Overview

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So i have had a homelab now for a little under a year, and I have been able to do a whole bunch of stuff during that time. I had wish i started this site sooner so I could have documented the beginings of the setup. Currently my homelab is utilised as both a learning envrioment but has also replaced quite alot of “big tech” solutiions, meaning it’s now more akin to my own production envrioment rather than a lab!

I will briefly be showing the overview of the setup, what I am currently running, the networking and some of the goals I want to do going into the new year!

Hardware

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My compute power is quite a bit more than i actually utilise, but i was able to get a good deal and quite future proofed.

I currently utilise 3x Lenovo ThinkCentre M710q as my core compute.

Specs:

• CPU: Core i7 6th Gen
• Ram: 64gb (Offically supported up to 32, but majority of them can handle 64 with no issue)
• Storage: 250gb m.2 SSD for OS, and 2TB SSD as the data drives

From a networking perspective I have a Unifi stack consisting of a Cloudgateway Ultra, a USW-Ultra 8 port switch, 3 Unifi U6+ and a few Unifi Flex switches as everything is hardware except for portable devices!

Alongside this I have a Synology NAS DS423+, and a few Raspberry Pi 4s one of them utilised as a DSN and the other one is not currently utilised.

Services Running

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These are the applications I am currently utilising across the home setup, quite alot of these have been running for a fair while now.

These are all ran from Proxmox Hypervisor.

1. Security & Monitoring

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I am currently utilising a few applications for security and monitoring, most i have to admit have been overkill for what i am utilising them for, but they have been fun to setup.

• Wazuh - I’ve got this as my primary XDR and SIEM option installed on pretty much every server and also installed on my PC, Laptop and family devices
• Bunkerweb - I’ve started to utilise Bunkerweb a bit less lately as i’ve made more applications “dark” and available via Pangolin tunnels, but this WAF is absolutely fantastic when i was hosting applications externally I never once felt it was not fit for purpose. As with all WAFs tweaking the rules so you get the best balance of useability and security takes a few tries but once i got there was brilliant.
• Zabbix - Hands down the best monitoring solution i’ve came across, to the point where i also reccommend it at my workplace as a monitoring solution. Takes a bit of time to get set up and tweaked, also endless hours could be done to get the perfect dashboard but once its up and running it just works.
• Traefik - I’ve been utilising Traefik since I started my homelab as my reverse proxy, i’ve also tried Caddy and while they’re both brilliant I find my current Traefik setup is just so easy to maintain and add onto.
• Authentik - Utilising Authentik as my IDP, quite a steep learning curve as you need to understand common authentication protcols and authentication flows to wrap your head around it, but honestly that is part of the reason i’ve kept it around and enjoyed it so much. It’s been one application where I have learnt a ton, and now every app/service is joined into it for SSO (Still, quite the overkill system for my 5-6users!)
• SmallStep - I’ve been using SmallStep as my internal PKI for everything cert related. Simplest pki i’ve came across, they also have a great blog!

2. Media / Office Suites

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Most of these applications i’m utilising in my day-to-day life as a replacement to the big tech solutions and cloud storage offerings. Alot of them can be installed on devices, my use case for them is my only personal use but alot of these my family and friends also utilise which is a bonus!

• Immich - I’ve been using Immich now since it’s pre-stable release and it only gets better, i’ve purchased a server support license for this application as it’s not just me utilising the photo storage but also friends and family.
• OnlyOffice - Onlyoffice has replaced Nextcloud for me, while nextcloud was really good i found it a little to high maintinance for my use case, OnlyOffice just works.
• Plex - Still my media libary player of choice, i’ve had a lifetime license for quite a few years ago now. Friends and family all utilise the libary also, it just works! (common theme here ey’) thought I do plan on throwing a jellyfin server up as well just to compare!
• DrawIO - If you havne’t used DrawIO yet then you need to step your diagram game up… In all serious though, such a good applications!

Goals For 26

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My main goals for 26 are to learn more automation techniques, i’ve started to learn and deployed a few Ansible playbooks to handle inital setups, SSH configs etc but want to lean into this more. Keep on finding applications that can replace day-to-day services I currently utilise and also step into the realm of K8 clusters!