Infrastructure Overview

High-level overview of the infrastructure domains documented within Hidden Den and Den Vault

created: Sat Mar 14 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) updated: Sat Mar 14 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) #about#infrastructure#overview

Summary

The infrastructure documented in Den Vault is built around a small set of repeatable domains: networking, compute, platform services, observability, security, and data protection. Together, these form a practical blueprint for self-hosted engineering environments.

Why it matters

Readers need a clear map before diving into individual guides. An infrastructure overview helps explain how virtualization, containers, DNS, reverse proxying, monitoring, identity, and backups fit together as one operating model.

Core concepts

  • Networking and access: segmentation, VPN, DNS, ingress
  • Compute: hypervisors, VMs, and container hosts
  • Platform services: reverse proxy, service discovery, identity, secrets
  • Operations: monitoring, alerting, backups, updates
  • Tooling: documented platforms used to implement these layers

Practical usage

A typical self-hosted environment described by Den Vault includes:

  • Proxmox or equivalent compute hosts
  • Docker-based application workloads
  • Tailscale or another private access layer
  • Reverse proxy and TLS termination with tools such as Caddy, Traefik, or NGINX
  • Prometheus and Grafana for observability
  • Backup tooling with regular validation
  • Static or low-dependency site infrastructure where that aligns with privacy and maintainability goals

Best practices

  • Keep core platform services few in number and well understood
  • Separate public ingress from administrative access paths
  • Maintain inventory of systems, dependencies, and backup coverage
  • Prefer architectures that can be rebuilt from documented source material

Pitfalls

  • Treating infrastructure as a pile of tools instead of a coherent system
  • Running critical services without monitoring or backup validation
  • Allowing naming, routing, and authentication patterns to drift over time
  • Adding redundancy without understanding operational complexity

References