About Me
Professional Background
I’m a seasoned Linux system engineer currently focused on monitoring (primarily Zabbix and Grafana) and automation (SaltStack, Packer, Terraform). After years of building and maintaining infrastructure, I’ve developed a particular appreciation for systems that actually work reliably.
Current Focus Areas:
- Monitoring & Observability: Zabbix, Grafana, custom dashboards
- Infrastructure Automation: SaltStack for configuration management
- Platform Evolution: Recently moved to Nutanix, reassessing traditional toolchains
- Homelab Experiments: Because production is for cowards
The Homelab
My personal testing ground runs on Proxmox and includes:
- TrueNAS for storage
- Plex and Jellyfin for media
- SaltStack for automation
- Zabbix for monitoring everything
- HashiCorp Vault for secrets management
- Docker for containerized services
- Tailscale for secure networking
It’s a place where I can break things safely and learn from the inevitable mistakes.
Beyond the Terminal
When I’m not staring at config files or deciphering log entries, you’ll find me:
- 🎸 Learning guitar - Recent addition to combat IT burnout
- 🔧 Building electronics projects - Currently working on a custom guitar pedal
- 📚 Continuous learning - Always exploring new technologies and methodologies
Why This Blog?
After years of solving problems in isolation, I realized that documenting the journey helps not just future me, but potentially others facing similar challenges. This blog is my attempt to capture:
- Technical solutions that actually work in practice
- Project management approaches for complex homelab setups
- Lessons learned from both successes and spectacular failures
- Work-life balance strategies for IT professionals
I believe in
- Automation over repetition
- Monitoring before problems
- Documentation that future-you will thank present-you for
- Simple solutions over clever ones
- Having hobbies that don’t involve computers
Contact
- GitHub: @belnarlo
- Professional: Available on request
