Komal K’s Post

Ever wanted to securely test volatile code or learn Linux without risking your native OS or downloading heavy Virtual Machines? I am incredibly excited to open-source the project my team and I built this semester: Secure-Sandbox Environment Manager (SSEM)! The Solution: SSEM is a full-stack platform that dynamically provisions isolated Linux desktops (Ubuntu & Kali Linux) directly into your web browser in under 10 seconds. Alongside my teammates Komal K, Manan Katarmal, and Kritika Agrawal, we completely pushed our boundaries in DevOps, networking, and cloud architecture to make this a reality. Key Technical Achievements: ✨ Instant Provisioning: Utilized Docker and Docker Compose to spin up isolated containerized environments dynamically via our Node.js Express API. ✨ Browser-Based Desktop: Integrated noVNC to securely stream the entire Linux desktop GUI directly to the frontend React interface without any external software. ✨ Cloud Deployed: Successfully deployed the full stack on a custom AWS EC2 instance configured with hard-drive SWAP spaces, Nginx, and PM2 for continuous uptime. ✨ Secure & Scalable: Implemented JWT-based authentication, user-specific container constraints, and port collision safety. Fighting container out-of-memory crashes on AWS and configuring dynamic reverse proxies taught us more about modern infrastructure than any textbook ever could! You can watch the video demo below to see a Kali Linux container spin up instantly, and check out our full source code and documentation here: https://lnkd.in/dg6M_Jjn I’d love to hear feedback or answer any architectural questions from the community! 👇 #AWS #Docker #ReactJS #NodeJS #CyberSecurity #CloudComputing #KaliLinux #SoftwareEngineering #DevOps #OpenSource

30+ dev environments. 10+ applications. ONE VM. $3,000 saved every month. 457 vulnerabilities remediated. We’re proving you can scale development without the "Kubernetes tax" or exploding operational costs. Most teams accept high cloud bills and complex orchestration as the price of doing business. We chose a different path. By moving away from resource-heavy clusters to high-density Linux containers, we’ve collapsed our infrastructure footprint while actually strengthening our security. The Reality of Modern Risk: - Security isn't a build-time checkpoint; it’s a continuous surface. A service that was “safe” during yesterday’s CI run can be vulnerable today due to new CVEs or compromised packages. Our High-Density Stack: - Zero Kubernetes Overhead: 30+ environments consolidated onto a single 8-core / 64GB VM. - Daily Security Scans: Automated checks for headers, TLS, ports, DNS, and web vulnerabilities. - AI-Assisted Remediation: We don't just find the 457 vulnerabilities; we fix them. - Centralized Monitoring: One view across all workloads, without the management sprawl. We’re building this into an internal project to help others manage large numbers of environments without the massive bill: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gafRfh_Q Curious how others are tackling: → Environment sprawl without K8s → Post-deploy security automation → Dev vs. Prod cost tradeoffs #devops #security #platformengineering #cloudcost #linux #opensource #ai

We’ve been heads-down on Containarium, and the numbers are finally speaking for themselves. Moving 30+ environments onto a single VM—without the K8s tax—has been a game changer for our burn rate and security. Check out the full breakdown in our company update below. 👇

This week, I completely refactored the infrastructure architecture of my home lab and completed a massive DevSecOps migration. I recently transitioned my full-stack environment (Nebula Forge) off a heavy, monolithic Ubuntu VM—which had been natively hosting monitoring tools like Grafana and Prometheus alongside my applications—and re-engineered the entire pipeline to run on a highly optimized Proxmox LXC container acting as a centralized Docker Host. Moving from traditional package installations to an isolated, containerized microservice architecture brought several massive advantages to the environment: 📉 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Swapping a thick Ubuntu VM for a minimalistic Debian LXC eliminated the resource contention between the hypervisor and the VM. The compute and memory footprint has been drastically reduced, freeing up valuable hardware resources for future scaling. 🔒 𝐙𝐞𝐫𝐨-𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 & 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐒𝐞𝐠𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: By utilizing Docker networks and redirecting Cloudflare Zero Trust Tunnels, I completely bypassed traditional pfSense NAT port forwarding. The internal applications are deeply segmented, and the public perimeter is locked down. 🧩 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐎𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Managing a multi-database environment (MySQL and MongoDB), a Spring Boot backend, a Go API Gateway, and high-availability frontends is now centralized through Portainer, providing distinct container isolation without the overhead. 💾 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲: The old VM setup was a massive data hog. Containerizing the apps and mapping persistent volumes allows for highly efficient snapshotting and makes adhering to strict 3-2-1 backup procedures significantly easier and faster. During the migration, I also successfully untangled hardcoded port conflicts, implemented a "cold standby" high-availability frontend, and navigated live database credential rotations via CLI to bring the Spring Boot environment fully online with zero data loss. There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of watching a complex transaction flow securely from the public internet, through a Cloudflare tunnel, into a containerized Java backend, and commit perfectly across both relational and NoSQL databases. On to the next challenge! #DevSecOps #DevOps #PlatformEngineering #CloudSecurity #SRE #SiteReliabilityEngineering #Proxmox #Docker #Cloudflare #InfrastructureAsCode #CyberSecurity #CI_CD #TechHomeLab

9 categories. 45 commands. Every single one with a real example. I put together a Linux command reference specifically for DevOps engineers,  These are the commands that actually come up when you're debugging a deployment, checking a memory leak or trying to figure out why port 8080 is busy at midnight. Swipe through 👇 Here's what's inside: 📁 File & Directory - ls, find, rsync, tar, cp  🔍 Text Processing - grep, awk, sed, cut, wc ⚙️ Process & System - ps, pgrep, lsof, htop, kill 💾 Disk & Storage - df, du, lsblk, iostat, mount 🌐 Networking - curl, ss, dig, scp, traceroute 🔒 Security & Permissions - chmod, ssh-keygen, ufw, openssl, sudo -l 📋 Logs & Monitoring - journalctl, tail -f, watch, dmesg, logrotate 🤖 Automation & Scheduling - cron, nohup, tmux, xargs, env 🌿 Git - log, stash, diff, bisect, cherry-pick If you're just starting out in DevOps or cloud save this, you might need atleast one of these this week. Detailed blog with full explanations at the link below 👇 https://lnkd.in/dX9z_g4V Which command do you use the most? Let me know in the comments below. As always if you found this helpful, give it a like👍 Repost♻️ Follow Balavignesh Manoharan for more such posts💯🚀 #linuxCommands #linux #devops #cloud

Almost every command mentioned here is something I’ve actually used in production. From debugging high CPU issues, checking open ports, analyzing logs, to handling deployments — these commands are part of daily DevOps work. If you're working with Linux or cloud, this is definitely worth saving 👍 Great compilation! 👏

🚀 Challenge #100DaysOfDevOps by KodeKloud | Day 12 Today’s challenge was all about troubleshooting Apache service issues in a real-world scenario — and it turned out to be a great learning experience. 🔍 What I worked on: I was given a situation where the Apache service was not reachable on port 5001. Instead of jumping to conclusions, I followed a structured debugging approach. 🛠️ Steps I took: I checked the Apache service status and found it was failing to start. I analyzed the logs and discovered a port conflict issue. Using ss, I identified that sendmail was already using port 5001. I stopped and disabled the sendmail service to free the port. After that, I successfully started Apache and confirmed it was running. Next, I verified that Apache was listening on all interfaces. While testing from the jump host, I faced a network issue (No route to host). I investigated iptables and found restrictive rules blocking traffic. Finally, I allowed port 5001 in iptables and validated the fix using curl. 💡 Key Learnings: Always read error logs carefully — they often point directly to the issue. Port conflicts are a common but critical problem in server setups. Troubleshooting is not just about services, but also networking and firewall rules. A step-by-step approach saves time and avoids confusion. ✅ Outcome: Apache is now up and accessible on port 5001 from the jump host. Every day in this challenge is making me more confident in handling real DevOps scenarios. Looking forward to the next one! 🔥 If you're starting your DevOps journey, I highly recommend KodeKloud for hands-on labs 👇 https://lnkd.in/deg5ZDcV #DevOps #Linux #Apache #Troubleshooting #Networking #LearningJourney #KodeKloud

Today I learned something interesting about how internet restrictions actually work - and how to bypass them right away. I was stuck on a simple issue: SSH wasn’t working (`port 22 blocked`). Internet was fine, repo access was fine… but nothing over SSH. At first, it felt like a permissions or config issue. Turns out - it was my ISP blocking the port. Instead of changing servers or asking DevOps to reconfigure things, I tried something different: using Cloudflare WARP. And that’s when things clicked. WARP isn’t a typical VPN. It creates an encrypted tunnel (based on WireGuard) and routes your traffic through Cloudflare’s network. So instead of: My machine → ISP → Server It becomes: My machine → Encrypted tunnel → Cloudflare → Server The ISP never sees the actual port anymore. Result: SSH worked instantly. No infra changes. No hacks. Sometimes the problem isn’t your code, your config, or your permissions… it’s the network layer you don’t usually think about. This was a small fix, but a good reminder, Understanding how systems work under the hood saves hours of frustration. #softwareEngineering #devops #cloudflare #networking #backend #javaScript #typescript #python #nodeJs #webdevelopment #aws #linux #java #ecommerce

🚨 “The server is down.” Every DevOps engineer’s most feared message. While practicing Linux troubleshooting, I simulated a real-world scenario: 👉 A service suddenly stopped responding. No UI. No alerts. Just a non-working system. Here’s how I approached it: 🔍 Step 1: Check system health Used "top" → CPU & memory looked normal 📡 Step 2: Check service status "systemctl status nginx" → Service was inactive 🧠 Step 3: Dig into logs Checked "/var/log/nginx/error.log" 💥 Found the issue: Port conflict — another process was already using port 80 🛠️ Step 4: Fix - Identified process → "lsof -i :80" - Killed conflicting process - Restarted nginx ✅ Service restored. --- 📌 Key Learning: In real DevOps work, 👉 It’s not about knowing commands 👉 It’s about thinking step-by-step under pressure Logs > Guessing Process > Panic --- 🚀 This is the mindset I’m building as I transition into a Cloud Support Engineer role. More real-world scenarios coming soon. #DevOps #Linux #Troubleshooting #SRE #CloudEngineer #AWS #LearningInPublic #TechCareers