CraftLab

What is CraftLab?

CraftLab is my cybersecurity homelab and sandbox that conveniently works perfectly as a Minecraft Server as well!

I’ve built a small Kubernetes-based homelab using a couple of ThinkCentre machines and a pair of Raspberry Pis. Everything runs inside a Kubernetes cluster, which lets me easily deploy, manage, and scale applications.

Right now, I’ve set up the following:

• Grafana → A dashboard to visualize system and cluster metrics (CPU, memory, etc.) from all nodes.
• Uptime Kuma → A monitoring tool that continuously checks whether my services and internet connection are online.
• Crafty Controller → A web-based manager for running and monitoring my Minecraft server.
• Dashy → A homepage that acts as a central hub, linking all my services in one place.
• Pi-hole → A DNS-based ad blocker that filters network traffic and blocks ads/tracking across devices.

This gives me a solid foundation of monitoring, management, and a single dashboard to access everything. From here, I plan to expand with centralized logging (Elastic Stack), backups, DNS with Ingress for cleaner access, and eventually more apps like Nextcloud, and media servers.

Stay tuned for more updates on CraftLab!

CraftLab set up guide

These are some notes I took during the setup of my homelab, just in case you are curious

• Set Up Kubernetes Cluster
• Initializing Kubernetes Cluster
• Set Up Minecraft Server
• HomeLab Physical Setup
• Setting up worker nodes
• Setting up Raspberry Pi's
• CraftLab Management