Homelab Kubernetes with Kubespray, Part 4: Velero, Observability UIs, and Cluster Tooling
One-line summary: Backup (Velero), network visibility (Hubble UI), Istio tracing/mesh views (Jaeger/Kiali), remote access (Tailscale), and day-2 ops (K9s) in one place.
Goals
- Build a backup/restore baseline with Velero.
- Visualize Cilium network flows with Hubble UI.
- Use Jaeger and Kiali for Istio tracing and mesh health.
- Simplify remote access with Tailscale Operator.
- Speed up day-2 operations with K9s.
Series outline
- Part 1 — Architecture and bootstrap
- Part 2 — Cilium, Istio, and ExternalDNS baseline
- Part 3 — Storage with Rook (Ceph) and Local Path Provisioner
- Part 4 — Tooling: Velero, Hubble UI, Jaeger, Kiali, Tailscale, K9s
- Part 5 — ECK Stack (Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes)
Planned next (optional):
- Monitoring Stack (Prometheus/Grafana)
- GitOps with Argo CD
- Security, backup, and upgrades
This part focuses on the tools that make a homelab sustainable: backups, visibility, and fast operations. Without these, troubleshooting drags on and recovery gets risky. The goal is to keep the cluster observable and recoverable while still easy to operate.
Recovery drill (do this once) Backups are not real until you can restore.

