Real world DevOps project from start to finish [02/2023]

This course will cover a DevOps project from its inception all the way to a finished product.

It is aimed at startups, small companies, and individuals who want to self-host their infrastructure.

We will combine multiple tools and services to produce a working, easily reproducible server which can support a small company.

We will cover:

• Ansible – to configure the server and deploy services.
• Let’s Encrypt (certbot) – to obtain wildcard TLS certificate with auto renewal.
• VPN (WireGuard) – for secure access to our services.
• Docker with docker-compose – to easily deploy our applications and services.
• MariaDB – MySQL fork.
• LXC (Linux containers) – another virtualization technology.
• iRedMail – mail server which we’ll use to send and receive notifications.
• Zulip – an open source chat and collaborative software which can be self-hosted (alternative to Slack or Microsoft Teams).
• Traefik (reverse proxy and TLS termination proxy) with Docker and file providers – a single entry point for our services with automatic TLS certificates.
• Pi-hole – ad blocking on DNS level.
• Nextcloud – Email, calendar, documents, photos…It even has built-in code editor.
• checkmk – monitoring solution.
• Borg with borgmatic – backup solution.
• GitLab – Git server, CI/CD, GitLab Container Registry, etc.
• backup-checker – with this project we will showcase everything we’ve created!

  We’ll create a Python program which will compare finished backups with the desired list of backups, use GitLab CI/CD to create Docker image, push it to our own, private Docker Registry, run it on our server via GitLab Runner, and send notification to our Zulip server.

• Upgrade scripts for services running in Docker.
• Upgrading iRedMail.
• Upgrading Zulip.
• Upgrading host OS.

When you finish the course, you’ll be equipped to add any additional services you need for your particular line of work.