Hello! Welcome to my home lab. Here, automation is a daily habit, and curiosity drives every project. I'm Greg Heffner: builder, veteran, and digital transformation leader. Code, radio, and weather maps all get their turn, and every deployment is a new lesson. This GitHub is my playground and lab notebook, focused on reliability, innovation, and always getting better. Glad you're here.
Who Am I?
- Senior Technology Leader: Over 20 years of enterprise operations and digital transformation experience, leading teams and architecting solutions for mission-critical environments.
- Strategic Automator: I design self-healing infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and zero-downtime deployments. If it can be automated, I want to make it work better.
- Veteran: U.S. Army Air Defense, communications specialist. I value discipline, clear communication, and always having a backup plan.
- Open Source Advocate: I share code, documentation, and ideas so others can learn and build on them.
- Lifelong Learner: From Kubernetes to cybersecurity, I follow my curiosity and document what I learn to help others avoid the same roadblocks.
Philosophy
Build in public. Automate the boring stuff. Share what works (and what doesn't). I believe tech should be accessible, fun, and a little bit weird. My home lab is my playground, and my blog is where I share the journey: wins, fails, and all.
What Makes Me Tick?
- Blue Green Deployments: I run my own blue green Nginx clusters, with live cutovers and zero downtime updates. GitOps and ArgoCD keep it honest.
- Weather & Radio: Built a live weather radar and radio dashboard for my local community. If it's on the air or in the cloud, I want to see it.
- CI/CD & Monitoring: Everything is versioned, tested, and monitored. If it breaks, I want to know before anyone else does.
- Learning in Public: My blog and GitHub README are living docs. Check them for my latest experiments, guides, and rants.
Handy Links
Useful resources and favorite tools I use for radio, weather, and network monitoring:
Explore My Online Repos
- GitHub: Automation scripts, playbooks, and my latest experiments.
- DockerHub: Custom container images that power this site and my projects.
- Ansible Galaxy: Curated roles & collections for infrastructure as code.
Read My Blog
How My Site Runs
This site is powered by Kubernetes and automated CI/CD pipelines using ArgoCD. Every update, deployment, and rollback is handled by GitOps workflows, so the site stays reliable and up to date with minimal manual work.
Security & Maintenance: I keep my site safe and up to date using my own
Ansible collection for server hardening, and I run weekly patching actions to apply the latest security updates automatically. This means vulnerabilities are fixed quickly and configuration drift is kept in check.
Automation & Transparency: All automation, security scanning, and documentation for infrastructure changes are handled by open source tools and workflows. Every patch, deployment, and compliance check is tracked, auditable, and visible in my public repos—so you can see exactly how things run and stay secure. Explore the code and workflows here:
- GitOps: All changes are version-controlled and deployed automatically
- ArgoCD: Manages rollouts, syncs, and health checks for every service
- Kubernetes: Provides self-healing, scaling, and high availability
- Ansible: Automates server hardening and config management
- Weekly Patching: Automated GitHub Actions keep everything secure and current
How to Learn
- TryHackMe: My go-to for CTFs, hands-on labs, and free courses.
- See my blog for guides:
