I use Traefik because it solved a problem with the static configuration approach which Nginx had / still has.

In a scenario with multiple services behind Nginx, taking one down or replacing an instance is massive headache. I tried to script around it, but basically the Nginx container would choke on the fact that a service does not [yet / anymore] exist, and together with the docker networking stack it turned out to be an insurmountable problem.

Traefik otoh discovers services based on (in my case) labels on the docker containers running locally. And then updates the configuration on the fly.

Basically the static approach to configuration resulted in massive headache when I needed to enable zero downtime deployments and updates behind Nginx. And Traefik handled it perfectly without dropping a single request.

Nowadays I manage my dynamic configuration with ansible and update the values in for the file-based configuration provider with a playbook. I don’t need a UI to manage my inventory, I use ansible for that. Traefik handles the rest perfectly.

Traefik does auto discovery and you can register different configuration providers. Don’t need docker? Then don’t use the docker label-based provider. It is really flexible and has sensible defaults. Other than a few quirks in the basic auth support I haven’t had any problems. And at work it powers our globally utilized infrastructure without any hiccups.

I’m also using ansible everywhere in my home / private infra and lab. Occasionally I get slightly annoyed that I have to open an inventory file or a role var to find something. But in general I’m so grateful that there is one place to find this information, and the same is used to set up everything from scratch.

Is it extra work to write the roles and playbooks? Yes. Does it solve the documentation and automation problem completely? Absolutely. 10/10 would recommend. And for the record, most things I host run on containers, but the volumes and permission management alone make it worth your time.

Storage is not easy when you don’t have massive amounts of free land. This is an ongoing debate in Europe, and in one particular country a leaky storage was discovered just a month or two ago. Again.

And there is no guarantee that what we build today is not going to be a massive liability in 50 or 200 or hell, 500 years. But the companies and people who are responsible will not even exist at this point.

What about the storage for the used fuel? This is a massive problem for any country not occupying half a continent.

It is one of the easier ways to globally configure git auth for private Go packages.

I was considering grabbing a last minute legacy license, but I really don’t have a use case for unraid. I need a NAS for storage and a few VMs. And my apps run on generic SBCs or NUCs which I manage through ssh/ansible. So yeah, TrueNAS it is for me as well.

And there is absolutely no way, that I could find, to create or pin a shortcut to eg WinTerm, which would launch it as admin.

As someone with years of Go experience, this thing bites me or my team in the ass at least once every six months. Sometimes tests catch it, other times the tests get written after the fact and made to fit the implementation. Hilarious bug hunts ensue. I’m happy for this proposal moving forward.