Homelab

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The homelab is part testing ground, part personal infrastructure, and part proving ground for things I want to understand before rolling them out anywhere else. It’s where I break things on purpose, learn how they go back together, and run services my family actually depends on.

Hardware

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The lab runs across three primary systems:

• Custom-built PC with a Ryzen 7 3700x and 32GB RAM, used for lightweight workloads and Docker containers.
• Dual-node Supermicro SYS-2028TP-DC1R, each node running dual Xeon E5-2643 v4 CPUs and 128GB RAM. This is where most of the heavy lifting happens.
• TrueNAS server for storage, served over NFS and used as a Proxmox Backup target among other things.

Networking

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Network management runs through a UniFi Dream Machine Pro with full VLAN segmentation throughout. A few specifics:

• Site Magic maintains a persistent VPN tunnel to my parents’ house for remote connectivity.
• WireGuard handles secure remote access when I’m away from home.
• Pi-hole runs in primary and secondary configuration for local DNS and ad-blocking.
• Active Directory for testing domain join scenarios and group policy.

Services

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A snapshot of what’s currently running:

• Auth: authentik, AD, Vaultwarden
• Network: nginx-proxy-manager, uptime-kuma
• Productivity: paperless-ngx, actualbudget, hoarder
• Media: mealie, immich
• Automation: homeassistant, homebridge
• Dev: gitlab, SanbornDC, docker
• Management: proxmox, pbs, TrueNAS, homepage, pelican-panel
• 📈 Check uptime status – Live view of my self-hosted services

Most services are containerized, with Docker Compose handling orchestration across the board.

Goals

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Right now the main project is integrating authentik across services and tying it into Active Directory via LDAP for centralized identity management. The lab is always evolving, which is the point.