubernetes consulting expertise.