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Cloud & DevOps

21 articles in this section

This section covers the space between a single VDS and the cloud at large — the tools that turn a handful of servers into managed infrastructure. It starts with the difference between a cloud server and a regular VPS, working with S3-compatible storage through MinIO or ready-made providers, and backing up with rclone, restic, and BorgBackup.

From there it covers automation and infrastructure as code: Terraform and Ansible for describing servers as configuration, deploying through GitHub Actions and GitLab CI/CD, container orchestration with Docker Swarm, a lightweight Kubernetes cluster with k3s, and HashiCorp Nomad as a Kubernetes-free alternative. Traefik and Caddy are covered separately as reverse proxies with automatic TLS.

There are also guides for distributed systems: a WireGuard mesh network between servers, Consul for service discovery, centralized logs through Grafana Loki, running your own private Docker Registry, and Ingress for a Kubernetes cluster.

  • S3 storage and backups to the cloud
  • Terraform, Ansible, and CI/CD deployment
  • Docker Swarm, k3s, and HashiCorp Nomad
  • Networking and logging for distributed setups
Cloud Server vs VPS: What's the Difference A detailed comparison of cloud servers and VPS: architecture, scaling, pricing, reliability. When to choose cloud and when to choose VPS. rclone: Backing Up Your VPS to Cloud Storage Setting up rclone for automatic VPS backups to S3, Google Drive, Backblaze B2, and Dropbox. Installation, configuration, encryption, and cron automation. MinIO on a VPS: Your Own S3 Storage in 15 Minutes Deploying MinIO — an S3-compatible object storage system on a VPS. Installation via Docker, nginx configuration, SSL, bucket creation, application integration. Hetzner Cloud: Creating and Configuring Servers via API Working with Hetzner Cloud: creating servers, configuring Firewall, Floating IP, managing via API and the hcloud CLI. The best European cloud provider. Terraform: infrastructure as code for VPS and cloud Managing infrastructure with Terraform: Hetzner, DigitalOcean and AWS providers. Servers, DNS records and firewalls in code. IaC basics for DevOps. Caddy Server: Auto-HTTPS and Reverse Proxy Without the Pain Setting up Caddy Server on a VPS: automatic Let's Encrypt SSL certificates, reverse proxy, PHP, HTTP/3. Caddyfile configuration examples. Docker Swarm: Multi-VPS Cluster Without Kubernetes Docker Swarm cluster setup: manager/worker nodes, service deployment, rolling updates, overlay networks, secrets. Kubernetes alternative. Uptime Kuma: Self-Hosted Server and Website Monitoring Install Uptime Kuma via Docker: HTTP, TCP, DNS, and Docker monitoring, Telegram notifications, Nginx reverse proxy, and a public Status Page. Kubernetes on a VPS: A Lightweight Cluster with k3s Installing k3s Kubernetes on a VPS: master and worker nodes, application deployment, Helm, Ingress with auto-SSL, monitoring. Kubernetes for small teams. S3 Object Storage: Provider Comparison and PHP Integration Comparing S3 providers: Hetzner, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, AWS S3. PHP integration via AWS SDK, file uploads, WordPress Offload Media. GitHub Actions: Automated Deployment to a VPS CI/CD deployment to a VPS via GitHub Actions: SSH deploy for a PHP project, rsync, Laravel artisan, Telegram notifications, zero-downtime deployment. Ansible vs Terraform: what to use and when to combine them Ansible and Terraform solve different jobs: Terraform creates servers, Ansible configures them. Here is when to use each tool and pipeline. GitLab CI/CD: an automated deploy pipeline for your VPS Set up a GitLab CI/CD pipeline for automated VPS deploys over SSH: variables, stages, and instant rollback on failure. HashiCorp Nomad: container orchestration without Kubernetes HashiCorp Nomad orchestrates containers and processes with one binary and no complex Kubernetes control plane. Setup, job file, and a server cluster. Traefik: a reverse proxy with automatic TLS for Docker Traefik discovers Docker containers on its own and issues TLS certificates through Let's Encrypt with no manual configs. Setup, labels, common mistakes. Grafana Loki: centralized log collection from your servers Grafana Loki collects logs from several VDS instances in one place and searches them through Grafana. Setup, Promtail, labels, and LogQL examples. restic vs BorgBackup: Deduplicated VPS Backups restic and BorgBackup shrink VPS backups through deduplication: a comparison, installation steps, cron automation, and integrity checks explained. WireGuard Mesh: A Private Network Between Servers WireGuard mesh joins servers into a private encrypted network: installation, multi-node configuration, and connection troubleshooting steps. Consul: Service Discovery and Distributed Config Consul provides service discovery and distributed configuration for a cluster: architecture, installation, service registration, health checks. Private Docker Registry on Your Own Server A private Docker Registry on your own VPS removes Docker Hub limits: choosing between Registry v2 and Harbor, TLS, auth, and pushing images. Kubernetes Ingress: ingress-nginx and TLS Certificates Kubernetes Ingress with the ingress-nginx controller routes traffic by domain and issues Let's Encrypt TLS certificates via cert-manager.