GlitchCraft Homelab

My first hands-on practice project for learning self-hosting, Docker, Nginx, reverse proxies, networking, and server infrastructure.

This project is built locally on my Apple Silicon Mac as a learning environment. The goal is to gradually evolve it into a real personal homelab and self-hosting setup.

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Project Goals

• Learn how web servers work
• Understand Docker and containers
• Learn Docker Compose
• Configure Nginx
• Understand reverse proxies
• Host multiple applications
• Learn DNS and domains
• Add HTTPS/SSL
• Practice Git and GitHub
• Eventually deploy the setup on a VPS

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Current Tech Stack

• macOS
• Docker
• Docker Compose
• Nginx
• Node.js
• Git
• GitHub

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Architecture

              Browser
                        │
                        ▼
                ┌───────────────┐
                │     Nginx     │
                │ Reverse Proxy │
                │     :8080     │
                └───────┬───────┘
                        │
               ┌────────┴────────┐
               │                 │
               ▼                 ▼
         ┌──────────┐      ┌──────────┐
         │  App 1   │      │  App 2   │
         │  Node.js │      │  Node.js │
         │   :3000  │      │   :3001  │
         └──────────┘      └──────────┘

Request Flow Browser │ ▼ ┌─────────────────┐ │ Nginx │ │ Reverse Proxy │ │ :8080 │ └────────┬────────┘ │ ┌────────┴────────┐ ▼ ▼ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ Rahil App │ │ Rahil App2│ │ :3000 │ │ :3001 │ └───────────┘ └───────────┘

          Infrastructure
          ┌────────┴────────┐
          ▼                 ▼
   ┌──────────────┐   ┌──────────────┐
   │ PostgreSQL   │   │    Redis     │
   │    :5432     │   │    :6379     │
   └──────────────┘   └──────────────┘

Client │ ▼ Nginx :8080 │ ├── /app1/ ──► Rahil App :3000 │ └── /app2/ ──► Rahil App2 :3001

Service	Technology	Port	Purpose
Reverse Proxy	Nginx	8080	Routes incoming requests
App 1	Node.js	3000	First application
App 2	Node.js	3001	Second application
Database	PostgreSQL 16	5432	Data storage
Cache	Redis 7	6379	In-memory cache

Reliability Docker Compose manages the services Health checks verify service availability PostgreSQL uses pg_isready Redis connectivity uses redis-cli ping Nginx routes traffic between applications