Emails from sender «Ivan Velichko».
Source: Readwise Reader export, ingested 2026-10-29. Entries: 86. Summaries are truncated from frontmatter summary; absent ⇒ omitted.
- What’s new at iximiuz Labs: Public profiles, a visual playground builder, and a new North America region — 2026-10-28
This feature has been on my TODO list since the very first release of the Labs back in 2023 🙈 But it’s always sounded like a massive lift, s…
- Learning Linux and Container Networking by Solving Practical Problems — 2026-09-28
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been head-down working on the next module of the Docker Roadmap: Container Networking.
- Practice Linux 101 Topics with Shell Gyms on iximiuz Labs — 2026-09-16
This summer, I created a new tool: github. com/iximiuz/shellgym.
- ServerLabs MCP and the cool use cases it unlocks, the activity log, and other features that landed in August — 2026-08-28
Such results are way harder to reproduce with the plain catalog search because not every challenge that mentions ConfigMap actually primaril…
- The end of the Monthly Roundup 🫡 — 2026-08-06
A single monthly email served us rather well when I could fit all the platform’s announcements, the materials published on the site during t…
- Ivan on the Server Side: Shell Gym, Dashboard 3.0, fair pricing, and lots of good reads — 2026-08-01
I didn’t see this one coming, but lately more and more people have started asking about Linux 101 materials on iximiuz Labs - mostly as prer…
- Bare-metal programming: Writing a (valid) C program without main() — 2026-07-25
Başar Subaşı, iximiuz Labs’ debuting author, started his exploration with a simple Hello World program written in C, pulled apart every stag…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2026-07-07
It’s not the end of the month, and I also somehow managed to miss the previous month’s issue, but here it is: an assorted collection of ixim…
- iximiuz Labs 2026 Mid-Year Update: Search, More Content, Community Calls, and What’s Next — 2026-06-30
At the beginning of the year, I promised myself (and all of you) that I wouldn’t get nerd-sniped by yet another “cool platform feature” and…
- A practical guide to SSH tunnels: local and remote port forwarding — 2026-06-22
- New Skill Path: Linux Storage 101 - Drives, Partitions, and Mounts — 2026-06-12
Practice the most common Linux storage operations in a series of hands-on challenges: discover and mount drives, create partition tables, fo…
- How Servers Work: A Hands-On Introduction to TCP Sockets — 2026-06-02
Learn how servers actually work by building a tiny TCP server and client from scratch.
- How Container Registries Work: Pushing and Pulling Images By Hand — 2026-05-22
Most of the time, we interact with container registries via the docker pull and docker push commands or by setting an image name in a Kubern…
- New Docker Roadmap Module + Summer Skill-Up Sale 🎉 — 2026-05-17
In addition to the new materials, the roadmap itself has become way more interactive.
- Learning by doing is the way, AI or not — 2026-05-05
There is a huge difference between passively reading a tutorial and actually typing in commands or code from it into your terminal.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2026-05-02
After several weeks of thinking about it, I couldn’t help but revamp the Docker roadmap.
- Connect to a Playground Kubernetes Cluster with Local kubectl and MCP Servers — 2026-04-23
Have you ever wanted to access a cluster started in a playground using your local tooling?
- iximiuz Labs update: 3x longer playground sessions and Premium for inviting friends — 2026-04-19
How long the max playground session duration should be has been a recurring question.
- Elevate your hacking game by bringing the local machine and remote VMs closer together — 2026-04-15
This capability comes in handy when you need to make a service running in the playground VM accessible for services or applications running…
- Nested virtualization and more affordable prices come to iximiuz Labs 🎉 — 2026-04-11
Historically, none of the above was possible because Firecracker doesn’t expose the host’s CPU virtualization capabilities (Intel’s VMX or A…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2026-04-03
After preparing over 100 practical exercises on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, and networking, which have been solved more than 50K times in tot…
- Deep dive: How Container Images Actually Work — 2026-03-11
Docker made container images look deceptively simple from the outside: you docker build, docker push, and docker run, and everything just wo…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2026-03-04
Shoutout to our sponsor of the month - Creem.
- Kubernetes the (Very) Hard Way - a new iximiuz Labs course by Márk Sági-Kazár — 2026-02-24
But what I admire most about Márk’s work is not the quantity but the quality. Such meticulous attention to detail, combined with the clarity…
- iximiuz Labs long awaited docs, new learning materials, and an unusual call to action — 2026-02-17
But before we jump into the main issue, I want to feature the sponsor of the month - Creem.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2026-02-02
I’m finally done with the feature work I’ve planned for 2025 (yep, we’re well into 2026 already, I know), and I’m eager to present you with…
- iximiuz Labs: authors wanted, new UI/UX features, and hot posts on eBPF, Unikernels, and Uncloud 🔥 — 2026-01-17
I’m gradually turning iximiuz Labs from “a single person’s blog on steroids” into a fully-fledged publishing platform where anyone can post…
- iximiuz Labs year wrap-up: major milestones, usage and revenue numbers, and plans for 2026 🌟 — 2025-12-30
2025 was a wild year for iximiuz Labs! The platform’s growth - signups, usage, revenue, all of it - has exceeded my highest expectations.
- iximiuz Labs update: dev and ops horror stories and an illustrated guide on how to use playgrounds — 2025-12-22
In this email, you’ll find a few debugging horror stories, a couple of brief incident postmortems, and a bunch of illustrated tips and trick…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2025-12-01
November is over, so it’s time for my monthly roundup of all things Server Side.
- Black Friday on iximiuz Labs - 50% OFF on all Premium plans 🎉 — 2025-11-28
On the free plan, you can use Playgrounds in the standalone mode or while following Tutorials or solving Challenges for up to an hour a day.
- New ways to experiment on iximiuz Labs: instant clones and click-ops playground creation — 2025-11-26
A week ago, I announced the release of Persistent Playgrounds. The feature was long-awaited and garnered significant initial traction and co…
- A treasure trove of eBPF learning materials 🐝 — 2025-11-20
One of the hardest things to wrap you head around when starting with eBPF programming is to understand which tools and techniques work today…
- Persistent Playgrounds and Black Friday on iximiuz Labs — 2025-11-18
Good news, everyone! Playground persistence - by far the most frequently requested feature - is finally in production!
- A long-awaited eBPF skill path lands on iximiuz Labs: Write your first eBPF program with eBPFChirp 🐝 — 2025-10-15
The Linux kernel was always seen as something only highly skilled engineers could work with.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2025-10-05
Ivan’s here, with a monthly roundup of all things Server Side for September.
- Get Better Playgrounds… by Solving Challenges — 2025-09-22
These numbers are plain disappointing to me.
- How Containers Work: Building a Docker-like Container From Scratch — 2025-09-13
There is a good reason for it - Linux has long treated the filesystem as the central interface for managing processes, devices, and resource…
- How to Stand Out in the Tech Job Market as a DevOps/SRE/Platform Engineer — 2025-09-11
I get this question a lot, so after answering it for the Nth time in a private DM, I figured I should write my thoughts down in the form of…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2025-09-03
I’ve yet to find a clear explanation of how exactly mount namespaces are used in containers, and most “reproduce a Docker container using on…
- iximiuz Labs strategy change (and a great Kubernetes tutorial) — 2025-08-23
TL;DR After running into the CKA pricing page for one more time, I decided to reconsider my “life choices. ” The all-inclusive lifetime prem…
- Deep Dive: Exploring Docker “run” and “exec” Commands — 2025-08-08
According to StackOverflow’s 2025 Developer Survey, there has never been a better time to learn how to use containers or become a Docker pow…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2025-08-03
I’m sticking to my original vision of a “from zero to hero” Docker learning path, so all of the above challenges are byte-sized and beginner…
- Split view, quick constructor UI, and coding agents come to iximiuz Labs playgrounds 🚀 — 2025-07-15
This is something I’ve wanted to have for way too long.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2025-07-02
The better part of the month went into finalizing and then releasing Playgrounds 2. 0.
- iximiuz Labs Playgrounds 2.0: Dive In — 2025-06-21
But before we dive in, one final reminder: this is the last two days to get Premium with a 30% discount.
- iximiuz Labs Playgrounds 2.0 — 2025-06-17
After more than a month of being head-down with the backend redesign, I shipped an almost complete system overhaul that brought the expressi…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2025-04-30
As you probably noticed, I haven’t published (m)any new learning materials in almost two months now.
- iximiuz Labs For Trainers is out 🎉 — 2025-04-25
I’ve got some great news - after more than a year of consideration, several months of gathering requirements, and many weeks of coding, I’m…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2025-03-30
Many people have asked me about the possibility of publishing tutorials, challenges, or even courses on iximiuz Labs.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2025-03-04
I’ve been periodically bringing up my Byte-Sized Docker course for more than a year now. However, the work hasn’t progressed fast enough - m…
- Assembling a containerd installation like LEGO bricks 👷♂️ — 2025-02-16
But before we dive in, I want to recommend another tech newsletter: Architecture Notes by Mahdi Yusuf.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2025-02-02
I also think this feature takes many challenges to a totally different level of usefulness.
- Building Container Images Like a Pro — 2025-01-25
Building container images can be both an easy and a hard problem. Building just an image is usually as straightforward as replicating your l…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2024-12-31
- iximiuz Labs Update: More and Better Playgrounds and New DevOps Challenges — 2024-12-19
Ivan here with an exciting iximiuz Labs update! The month isn’t over yet, so it’s not quite time for the traditional monthly roundup.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2024-12-02
This month was (extremely) development-heavy.
- Create Your Own Server Playgrounds (and Black Friday deal) — 2024-11-25
Starting with the shorter one, this year, I decided to give Black Friday a try.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2024-11-03
The main focus was on Container Images. It’s the subject of the first module of my “panoramic” Docker course, and it is almost done (the mod…
- Help! My Node.js Docker Image Has Python 🐍 — Uncovering the Right Base Image for Your Node.js App — 2024-10-20
If you’re working with Node. js in Docker, chances are you’ve been hit by the dilemma of which base image to use.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2024-10-06
First off, the skill paths!
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2024-08-29
One of the recurring topics in my conversations with iximiuz Labs users is the “understandability” of the site’s design.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2024-08-04
When you limit the memory usage of a multi-process Docker container, the OOM killer often terminates only one of the processes if the contai…
- Playing with cgroups for Fun and Profit — 2024-07-22
Everyone knows that Docker and Kubernetes use cgroups to limit the resources of containers and Pods.
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2024-06-30
The first two lessons (and a few challenges) of my “Alternative Introduction to Dagger” course have not sparked much interest among my stude…
- Ivan on the Server Side — 2024-06-03
Before we get started, I want you to know that this newsletter’s previous issue (dispatched mid-May) was delivered to only about 1/5th of my…
- Ivan on Containers, Kubernetes, and Backend Development — 2024-03-10
A dozen people have asked me over the past year-ish if there’ll be access to the playgrounds from the local terminal and not only from the b…
- DevOps Challenge of the Week - Issue #6 — 2024-02-24
Debugging containerized applications is… challenging.
- DevOps Challenge of the Week - Issue #5 — 2024-02-19
This time, your task is to debug two misbehaving containers - one refuses to serve requests properly, and another cannot even start.
- DevOps Challenge of the Week - Issue #4 — 2024-02-12
This week, you’ll need to master command execution in Kubernetes Pods.
- DevOps Challenge of the Week - Issue #3 — 2024-02-05
Unfortunately, Kubernetes and its derivatives are impacted, too.
- Ivan on Containers, Kubernetes, and Backend Development — 2024-01-31
After my announcement of the iximiuz Labs GA earlier this month, the platform’s usage has more than doubled, so I had to focus on the system…
- DevOps Challenge of the Week - Issue #2 — 2024-01-28
Docker might be the most popular (and user-friendly) container runtime, but it’s definitely not the only one.
- DevOps Challenge of the Week — 2024-01-20
I often use port forwarding to interconnect services when it’s not possible or desirable to change their configuration or when I need to est…
- Ivan on Containers, Kubernetes, and Backend Development — 2024-01-08
Slightly more than a year ago, I put out this improvised manifesto on my freshly created (at the time) Patreon page.
- Ivan on Containers, Kubernetes, and Backend Development — 2023-12-01
👷 The client-go-examples collection was overhauled to support Kubernetes 1. 25-1.
- Exploring Tetragon - A Security Observability Tool for Kubernetes, Docker, and Linux — 2023-11-14
That’s where the actual power and complexity of Tetragon lies.
- Ivan on Containers, Kubernetes, and Backend Development — 2023-10-30
I started October with preparations for my first Kubernetes 101 workshop.
- Ivan on Containers, Kubernetes, and Backend Development — 2023-09-29
Ivan’s here with a traditional monthly round-up.
- Making Sense Out of Native Sidecar Containers in Kubernetes — 2023-09-22
Kubernetes 1. 28 introduced a new type of container - “native” sidecars.
- Ivan on Containers, Kubernetes, and Backend Development — 2023-09-01
After a year of (sporadically) posting videos of my secret Kubernetes UI, I’m finally ready to share an MVP with you!
- Ivan on Containers, Kubernetes, and Backend Development — 2023-07-31
However, as it usually happens, I quickly found myself working on something very different.
- Container Tools, Tips, and Tricks - Issue #4: Digging into Cross-Platform Containers — 2023-07-22
There are different types of containers, but the most widespread type is Linux containers. In fact, they are so predominant that people usua…
- Ivan on Containers, Kubernetes, and Backend Development — 2023-06-18
It’s been a while… but I’m back!
- iximiuz Labs update: First Content is in, Invites are out 🚀 — 2023-05-07
First off, I just released the first piece of real content via iximiuz Labs - it’s a tutorial Why and How to Use containerd From Command Lin…
- Learning by doing with iximiuz Labs 🚀 — 2023-03-28
I started experimenting with different tech that could make it happen around mid-2021.