You probably do not need Kubernetes, a dedicated secrets vault, or Grafana to run a small side project on the internet. In this talk, I show how I run a reliable web service on a single immutable Flatcar Linux server with rootless Podman containers managed by systemd. I also explain how I reuse 1Password for secret injection and Home Assistant via MQTT for simple monitoring. The goal is a practical, repeatable setup you can run at home and mostly ignore between feature updates. This talk is for developers and homelab enthusiasts who want to run reliable services without spending all their time on maintenance.

Flatcar Linux is an immutable, container-focused Linux distribution that automatically updates itself without breaking your applications. If you want an alternative to manually coordinating package updates across servers, choosing between stable releases with selective backports or newer packages from additional repositories, Flatcar offers a different approach. In this talk, I introduce the core concepts of Flatcar Linux, show you how to provision a server with Ignition configuration, and explain how systemd-sysext lets you extend the minimal base with official and community-maintained packages like Podman, Tailscale and more. This talk is for Linux administrators and developers who want to spend less time maintaining servers and more time running services.