kitestacks-homelab/homelab-mastery/build-guide

KiteStacks Build Guide — Choose Your Path

This guide teaches you how to build the entire KiteStacks homelab from a blank machine. There are two tracks. Pick the one that fits where you are right now.

---

Track A — With AI (Beginner)

Who this is for: Someone with zero or very little tech experience. You do not need to know Linux, Docker, or networking. You just need to be able to follow instructions and copy commands.

How it works: You use an AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, or similar) as your guide throughout the build. The AI explains what each command does in plain language before you run it. You never copy something without understanding what it does — the AI makes sure of that.

Time to complete: 2–4 weeks of evenings and weekends (2–3 hours per session).

What you will have at the end: A fully working homelab identical to KiteStacks.

→ Start the AI-Assisted Build

---

Track B — Without AI (Advanced)

Who this is for: Someone who wants to understand everything deeply and build skills along the way — not just copy commands but know what every line does and why.

How it works: You build the homelab from scratch, learning Bash scripting, Python, Docker internals, Linux administration, and networking as you go. Every command is explained in full. No shortcuts.

Time to complete: 3–6 months of consistent part-time study and building (evenings and weekends). Full-time: 6–10 weeks.

What you will learn: Linux, Bash scripting, Python, Docker, networking (DNS, ports, TLS, firewalls), OAuth2/OIDC, infrastructure design, and troubleshooting methodology.

→ Start the Advanced Build

---

What Both Tracks Build

By the end of either track you will have:

• ✅ A public domain (e.g. kitestacks.com) serving real websites
• ✅ Eleven self-hosted services running in Docker
• ✅ Single sign-on — one account for everything
• ✅ A cloud VPS as a permanent backup — site stays up when your home PC is off
• ✅ Private networking between home and cloud via Tailscale VPN
• ✅ Real-time monitoring with Grafana and Uptime Kuma
• ✅ A desktop widget showing live service status

---

Hardware and Accounts Needed (Both Tracks)

Hardware

• Any PC or laptop running Linux (or you can install Linux on it) — minimum 8GB RAM, 100GB disk
• A domain name — buy from Cloudflare Registrar, Namecheap, or similar (~$10–15/year)
• A credit card for the cloud VPS (~€4–5/month on Hetzner — less than a coffee)

Accounts to Create

• Cloudflare — free account at cloudflare.com
• Hetzner — cloud VPS provider at hetzner.com (or any VPS: DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode)
• Tailscale — free at tailscale.com (up to 100 devices)
• OpenRouter — free AI model access at openrouter.ai (for the AI chat service)

What You Are Building On

Home PC (monk)
  └── Ubuntu or similar Linux OS
  └── Docker + Docker Compose
  └── ~15 containers running

Cloud VPS (kscloud1)
  └── Ubuntu Linux
  └── Docker + Docker Compose
  └── Same 15 containers running (replica)
  └── Shared PostgreSQL + Redis