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30 labs. Five phases. One clear path.

The course runs from a clean Linux server baseline to Kubernetes delivery and AI-assisted ops. Read the phases in order — each lab builds directly on the last one.

30 labs 5 phases Yeast v1.1 surface only Linux / KVM first
Phase Labs Focus
1 · Systems 01–05 Linux server baseline, web servers, reverse proxy, databases, troubleshooting
2 · Automation 06–09 Bash scripting, Ansible single and multi-VM, secrets and configuration management
3 · Containers & delivery 10–16 Docker, Compose, container hardening, GitHub Actions CI, self-hosted runners, registry, progressive delivery
4 · Operations 17–22 Prometheus and Grafana, centralized logging, distributed tracing, SLOs and error budgets, backup drills, chaos drills
5 · Platform 23–30 Terraform, GitOps, end-to-end delivery platform, Kubernetes with k3s, AI-assisted DevOps
1

Systems

Labs 01–05
#LabWhat you build
01Linux Server BaselineClean operational Linux server — users, SSH hardening, firewall, updates
02Static Site With NginxWeb server setup, virtual hosts, logs, and SSH port forwarding to browser
03Reverse Proxy To Backend AppNginx reverse proxy to a Python/Node backend — traffic flow and headers
04Database-Backed AppApp-to-database connectivity, persistence, and basic query validation
05Linux Troubleshooting DrillLogs-first debugging — journalctl, systemd, strace, broken services
2

Automation

Labs 06–09
#LabWhat you build
06Bash Automation For Server SetupRepeatable shell scripts for server provisioning — idempotence and error handling
07Ansible For One ServerAnsible playbooks, inventory, and idempotent config management on one VM
08Ansible For Multi-VM Web ClusterMulti-host Ansible — roles, templates, group_vars, and multi-VM orchestration
09Secrets And Configuration ManagementVault-style secret separation, Ansible Vault, environment-aware config
3

Containers & Delivery

Labs 10–16
#LabWhat you build
10Docker Fundamentals On A VMContainers, volumes, logs, and networking inside a Yeast VM
11Compose Multi-Service AppDocker Compose — service discovery, data volumes, dependency order
12Container Build, Scan, HardeningSafer image builds, vulnerability scanning, tagging strategy
13CI With GitHub ActionsPipeline basics — build, test, and lint on push with GitHub Actions
14Self-Hosted CI RunnerSelf-hosted runner on a Yeast VM — registration, job routing, teardown
15Private Container RegistryPrivate registry on a VM — push, pull, image promotion workflow
16Progressive Delivery And RollbackCanary patterns, health checks, and safe rollback with snapshots
4

Operations

Labs 17–22
#LabWhat you build
17Prometheus And Grafana MonitoringMetrics collection, alerting rules, and Grafana dashboards
18Centralized LoggingMulti-service log aggregation — Loki or ELK — with search and filtering
19OpenTelemetry Distributed TracingTrace instrumentation, spans, and Jaeger or Tempo integration
20SRE: SLOs, Alerts, Error BudgetsSLO definition, alerting on burn rate, and error budget tracking
21Backup And Restore DrillBackup strategies, restore validation, and Yeast snapshot integration
22Chaos And Failure Recovery DrillControlled failure injection and recovery — kill processes, corrupt data, restore
5

Platform

Labs 23–30
#LabWhat you build
23Terraform FundamentalsPlan, apply, state — Terraform basics with local provider and Yeast VMs
24Terraform Modules And EnvironmentsReusable modules, workspaces, and environment-aware infrastructure
25GitOps With Argo CDReconciliation loop, desired state in Git, sync and rollback
26End-To-End Delivery PlatformVM platform capstone — full delivery flow from code to running service
27Kubernetes Foundations With k3sCluster setup, pods, deployments, services — k3s on Yeast VMs
28Kubernetes Networking, Config, StorageIngress, ConfigMaps, Secrets, PersistentVolumeClaims
29Kubernetes Delivery CapstoneFull Kubernetes delivery flow — build, push, deploy, observe, roll back
30AI-Assisted DevOps And Local LLM OpsLocal LLM on a Yeast VM, AI-assisted runbooks, and ops automation patterns