🚀 Home Lab to the Moon and Back

Proving you can run CozyStack in the cloud for less than a cup of coffee per month
And then fly it back home to Raspberry Pi land

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🎯 The Mission

Transform a 76°F office space heater (aka home lab) into a cloud-validated, ARM64-first CozyStack deployment that:

• ✅ Runs on AWS free tier (~$0.10/month - just EBS costs)
• ✅ Validates on t4g.small instances before Raspberry Pi deployment
• ✅ Netboots Talos Linux with custom extensions (Spin + Tailscale)
• ✅ Demonstrates SpinKube on ARM64 in production-like conditions
• ✅ Proves the economics of hybrid cloud for home labs
• ✅ Maintains zero GDPR risk (private networking only)

Target: Live demo at CozySummit Virtual 2025 on December 4, 2025

🌡️ The Problem

Home Lab Status: 🔥
Office Temperature: 76°F (with AC!)
Electricity Bill: 📈
Wife's Patience: 📉

Running x86 workloads 24/7 in a home lab is:

• HOT - Space heater in every season
• EXPENSIVE - Power consumption adds up
• LOUD - Fans, lots of fans
• INFLEXIBLE - Can't easily scale down

The Solution? Validate in the cloud, then bring it home on ARM64 (Raspberry Pi CM3).

🏗️ The Architecture

Home Lab (Current)

Internet → DD-WRT Router (10.17.12.1)
           └─ Front Subnet (10.17.12.0/24)
              └─ Mikrotik Router (dual-homed)
                 └─ Inner Subnet (10.17.13.0/24)
                    ├─ Netboot Infrastructure
                    │  ├─ dnsmasq (DHCP)
                    │  ├─ matchbox (PXE)
                    │  ├─ 5x registry caches
                    │  └─ pi-hole (DNS)
                    └─ Talos Nodes
                       └─ CozyStack

AWS Cloud (Target)

VPC: 10.20.0.0/16 (eu-west-1)
├─ Public Subnet (10.20.1.0/24)
│  └─ NAT Gateway
│
└─ Private Subnet (10.20.13.0/24)
   ├─ Bastion (t4g.small, 5hrs/day)
   │  └─ Docker containers:
   │     ├─ dnsmasq
   │     ├─ matchbox
   │     ├─ registry caches (x5)
   │     └─ pi-hole
   │
   └─ Talos Nodes (t4g.small, on-demand)
      └─ CozyStack on ARM64
         └─ SpinKube demo

Key Innovation: Exact replica of home lab topology in AWS, staying within free tier limits.

📊 The Economics

Target: Keep monthly cost under $0.10 (one dime!) through December 2025.

After free tier expires: Scale appropriately or return to home (now on efficient ARM64).

🧪 Test-Driven Generation (TDG)

This project follows the Test-Driven Generation methodology created by Chanwit Kaewkasi (CozyStack creator).

Principle: Write tests FIRST, then generate code to make them pass.

Read More:

• 📝 Chanwit's Article: "I Was Wrong About Test-Driven Generation"
• 🧰 TDG Skill (Open Source)
• 📋 Our TDG Plan

Test Status: 21 Tests Defined

Run tests: ./tests/run-all.sh

📚 Documentation

Core Documents

• 🎨 Genesis Design Doc - Original vision
• 🧪 TDG Plan - Test-driven development roadmap
• 🗺️ Repository Overview - Full constellation map

Repository Constellation

This project integrates with 8+ repositories:

See: docs/REPO-OVERVIEW.md for full dependency graph.

🎬 The Demo

What You'll See (December 4)

1. Home Lab Reality Check 🔥
   • Temperature monitoring
   • Power consumption
   • The space heater problem
2. AWS Economics 💰
   • Live cost explorer query
   • $0.04/month current state
   • Free tier breakdown
3. Netboot Magic ⚡
   • Launch t4g.small instance
   • Watch Talos netboot (< 5 min)
   • CozyStack dashboard
4. SpinKube on ARM64 🎯
   • Deploy demo app
   • Show running workload
   • Verify ARM64 architecture
5. The Exit 🚪
   • Terminate instance
   • Return to $0.04/month
   • Compare to home lab costs

Live Channels

• 📺 YouTube: @yebyen/streams
• 🎥 CozyStack Speed Runs: Previous demos and validation runs

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

# AWS CLI with MFA-authenticated profile
aws configure --profile sb-terraform-mfa-session

# Terraform (or OpenTofu)
brew install opentofu

# kubectl + talosctl
brew install kubectl
brew install siderolabs/tap/talosctl

# Flux CLI
brew install fluxcd/tap/flux

Deploy Infrastructure

# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/urmanac/cozystack-moon-and-back.git
cd cozystack-moon-and-back

# Review TDG tests
./tests/run-all.sh --dry-run

# Deploy network foundation (Test 1)
cd terraform/network
terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

# Deploy bastion (Test 2-3)
cd ../bastion
terraform apply

# Verify netboot infrastructure (Test 3)
ssh ubuntu@10.20.13.140 "docker ps"

# Launch Talos node (Test 4)
# (Manual for now, see docs/BOOTSTRAP.md)

Bootstrap CozyStack

# Get talos config
talosctl -n 10.20.13.x config

# Bootstrap cluster
talosctl -n 10.20.13.x bootstrap

# Install CozyStack
# (See docs/COZYSTACK.md for detailed steps)

🎓 What You'll Learn

This project demonstrates:

• ✨ Hybrid Cloud Economics - When cloud makes sense vs. home lab
• 🏗️ Infrastructure Replication - Exact topology in AWS and home
• 🔧 ARM64 Validation - Test before bare-metal deployment
• 🌐 Network Architecture - Private-first, GDPR-safe design
• 📦 Custom Talos Images - Extensions for Spin + Tailscale
• 🔄 GitOps with Flux - Including new ExternalArtifact features
• 💰 Cost Optimization - Free tier strategies and monitoring
• 🧪 TDG Methodology - Test-driven infrastructure generation

🏆 Success Metrics

Demo Day (December 4)

• Tests 1-6 passing (Network → Demo workload)
• Live netboot < 5 minutes
• SpinKube demo runs on ARM64
• Cost stays under $0.10/month
• Audience can replicate in their own AWS account

Post-Demo

• Home lab transitions to Raspberry Pi CM3 modules
• Office temperature drops 15°F
• Power bill decreases measurably
• Wife's approval rating improves 📈

👥 Credits

Speaker: Kingdon Barrett
Flux Maintainer, DevOps Engineer at Navteca, LLC
Working on Science Cloud for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Methodology: Chanwit Kaewkasi
CozyStack Creator, TDG Innovator

Built with:

• 🤖 Claude (Anthropic) - Infrastructure design & TDG implementation
• 🧰 CozyStack - Kubernetes platform for bare metal
• 🐧 Talos Linux - Immutable Kubernetes OS
• ☁️ AWS - Free tier cloud validation
• 🔄 Flux - GitOps toolkit
• 🏃 SpinKube - WebAssembly on Kubernetes

📅 Timeline

Free tier expires: December 2025 (t4g instances)

🤝 Contributing

This is a conference talk demo, but if you want to replicate or improve:

1. Follow TDG - Write tests first
2. Reference, don't duplicate - Reuse existing repos
3. Document your journey - Others can learn from your experience
4. Share costs - Transparency helps everyone

Open issues for questions, PRs for improvements!

📜 License

Apache 2.0 - See LICENSE for details.

🔗 Links

• 🎤 CozySummit Virtual 2025
• 📺 YouTube: @yebyen/streams
• 🐦 Follow updates on Twitter (add your handle)
• 💬 Join CozyStack Community (add Discord/Slack)

"It's 2025 - If you're running a cluster, why not host it in the cloud first?"

🌙 → ☁️ → 🏠 → 🥧

From basement to cloud and back to Raspberry Pi