Designing an ESXi-Based Homelab as a Portfolio Platform for Hybrid Infrastructure, Modernization, and DR

This post looks at how I’m using my ESXi-based homelab as more than a technical sandbox: as a portfolio platform to document infrastructure thinking, modernization direction, resilience, and the next step toward infrastructure as code.

Deploying a Highly Available K3S Kubernetes Cluster in my Homelab

Over the last few months, I have been investing more time in Kubernetes. Running containers locally with Docker is great, but if you want to properly understand orchestration, scaling, and how modern infrastructure works, you eventually need a real cluster. Instead of spinning up cloud resources and paying for them

Moving from On‑Prem Virtualization to Cloud: Why It’s the Right Move

I’ve worked on-prem virtualization for years. From ESXi clusters to vCenter management, I’ve built and maintained infrastructure that’s rock‑solid. But the next logical step isn’t more on-site servers—it’s "The Cloud". Cloud is no longer a buzzword—it’s where infrastructure is

vCenter upgrade fails at 97%

Recently I had to upgrade my vCenters (5 vCenters in linked mode) from 8.1.0.400 to 8.0U2e to mitigate the Critical security issue from Oct 2024. I followed the recommended procedure for upgrading a group of vCenters in link mode, power them all off, take offline snapshots

How to Create Local ESXi Account and Assign Permissions Using PowerCLI

Are you struggling to create local accounts and assign permissions for your ESXi hosts manually? In this post, we'll show you how to use PowerCLI to make the process faster and more efficient. With just a few simple commands, you can create local accounts on your ESXi hosts, assign permissions, and

Single ESXi infrastructure upgrade: how to

Updating your ESXi hosts is essential for optimal performance. Unfortunately, without vCenter, updating your hosts can become a time-consuming and daunting task. However, in this blog post, we'll show you how to update your ESXi hosts using PowerCLI. PowerCLI offers an efficient, fast, and less erro

ESXi Logs: How to Fix the hbr-agent Issue!

Are you tired of seeing your ESXi logs filled with "User root@127.0.0.1 logged in/out" messages due to hbr-agent? If so, you're not alone! This issue can create a massive influx of entries on the GUI, making it nearly impossible to read and sort through. The good news is that there's a simple soluti

Missing linked vCenter

After patching the vCenters (5 of them) from version 7.0 U3d to version 7.0U3f to fix the mitigate the issue found on VMSA-2021-0025 I lost the one of the vCenters. My first thought would be to revert back to the previous version using the OFFLINE snapshots taken from

vSphere CSI - remove orphan CNS volumes from GUI

Lately I've been playing around with vSphere CSI driver and for those who don't know what that is, vSphere Storage for Kubernetes, also called vSphere Cloud Provider, was introduced in 2017 and became the first vSphere storage solution for Kubernetes. The main goal of that project

Raspberry Pi ddns

How to install noip ddns service on Raspberry Pi

[VMwareLAB] - 3.the design

Time for the fun stuff :D On my previous posts (here and here) I talked about what made me decide to go for a physical server, the parts that I selected considering my budget and the lowest noise possible and today I will talk about the logical design behind the

[VMwareLAB] – 2.hardware

Selection of budget-friendly hardware