Hetzner

Overview Hetzner serves as the backbone of my offsite infrastructure, providing reliable, cost-effective dedicated servers and cloud resources that complement my local home lab environment. This page documents my Hetzner setup, configurations, and how these remote resources integrate with my on-premises systems.

​

Infrastructure Components

​

Dedicated Servers

​

Cloud Instances

​

Storage Boxes

​

Network Configuration

​

Private Network

Utilizing Hetzner’s vSwitch for secure inter-server communication: • 10.0.0.0/24 subnet for dedicated servers • 10.0.1.0/24 subnet for cloud instances • Internal firewall rules restricting traffic between segments

​

VPN Connectivity

Secure connection between home lab and Hetzner infrastructure: • WireGuard VPN for site-to-site connectivity • Failover configuration with multiple endpoints • Traffic encryption for all data in transit • Split tunneling for optimized routing

​

Services & Applications

​

Kubernetes Cluster

Running a production-grade Kubernetes cluster for containerized applications: • K3s lightweight distribution • Longhorn for distributed storage • MetalLB for load balancing • Cert-Manager for certificate automation

​

Backup Infrastructure

Comprehensive backup strategy leveraging Hetzner resources: • Restic for encrypted backups • Automated verification and integrity checks • Geographic redundancy across multiple datacenters • Immutable backups for ransomware protection

​

Monitoring & Observability

Centralized monitoring solution for both Hetzner and home lab resources: • Prometheus for metrics collection • Grafana for visualization • Loki for log aggregation • Alertmanager for notifications

​

Cost Optimization

Strategies implemented to maximize value from Hetzner resources: • Reserved instances for predictable workloads • Spot instances for batch processing jobs • Automation for scaling down during low-usage periods • Storage tiering based on access patterns

​

Deployment Workflow

Automated infrastructure provisioning and configuration:

1. Infrastructure as Code using Terraform
2. Configuration management with Ansible
3. GitOps workflow with ArgoCD
4. CI/CD pipeline integration with GitHub Actions

graph LR     A[Git Repository] —> B[GitHub Actions]     B —> C[Terraform Apply]     C —> D[Ansible Configuration]     D —> E[ArgoCD Sync]     E —> F[Hetzner Infrastructure]

​

Disaster Recovery

Comprehensive DR strategy for Hetzner-hosted services: • Regular disaster recovery testing • Documented recovery procedures • Automated infrastructure rebuilding • Cross-region replication for critical data

​

Lessons Learned

• Network Performance: Helsinki datacenter provides best connectivity to Morocco • Storage Strategy: Storage Boxes offer excellent value for backup purposes • API Integration: Hetzner’s API enables comprehensive automation • Instance Sizing: Right-sizing instances saved approximately 30% on costs

​

Future Plans

• Explore Hetzner’s Arm-based instances for cost optimization • Implement multi-region deployment for improved resilience • Test Hetzner Cloud’s managed Kubernetes offering • Evaluate dedicated GPU servers for ML/AI workloads Last updated: July 1, 2025