Homelab
Perl stays useful on small boxes: cron jobs, log watchers, local APIs, and dashboards that do not need a heavyweight stack.
Why it fits a lab
- Low footprint — a CGI or short-lived script on a Pi leaves RAM for the
services you actually care about.
- Glue language — talk to shell tools, HTTP APIs, and files in one process.
- Modern options — Mojolicious for a local UI; core modules for timers and
file watches; cpm/carton when you pin deps.
Patterns that show up often
| Pattern | Starting points |
|---------|-----------------|
| Local web UI | Mojolicious, Dancer2, Plack |
| Scheduled jobs | cron + a script under strict/warnings; log to a file or journald |
| HTTP checks | HTTP::Tiny, Mojo::UserAgent |
| Metrics scrape | pull JSON/Prometheus text, reshape, write SQLite or a flat file |
| Remote exec | Rex for fleet-style automation |
Minimal local service shape
browser on the LAN → reverse proxy (optional) → 127.0.0.1:port → perlBind services to loopback or a trusted LAN interface. Put TLS and auth at the proxy when anything leaves your network.