Your Homelab After The Big D Death Or Divorce

Posted Jan 2, 2026

By Usman Masood Ashraf

views 6 min read

Your Homelab After The Big D: Death Or Divorce

Introduction

The homelab - a sacred space where sysadmins and DevOps engineers experiment, learn, and build complex infrastructures in their own homes. But what happens when life intervenes with capital-D events: Death or Divorce?

The recent Reddit post about a complete homelab being ripped out and trashed after a divorce settlement highlights a critical but often overlooked aspect of self-hosted infrastructure: Contingency planning for your technical legacy. When the original owner’s marriage dissolved, their enterprise-grade racks ended up as roadside freebies, while the new homeowners replaced everything with consumer-grade mesh Wi-Fi.

This scenario raises crucial questions for every homelab enthusiast:

Who inherits your infrastructure if you’re gone?
How can non-technical family members dispose of equipment responsibly?
What happens to your data and services during life transitions?

Through 15+ years of DevOps experience, I’ve witnessed numerous homelab “succession crises” resulting from:

Technical debt accumulation (undocumented systems)
Access silos (single-person knowledge bases)
Lack of exit strategies for infrastructure

This comprehensive guide covers:

Creating infrastructure-as-documentation systems
Implementing graceful degradation patterns
Establishing technical executors
Ethical decommissioning procedures
Asset transition planning

Whether you’re running a single NUC or a multi-rack colo setup, this is your blueprint for infrastructure mortality planning.

Understanding Homelab Lifecycle Management

What Is Homelab Succession Planning?

Homelab succession planning involves creating systems that allow your infrastructure to be understood, maintained, or responsibly decommissioned by non-technical parties. Unlike enterprise environments with dedicated teams, homelabs often contain:

Undocumented custom configurations
Experimental services
Security-through-obscurity implementations
Personal data stores

Why Death/Divorce Scenarios Matter

Statistical reality:

40-50% of US marriages end in divorce (CDC)
100% mortality rate for homelab owners (global average)

Technical impacts:

Data hemorrhage: Personal Nextcloud instances, password managers, family media servers
Security risks: Exposed SSH endpoints, outdated services
Financial losses: Equipment depreciation, hosting bills

Enterprise vs. Homelab Mortality

Aspect	Enterprise	Homelab
Documentation	Runbooks, KB articles	Post-its on servers
Access Control	RBAC with offboarding	Personal SSH keys
Decommission Process	Legal/compliance protocols	“Power cord goes brrr”
Asset Recovery	ITAD vendors	Craigslist free section

The Graceful Degradation Principle

Design your homelab to fail safely when maintenance stops:

Automated self-destruction: Services wipe sensitive data after inactivity periods
Dead man’s switch: Regular check-ins that trigger decommissioning if missed
Consumer fallback: Critical services fail over to commercial alternatives

Prerequisites for Responsible Homelab Management

Inventory Requirements

Essential documentation:

Physical asset register (model, serial, purchase date)
Network topology diagram
Credential vault access instructions
Service dependencies map

Tools to implement:

NetBox for DCIM/IPAM
Passbolt for shared secret management
Draw.io for network diagrams

Technical Prerequisites

Centralized logging (ELK/Graylog)
Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/Ansible)
Automated backup systems (Borg/Restic)
Remote kill switches (WireGuard VPN + API endpoints)

Legal Considerations

Digital assets clause in will/divorce agreements
Data ownership agreements for family media
Ethical will explaining technical decisions

Pre-Implementation Checklist

Create physical asset inventory
Document all public-facing services
Establish emergency access protocol
Implement automated backups
Test service degradation procedures
Designate technical executor ```

Implementation: Building Mortality-Aware Infrastructure

Step 1: Infrastructure Documentation Automation

NetBox Docker deployment:

  
docker run -d \
  --name netbox \
  -e SUPERUSER_NAME=admin \
  -e SUPERUSER_PASSWORD=!ChangeThis! \
  -e SUPERUSER_EMAIL=admin@example.com \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  netboxcommunity/netbox:latest

Automatic service discovery script:

  
#!/usr/bin/env python3
# Service discovery for homelab documentation
import docker
import requests

client = docker.from_env()
services = {}

for container in client.containers.list():
    services[container.name] = {
        "image": container.image.tags[0] if container.image.tags else "",
        "status": container.status,
        "ports": container.ports,
        "volumes": container.attrs['Mounts']
    }

# Post to NetBox API
netbox_url = "http://netbox:8080/api/plugins/homelab/services/"
headers = {"Authorization": "Token YOUR_API_TOKEN"}
response = requests.post(netbox_url, json=services, headers=headers)

Step 2: Credential Management Architecture

Bitwarden emergency access setup:

  
# bitwarden-emergency-access.yml
version: '3'

services:
  bitwarden:
    image: vaultwarden/server:latest
    environment:
      EMERGENCY_ACCESS_NAME: "Technical Executor"
      EMERGENCY_ACCESS_EMAIL: "executor@example.com"
      EMERGENCY_ACCESS_WAIT_DAYS: 7
    volumes:
      - bw-data:/data
    ports:
      - 8081:80

volumes:
  bw-data:

Step 3: Automated Decommissioning Workflows

Ansible teardown playbook:

  
---
# homelab-decom.yml
- name: Graceful homelab decommissioning
  hosts: all
  become: yes
  vars:
    decom_days: 30
  tasks:
    - name: Notify services of pending decom
      command: >
        curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/decom-notice
        -H "Content-Type: application/json"
        -d '{"days_remaining":  }'
      when: "'web_service' in group_names"

    - name: Wipe sensitive volumes
      command: shred -n 3 -z /mnt/sensitive_data
      when: inventory_hostname in groups['storage_nodes']

    - name: Deregister from DNS
      uri:
        url: "https://dns-api.example.com/records/"
        method: DELETE
        status_code: 200

Configuration & Optimization Strategies

Security Hardening for Abandonment Scenarios

Automated certificate revocation

  
# Certbot revoke and delete
certbot revoke --cert-path /etc/letsencrypt/live/$DOMAIN/cert.pem --delete-after-revoke

SSH bastion timeout configuration

# /etc/ssh/sshd_config
ClientAliveInterval 300
ClientAliveCountMax 0
LoginGraceTime 1m
PermitRootLogin no

Firewall decay rules

  
# iptables auto-expiring rules
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -m recent --rcheck --seconds 604800 -j ACCEPT

Performance Optimization for Monitoring

Prometheus blackbox exporter configuration:

  
# blackbox.yml
modules:
  http_2xx:
    prober: http
    timeout: 5s
    http:
      valid_status_codes: [200]
      method: GET
  tcp_ssh:
    prober: tcp
    timeout: 10s
    tcp:
      query_response:
      - expect: "^SSH-2.0-OpenSSH"

Graceful Degradation Timeline

Time Since Last Activity	Action	Impact
7 days	Email alerts to technical contacts	Notification only
14 days	Non-essential services shutdown	Media servers, lab environments stop
30 days	Sensitive data wiped	Password managers, personal data erased
60 days	Public services terminated	VPN endpoints closed, DNS records removed
90 days	Physical shutdown initiated	IPMI commands to power off systems

Usage & Operational Procedures

Daily Maintenance Checklist

Verify backup integrity:
1 borg check /backups/homelab

Update documentation:

ansible-playbook documentation-update.yml

Test emergency access:

  
echo "TEST" | gpg --encrypt --recipient executor@example.com

Monthly Verification Process

Validate decommission playbook:

ansible-playbook --check homelab-decom.yml

Refresh emergency credentials
Verify technical executor contact info

Financial Planning Table

Cost Center	Monthly	Action Plan
Hosting/VPS	$85	Cancel via pre-authorized email
Cloud Storage	$120	Wipe-and-delete API endpoint
Power Consumption	$75	Smart plug kill switch
Internet Service	$110	Downgrade to basic plan

Troubleshooting Guide

Common Issues and Resolutions

Problem: Technical executor cannot access systems
Solution: Implement WebAuthn hardware key with safety deposit box storage

Problem: Divorce settlement demands immediate decommission
Solution: Pre-configured legal hold script:

  
#!/bin/bash
# legal-hold.sh
tar czf /backups/legal-hold-$(date +%s).tar.gz \
  /etc \
  /var/log \
  /opt/documentation
rclone copy /backups legal-hold-bucket

Problem: Equipment needs valuation for asset division
Solution: Automated depreciation calculator:

  
import csv
from datetime import datetime

with open('equipment.csv') as f:
    for row in csv.DictReader(f):
        purchase_date = datetime.strptime(row['purchase_date'], '%Y-%m-%d')
        age_years = (datetime.now() - purchase_date).days / 365
        current_value = float(row['price']) * (0.7 ** age_years)
        print(f"{row['name']}: ${current_value:.2f}")

Conclusion

Homelab mortality planning isn’t about morbidity - it’s about technical responsibility. By implementing the strategies outlined in this guide, you ensure that your infrastructure legacy doesn’t become:

An security liability
A financial burden
A family mystery

Key takeaways for resilient homelab design:

Document like you’re dying tomorrow - Automated, living documentation is non-negotiable
Build kill switches, not time bombs - Graceful degradation beats catastrophic failure
Design for non-technical transition - Your executor shouldn’t need a CCIE to power down

Recommended resources:

Your homelab represents countless hours of learning and passion. Ensure its final chapter reflects the care you put into building it - whether that means planned obsolescence or responsible transition to new caretakers.

Open Source, Reddit Guides, Docker

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.