About Me
Ethan Light, Aspiring Cybersecurity and IT Systems Professional.
I am finishing a B.S. of Cybersecurity with Purdue University Global and pursuing industry certifications, all while gaining practical experience through building my own home infrastructure. I have given myself hands-on experience with many technologies you would find in enterprise IT environments just because I found it enjoyable. I have a strong passion for all things IT and I hope to start my career strong.
Skills
Technologies that I have gained proficiency in through my education and hands-on experience.
Linux
Docker
Networking
Python
C++
Cybersecurity Concepts
Self Hosting
Raspberry Pi
Virtualization
Cloud Concepts
Troubleshooting
Windows
MacOS
Hardware Repair
HackTheBox
CLI
Critical Thinking
Problem Solving
OS Installation
Flashing/Imaging
Active Directory
Windows Server 2016
Remote Access
VPN
SSH
Timeline
Events and projects that progressed me down the self hosting and homelab rabbit hole.
Built my first desktop.
As a birthday gift in highschool my parents bankrolled my first custom PC build. This is where I learned about basic computer hardware and it also jumpstarted my passion for technology.
Began Cybersecurity Studies
I knew what I wanted to do after taking a Cybersecurity course my senior year of highschool. The concepts and stories about malware, virues, and complex social engineering were so interesting to me. This class quickly narrowed down my desired career path. I have since been enrolled with Purdue Global University and I am projected to graduate in September of 2026
Minecraft Server Hosting
Third party server hosting to play Minecraft with my friends became way too expensive. So by using an old computer I had lying around, I taught myself the ins and outs of hosting servers, enabling port forwarding, and implementing mods/plugins.
Plex Media Server
I wanted to implement a server where I could centralize all of my videos, have them be accessible anywhere, and by anyone I allowed. The hard part was implementing media management via *arr apps.
Raspberry Pi Experimentation
There are so many different applications of a Raspberry Pi and I went down a rabbit hole of different DIY projects. Pihole adblockers, smart home automation, retro gaming, and so much more.
Implementing my first Network Attached Storage Device
Central storage on any network is extremely important so I purchased a Synology NAS device and 12TB of storage for storing my Plex media, gaming vods, phone media backups, and much more. It now hosts all of my docker containers as well as this website.
Cloudflare and Website Creation
I mainly wanted to run a Cloudflare tunnel for my arr WebUIs but it turned into purchasing a domain, hosting my own website, and even creating DNS records so my minecraft servers could have a domain instead of an IP address.
Hosting services and applications with Docker.
I caught on very quickly that services and applications need to be containerized for isolation, portability, and convenience. I currently run 20 or so containers that run monitoring apps, media downloading and managment services, a password locker, several proxy servers, Plex, dedicated game servers, and more.