My Homelab
A quick overview of my homelab.
It currently consists of mini PCs serving as servers.
Proxmox
My first mini PC acts as a firewall between my internet box and my Zyxel switch. It runs Proxmox as the system.
For reference, it’s a Firebat T8 Plus mini PC bought second-hand but available on Amazon or Aliexpress for not too much.
So, right before my other servers, I have a manageable switch, a Zyxel GS1200-8 with 8 ports. I bought it second-hand for a steal and it does the job well.
OpnSense
It allows me to virtualize my OpnSense firewall thanks to the dual Ethernet ports. By assigning the two network interfaces, I have a WAN and a LAN. I can control all incoming and outgoing traffic using my own rules, etc.
NOTENote that this VM consumes relatively few resources.
For my VPN, I use Wireguard, a bit of hassle with firewall rules to avoid being blocked. I did port forwarding from my internet box to my firewall. I use a specific VLAN for the VPN (we respect security principles :) ).
AdGuard Home
To avoid using standard DNS servers, I use AdGuard Home. I placed it on my box’s network and set it as the primary DNS server on my main network.
To install it quickly, I used the automated script provided by the ProxmoxVE community, it’s fast and does the job (I’ll see later for a cleaner installation with redundancy, etc.).
Services
To deploy my various services, I set up a small NixOS machine with just Docker installed. I create my docker-composes and deploy directly, it’s quick and simple.
Some services I use (non-exhaustive list):
My plan is to migrate everything to my Kubernetes cluster, to gain skills and have a nice architecture.
Truenas
For my NAS, I’ve been using Truenas for some time, on which I’ve mounted some disks for sufficient storage for my use.
It’s a custom PC this time, I have a decent config:
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9600KF CPU @ 3.70GHz
- 16GB RAM - DDR4 2666MHz
- H310M PRO-VDH PLUS (MSI)
I don’t have the case ref anymore but it’s one with 8 disk slots at the front.
I divided into two pools, a DATA and a MEDIA.
DATA
This first pool allows me to store all my files, photos, videos, etc. via different shares. It takes 12TB with 4x4TB disks but it’s set up in raidz1 so with one parity disk, giving me about 8TB of available storage. I also use it as NFS share for my PROXMOX machines with all the ISOs I need and also for all my backups.
NOTEI do a daily backup at 3 AM on my NAS share. I store my OpnSense VM and my Services VM there.
MEDIA
My MEDIA pool allows me to store all my media, so movies, series, music and others. It’s the same setup as for DATA with one parity disk (4TB usable so 3x2TB disks).
Kubernetes Cluster
For my Kubernetes cluster, I use a Terra laptop that’s quite powerful with 6 cores and 32GB RAM. On it, I installed Proxmox to have 3 different virtual machines.
- Control Plane
- Worker Node 01
- Worker Node 02
So two workers to evenly distribute the loads.
NOTEThis is just a temporary lab
| Service | OS | CPU | RAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control Plane | Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS | 2 | 8 |
| Worker Node 01 | Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS | 3 | 12 |
| Worker Node 02 | Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS | 3 | 12 |
For now, I use k3s.
To have an overview of all my services etc., I use Glance. Note that this is not my dashboard, mine is too messy, I need to redo it.
For now, everything is running well, I have no issues.
I still have some sleeping hardware, I have a 2-bay backup NAS, an Asustor AS1002T with two 3TB disks that I’ll use as backup for my Truenas. I also do electronics, 3D printing and lots of other things, so I have a Raspberry Pi 5, ESP32 microcontrollers, etc., etc.
I’ll make more in-depth videos soon.
Thanks for reading. See you soon.