Virtualization on Technical Notes

Kubernetes 101

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source platform for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It was built to work with Docker and depending on who you talk to, they’ll either say it’s hell or a piece of cake. The truth? If you’ve struggled with infrastructure (servers, networks), logged many hours with Linux, Docker and containers, it might not be that hellish and it’ll depend on how many hours you put in.

Like most of my posts, this is based on documenting my Home Lab, with hours of testing, things that stop working when you least expect it. But the good thing is you learn a ton and, if you’re a bit of a geek, you even have fun. Here’s my experience, with tricks, mistakes and everything I wish I’d known before starting.

ProxmoxVE Helper Scripts

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If you have little experience it might be a bit daunting, which is why I recommend this wonderful project: Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts, where you’ll find hundreds of scripts to make your life easier installing CTs or VMs on top of your Proxmox.

Windows 11 on Proxmox

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Complete guide with all the detailed steps to install, configure and access a Windows 11 Pro Virtual Machine (VM) running on top of Proxmox VE.

This virtualization platform enables the deployment and management of virtual machines running Windows Server/10/11 using KVM/QEMU. With advanced integration through the QEMU Guest Agent, VirtIO drivers, and even UEFI Secure Boot with TPM emulation for Windows 11.

MAC with Vagrant

Sun, 23 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Vagrant lets you create and configure virtual development environments that are lightweight and reproducible. It does so by creating virtual machines and requires a Hypervisor. It doesn’t care which hypervisor you use – it supports VirtualBox, KVM, Docker, VMWare, and 30+ others. It’s a fantastic tool for spinning up Servers for our software development projects.

This guide only works, for now, with INTEL chips. I haven’t been able to make it work on a Mac with ARM (Apple Silicon) as the host yet.

Home Automation and Networking

Sat, 08 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m sharing my home networking setup with the option to knock on the door for on-demand access from the Internet. Today’s home networks end up supporting multiple services, and with the rise of home automation things get complicated, so I’ve decided to document it to keep track of everything in the future.

The number of devices grows and maintaining the network of a smart and automated home becomes a priority. I dedicate this post to those Geeks or Techies who, like me, have been deep into the complexity of networking in a home automation network for a long time.

Proxmox: VM from Template

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Proxmox VE is a powerful and easy-to-use open-source virtualization platform that enables the deployment and management of virtual machines (VMs with KVM/QEMU) and containers (CTs based on LXC). Proxmox offers Templates to minimize the creation time of new instances of these virtual machines or containers.

In this post I focus on how to create my own Virtual Machine Templates along with a cloud-based image and cloud-init.

NUC, KVM, and Open vSwitch

Sat, 11 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Configuration of a NUC with Ubuntu + Open vSwitch + VLANs + KVM + VMs using netplan and Open vSwitch. The networking is based on OVS and Netplan for both the Host and the virtual machines.

Last year I documented here how to configure Open vSwitch with KVM. In this post I’ll get straight to the point, showing the desired final state and how to configure it.

Open vSwitch and KVM

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It was about time I played with Open vSwitch (OVS). I’m going to take advantage of setting up a new server with Ubuntu Server, KVM, Virtual Machines, and VLANs to build everything with Open vSwitch instead of the traditional Linux Bridge.

OVS is a virtual bridge from which I’ll manage all network connections for both the server itself and its virtual machines. Some VMs will receive a Trunk interface while the majority will connect in Access mode to a specific VLAN.

Remote Virt-Manager

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The goal is to run virt-manager from my Mac to manage VMs on a couple of remote KVM/QEMU host servers without needing to install an X11 environment on them. I’ve documented two options: the first uses a local virtual machine (VirtualBox/Parallels/…) with Ubuntu and a minimal GUI environment (just Xorg/X11 and virt-manager), the second uses HomeBrew.

Vagrant with Libvirt KVM

Sat, 15 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Vagrant creates and runs virtual machines, relying on virtualization providers such as Virtualbox, KVM, Docker, VMWare, and 30+ others. It will always default to launching the VM with Virtualbox unless we explicitly specify a different provider. In this guide I explain how I set up Vagrant with the Libvirt KVM provider on Linux.

My First Steps with Docker

Sat, 01 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

From what I understood, it’s a tool that allows you to package “Linux applications and all their dependencies” into a self-contained virtual container (something like sandboxes). That doesn’t tell us much, but what if I tell you that you can run your Linux applications (thanks to the Docker daemon) always in the same way on any platform? (for example Windows or macOS by using a super lightweight virtual machine, VirtualBox-style). Now that’s cool.

Linux on 'Fusion for Mac'

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

In this article I describe how to install Gentoo Linux 3.10.17 (64-bit, with systemd + Gnome 3) in a virtual machine (VM) running on VMWare Fusion 6 for Mac OSX version 10.9 (Mavericks). This should work the same way on a different host, such as Parallels or VMWare Workstation for Windows or Linux.