About

Cyberpunk City

Cyberpunk City is a living homelab and documentation project focused on building and operating a modular, self-hosted infrastructure.

It started as a single server to learn virtualization and VDI. As I researched and learned more it evolved into a small homelab and like most homelabs, it had a simple goal: build a Plex media server and learn along the way.

That didn’t last.

The system grew into a 5-node cluster, expanding into shared storage, Kubernetes, and high-availability design. As the complexity increased, so did the focus on doing things correctly—understanding trade-offs, failure modes, and operational behavior.

More recently, the project has taken on a stronger security focus as I returned to school at Dakota State University for a Cyber Operations degree.

This site documents that progression—from simple beginnings to a system that is actively evolving.

Structure

Cyberpunk City is organized into three layers:

  • Foundation
    Hardware, networking, storage, and the base systems and infrastructure that everything depends on.
  • Core
    The Kubernetes cluster and the applications running inside it, including ingress, authentication, and automation.
  • Labs
    Experimental systems and side projects—SDR/ADS-B, DevSec tooling, and anything that doesn’t belong in the core platform.

Philosophy

  • Real systems > theoretical perfection
  • Simplicity > cleverness
  • Failures are more valuable than successes
  • Documentation is part of the system, not an afterthought

This project is focused on understanding how systems behave in the real world—not just how they’re supposed to work.

Why This Exists

Cyberpunk City exists to explore how a homelab can evolve into something modular, secure, and production-adjacent without starting that way.

Most systems don’t begin as well-architected platforms—they grow over time. This project embraces that reality. Instead of rebuilding from scratch, the goal is to design in a way that allows the system to evolve non-linearly while remaining understandable and maintainable.

Modularity is the core principle:

  • avoid vendor lock-in
  • replaceable components
  • systems should be loosely coupled in groups
  • changes in one area shouldn’t break everything else

Security is foundational, not something added later. As the system grows, so does the focus on access control, isolation, and exposure.

The long-term goal is to move from a typical homelab toward something that resembles a small-scale production environment—without losing visibility into how it actually works.

The associated GitHub repository will serve as a reference and template, allowing others (or future versions of this system) to build from the same patterns rather than starting from zero.

The Author

I’m Josh Fritz, a systems technician working in unmanned aviation systems with a focus on avionics and ground control infrastructure.

  • UAS Systems Technician - US Army MOS 15E(15M), ~8 years
  • UAS Avionics / Ground Control Systems - 15+ years total

My background is rooted in systems that have to work under real conditions—where failure isn’t theoretical and troubleshooting isn’t optional.

Currently pursuing Cyber Operations BS degree at Dakota State University.

That mindset carries directly into this project.