A homelab is a private, self-hosted IT environment used to run personal services, learning system admin skills and losing your mind (in a good way, I promise). Mine is continually evolving, so I'll be updating this when more devices and services get added to my homelab! ...It'll never be enough services..need...moreeeee...

This blog post will talk about my general experience setting up some initial services on the server, whilst the specific process will be written up in the github repository for this homelab. (Soon... I haven't written it yet) Additionally, as the post count for this project grows, I'll turn this page into an index to organise all future posts about this project!

Why make a homelab?

It differs for everyone, but for me, I really liked the idea of having my own computer network I could mess around with, without risking breaking my gaming PC or any of my university equipment. Homelabs have really grown in popularity in recent years, maybe due to the low need for really high-grade equipment, or maybe society getting fed-up with paying subscriptions for anything and everything. Of course it can grow to a huge mad-scientist-level-lab, but it can also be just an old laptop.

The community around homelabbing is very welcoming to beginners, and there's so many guides to help you get started. I used a variety of sources, but I just recommend going down a Youtube rabbithole to get started and see what kind of homelab and services works for you!

Hardware

A homelab doesn't have to be those crazy 40U, ceiling tall server racks. Mine for instance, is a used HP Prodesk I found, heavily discounted, on Vinted, but it could even be your old laptop, or a Raspberry Pi. Currently, my homelab's specs are:

  • A 4-core Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500T CPU, running at 2.5GHz
  • A 8GB RAM
  • 256GB Hard Disk Drive

So, not bad to be honest. Also not the greatest specs. But in this economy, with used PC prices at an average of £100-300...paying about less than half of that average price for this PC felt like winning the lottery.

For future upgrades, I would add more mini PCs like my current one to the cluster to increase the computing power and the RAM. As for storage, a NAS is by far the option I'd go for first...if they didn't cost so much. Hard drives are getting more and more difficult to come by at lower prices, so buying the NAS as WELL as maybe 2 to 4 hard drives would have my bank account in whatever's worse than negative. Otherwise, I really want to try my hand at making my own storage solution - maybe a DAS or some amalgamation of a DIY Drive storage bay.

But as for now, let's just look at the software and services running on my homelab server right now!

Proxmox

Proxmox is my chosen OS for my homelab. Whilst there are easier to learn or beginner-friendly options like ZimaOS and TrueNAS, I wanted to throw myself in the deep end to truly learn how every component of my homelab works. Compared to other OS's limited command line and app focused interfaces, Proxmox's Linux Container approach for services and robust resource management seemed the best option for troubleshooting any future problems, even if there was a higher learning curve.

That isn't to say using Proxmox didn't have its own downsides. Its steeper learning curve meant I made quite a few mistakes while setting it up such as... selecting the wrong disk configuration during setup and having to redo the whole set up process because of it...oooops. Also, compartmentalising every service within Linux Containers means I have to deal with a LOT of ssh passwords - a problem that's high on my todo list to solve.

Services

On Proxmox, most services are run within Linux Containers (LXC's), Docker images or their own Virtual Machines. The majority of mine have been spun up using LXC's. I started my first service (Nginx) the manual way, so I knew how the process worked, but then, finding out about Proxmox community scripts felt like a game changer. The scripts on this site make it so much easier to spin up containers, condensing the whole process to one line of terminal code!

From this point on, most of the services I'll be talking about will have their own blog/project posts, as I've had different experiences setting each one up: (The blog posts for these haven't been written for these yet... please hold...)

My current Services

Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE)

This is the hypervisor every other service runs on! Not much to talk about further, it's already talked about in this project post :)

Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM)

Lets me access my services through public domain names rather than having to remember IP addresses. Essentially, letting me self-host all my services using reverse proxies.

Pi-hole

An network-wide ad-blocker that blocks any ads through DNS interception.

Filebrowser Quantum

A web interface that lets me access the files on my hard drive's ZFS pool using a long, painful process (disk mounting).

Tailscale

Whilst I can access my homelab through DNS just online, its safer to trap all the admin-related services I have within my tailscaled network to prevent any random people from accessing my services, even if they don't have the credentials.

Services I want to add

Jellyfin

Free me from the grasps of Netflix and Spotify... Let me put all my physical media somewhere online...

Self-hosted Minecraft Server

It's currently running on my PC, but I want to have it run on my homelab so I don't have to manually start it every time I want to play.

Proxmox Backup Server

It's a good idea to back up the homelab incase everything on it just. dies. one day. I haven't decided which service to use for it first, but I need a secondary drive to do the actual backing up to in order to carry this out.

Monitoring Services

I haven't decided which specific service to use for this yet, but as the homelab grows, I'll need something to monitor how everything is operating.

Frontend Dashboard

Currently, I access everything through the PVE, which works fine, but if I want everything to look nice and user-friendly, a dashboard would be a great service to add next.

And many more self hosted apps!

I can't name every single thing I want to add to my homelab - this list would end up being miles long! The website Selfh.st is like an app store for my homelab - and I'll slowly be making my way through as many of these apps as I can as the project develops.

As the project grows, I'll be updating this page, any documentation and future blog posts, so stay tuned! That's all I've got to say on my end...now back to the lab I go... ehehehe....