I've spent my lockdown building a homelab, mostly out of spare parts I had laying around or parts bought secondhand.

My "server" is an old Thinkpad that I bought for parts, missing keys and
with a broken screen. It did come with 16 GB of RAM and and i7 CPU. Tossed
in an SSD I had from an older desktop, and it runs Proxmox like a charm.

In Proxmox, I have a Windows 2019 server and Windows 10 desktop in their
own domain, an Ubuntu server running Kubernetes, and Proxmox runs LXC containers on their own - along with a handful of VMs.

I found a Synology DS1010 chassis, and filled it with 2TB drives I had from
a recently deceased desktop, spares, and an external drive I'd used for backups. That turned into 7.2 TB of RAIDed disk, along with a media server
and a ton of other software available through Synology. It shares disks vias NFS for Proxmox backups/snapshots, and SMB to my Windows machines. I'm going to start playing with some of the groupware/cloud features, you could move everything off of the cloud with this thing.

I finally picked up a Raspberry Pi 4, and right now I've got it running Pi- Hole and Grafana, monitoring my internet connection.

I've upgraded my home router (a Linksys WRT1900ACS) to OpenWRT; it's going
to run nginx and act as a reverse proxy for my network. Loading apps is a
lot cleaner with OpenWRT than with DD-WRT - and impossible with the stock firmware. It's got a ton of horsepower and I'm looking forward to finally using some of it.

I used to use powerline ethernet adapters to extend the network upstairs to
my office. I finally bit the bullet and had cabling guys run 2 Cat6 cables between floors. Gigabit ethernet goodness!

My next project is going to be to upgrade my office wireless to OpenWRT and create a guest VLAN along with a lab VLAN to keep lab traffic off of my home network. I'd like my newly-created Windows domain to run in its' own
sandbox and be able to create as clean an environment for testing as I can.

Other projects I've got waiting are to set up Cloudflare, completing an AWS class and to move my BBS to a VPS I've been playing with.

I'm pretty happy with the results, mostly because my goal was to re-use
stuff I'd picked up over the years.


... The robots can go off-script?
--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckbbs.org -- yesterday's tech today (46:1/115)

On 12 Sep 2021, poindexter FORTRAN said the following...

I've spent my lockdown building a homelab, mostly out of spare parts I
had laying around or parts bought secondhand.

That is excellent! I am in the process of 'rebuilding' my home lab and whole network for that matter.

About a year ago, I removed the dual core atom based supermicro 1u I was using as a router.. it was running OpenBSD. The main reason for this was the fan in the PSU was getting unbearable with its old age. It has been replaced with a super overkill Mikrotik CCR1009. Not cheap by any means, but I wanted the ability to do inter-VLAN routing at 10Gbps. I know.. rediculous but why not!

After that, I replaced my old Cisco SG-300 24 port switch which was getting really old and long in the tooth with a Mikrotik CRS326 24 port switch. This is then uplinked to the new router through a 10Gb DAC cable. All cabling in the rack was also upgraded to Cat6 across the board.

For the wifi, I replaced the old Ubiquiti UAP-AC's with Mikrotik wAP AC's. These currently don't have all the fancy MIMO support that the ubiquiti stuff does, but I wanted to try them out.. especially with the rest of the network being Mikrotik. I can't rave enough about them.. they are super solid, and I swear have less self noise!

The server.. I looked through my history of pics, and it appears to be about 7 years old now. It is a whitebox supermicro based machine I built. It has an older E3 Xeon and 32gb ram. That is the max ram the board will take. It has been running ESXi all this time and soon will be changed to Proxmox! More info below..

I just got a new desktop rig going to replace my 10 yr old i5 that was really feeling its age! =P The new rig is a Ryzen 3600 with 64gb ram, NVME and SSD storage, etc. I just recently helped spec out an Epyc server build for my brother which inspired me to do the following:

This new desktop currently is running Proxmox on an old 250gb SSD. Then, I have a few VM's and LXC containers on top of that. The main rig is PopOS with 20gb ram, 200gb NVME storage, and 12 'cores'. This VM also has an older Radeon PCI card passed through to it. It also has at current a single USB hub from the motherboard passed through to it to support my audio interface, keyboard, mouse, webcam, etc. The VM is set to auto boot when the machine starts. So, other than a little added time added and a few screen flickers while Proxmox boots, it feels like a normal desktop.

There is also a Windows 10 VM running with the same hardware specs with nothing passed through currently. I will probably add my old video card in and pass it through and setup a single dedicated monitor to it, as the PopOS VM has two monitors dedicated to it. Then, I would use something like Synergy on both machines to allow a virtual kvm if you will so that the keyboard and mouse can be used across both machines seamlessly.

There are several containers so far.. I have been spinning these up as replacements of current VM's that have been running on the esxi server. These include pihole, ubiquiti controller (I host for my dad and son's networks). Zoneminder for my security cameras, nextcloud which I havent played with much yet, and one for my BBS which is the last VM I still need to migrate. I am contemplating just throwing this up on my VPS instead.

My VPS is currently an OpenBSD box running recursive DNS, and my piholes point to this box as well as doing their own recursive DNS. It also currently runs an IRC server for the heck of it, and an IRC bouncer (ZNC). So I am not exposing my public IP to IRC.. lol This will change to Ubuntu server if I decide to move my BBS up there.. plus that would make it easier to seutp wireguard or something of the sort. I have thought about running pihole on the VPS, and then I could VPN to it from my phone and have adblocking from there. I have done this before with OpenVPN from home.. and it works well.

I recently picked up my very first pi. It is a pi4 with 8gb ram and currently just running pihole as a secondary pihole on the local network. I need to do more with it.. maybe a future NAS! I have used it to run some SDR dongles off of, and that worked out well as well.

The next major todo is to migrate the BBS to either the container on my main rig temporarily or move it to the VPS. Once that is done, I will blow away the server, add some more drives and reload it with proxmox, and then finally migrate all but the two main VM's off my main rig over to it.

Oh yeah.. and I got a few VLAN's running too.. wired network, wireless network.. you may ask why different vlan's for those two? Well.. because I dont want any broadcast/multicast traffic bleeding from the wired network to wireless... all that just eats up air time. I know I could block that with a flat network.. but it is what it is right now. ;) Other vlans include IoT, camera, and management. VLAN's are way overkill for home use.. but that's part of the fun of homelabs! Until you get a device like a chrome whatever that only uses casting with multicast traffic and will NOT work across VLAN's without some trickery.. I hear sonos can be a real pain with that too..

Anyhow, I have rambled long enough! =) Back to breaking stuff.. LOL!

|15Z|07ylone

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/08/19 (Linux/64)
* Origin: bbs.planetcaravan.org:23 ssh:1337 (46:10/196)

Zylone wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

this was the fan in the PSU was getting unbearable with its old age.

I see what you did there. :)

For the wifi, I replaced the old Ubiquiti UAP-AC's with Mikrotik wAP
AC's. These currently don't have all the fancy MIMO support that the ubiquiti stuff does, but I wanted to try them out.. especially with the rest of the network being Mikrotik. I can't rave enough about them..
they are super solid, and I swear have less self noise!

My needs are much more simple. I've got the Linksys WRT1900ACS as a gateway router and a Netgear R6400 as an AP. Before, I had powerline adapters everywhere and 2 wireless extenders, and it was all flakey as hell.

I had 2 Cat6 runs done between the routers and got rid of the powerline adapters and access points, and things are running smoothly.

This new desktop currently is running Proxmox on an old 250gb SSD.
Then, I have a few VM's and LXC containers on top of that. The main rig
is PopOS with 20gb ram, 200gb NVME storage, and 12 'cores'. This VM
also has an older Radeon PCI card passed through to it. It also has at current a single USB hub from the motherboard passed through to it to support my audio interface, keyboard, mouse, webcam, etc. The VM is set
to auto boot when the machine starts. So, other than a little added
time added and a few screen flickers while Proxmox boots, it feels like
a normal desktop.

I've heard of people doing peripheral passthrough and using the bare metal proxmox server as a desktop. Seeing as it's Debian, I suppose you could just run a window manager on top of it!

There is also a Windows 10 VM running with the same hardware specs with nothing passed through currently. I will probably add my old video card
in and pass it through and setup a single dedicated monitor to it, as
the PopOS VM has two monitors dedicated to it. Then, I would use
something like Synergy on both machines to allow a virtual kvm if you
will so that the keyboard and mouse can be used across both machines seamlessly.

I played with Synergy a long time ago, still have a license. I've been
wanting to dig it up again, as I have been working from home since 2020,
along with many others. Right now, I RDP into my laptop and use my dual desktop monitors in an RDP session. It might be fun to just use my keyboard and mouse across all 3 screens.

There are several containers so far.. I have been spinning these up as replacements of current VM's that have been running on the esxi server. These include pihole, ubiquiti controller (I host for my dad and son's networks). Zoneminder for my security cameras, nextcloud which I havent played with much yet, and one for my BBS which is the last VM I still
need to migrate. I am contemplating just throwing this up on my VPS instead.

Are you using LXC natively on Proxmox or do you have a guest VM hosting
Docker containers? I've wanted to do more with containers, like being able
to support them natively on Proxmox, but there doesn't seem to be as much support for it or anywhere near the number of pre-compiled images as
compared to Docker.

I recently picked up my very first pi. It is a pi4 with 8gb ram and currently just running pihole as a secondary pihole on the local
network. I need to do more with it.. maybe a future NAS! I have used it
to run some SDR dongles off of, and that worked out well as well.

Now that you can boot Pis from USB and not worry about burning out the SD card, I'm planning on putting a hard drive on mine. Right now it's running a container with PiHole and Grafana to graph my internet speeds but I could easily move that to my docker host. They are fun to play with!

Oh yeah.. and I got a few VLAN's running too.. wired network, wireless network.. you may ask why different vlan's for those two? Well..
because I dont want any broadcast/multicast traffic bleeding from the wired network to wireless... all that just eats up air time. I know I could block that with a flat network.. but it is what it is right now.
;) Other vlans include IoT, camera, and management. VLAN's are way overkill for home use.. but that's part of the fun of homelabs!

I have a Windows domain I'm setting up, and want to use Samba as a domain controller on the main LAN and have a secondary VLAN for the Windows domain traffic on Proxmox, between a Windows 10 client and 2019 server. I've always wanted a guest LAN as well.

My other project is going to be backing up my Synology NAS to the cloud.
I'm going to be setting up backup for a ESXi cluster at work, and am going back and forth between Veeam and looking at a more do-it-yourself solution with TrueNAS and rsync to AWS. That'll be early next year.

I went from working in IT management over the past 20 years to a much more hands-on role and am enjoying the opportunity to play with cool stuff again.




... Disciplined self-indulgence
--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckbbs.org -- yesterday's tech today (46:1/115)

My needs are much more simple. I've got the Linksys WRT1900ACS as a gateway router and a Netgear R6400 as an AP. Before, I had powerline adapters everywhere and 2 wireless extenders, and it was all flakey as hell.

Oh boy, well none the less that is a huge improvement over powerline adapters and wireless extenders! It hurts my head just thinking of your previous scenario. =) I bet you are loving life now!

I had 2 Cat6 runs done between the routers and got rid of the powerline adapters and access points, and things are running smoothly.

I bet they are! That is great, and with the extra shielding of Cat6, that will surely cut down any possible EMI/RFI they may encounter.

I've heard of people doing peripheral passthrough and using the bare
metal proxmox server as a desktop. Seeing as it's Debian, I suppose you could just run a window manager on top of it!

Funny you say that, probably so! However, I would still prefer this way.. as I can backup the VM running the desktop, etc and proxmox itself is on it's own drive so if it dies it is not that big of a deal, reinstall on a new drive, and import VM's an containers! =)

I played with Synergy a long time ago, still have a license. I've been wanting to dig it up again, as I have been working from home since 2020, along with many others. Right now, I RDP into my laptop and use my dual desktop monitors in an RDP session. It might be fun to just use my keyboard and mouse across all 3 screens.

I am still running a really old version at work, before you were required to have a license but it works so dang well, as I have two screens on linux machine and one on windows machine at work and just works flawlessly!

Are you using LXC natively on Proxmox or do you have a guest VM hosting pF> Docker containers? I've wanted to do more with containers, like being pF> able to support them natively on Proxmox, but there doesn't seem to be pF> as much support for it or anywhere near the number of pre-compiled
images as compared to Docker.

Yes sir, LXC native through Proxmox. I personally don't see a reason at the moment to run Docker other than having access to more prebuilt containers?

I have a Windows domain I'm setting up, and want to use Samba as a
domain controller on the main LAN and have a secondary VLAN for the Windows domain traffic on Proxmox, between a Windows 10 client and 2019 server. I've always wanted a guest LAN as well.

Oh that's pretty cool! I have run a domain controller through samba but it has been many many years. I remember it worked well though! Having a guest network is nice, or at least gives a little more peace of mind ;)

My other project is going to be backing up my Synology NAS to the cloud. I'm going to be setting up backup for a ESXi cluster at work, and am
going back and forth between Veeam and looking at a more do-it-yourself solution with TrueNAS and rsync to AWS. That'll be early next year.

That sounds like fun! I have thought about doing something like that before. How much data are you expecting to put in the cloud? It can get expensive fast. Also, I highly recommend if any of it is sensetive data, make sure the remote backup filesystem is encrypted at the least!

I went from working in IT management over the past 20 years to a much
more hands-on role and am enjoying the opportunity to play with cool stuff again.

Eww I feel for ya. But that is great you are in a happier place. My company has been trying to push me into management for years. I refuse. Not my cup of tea or my wheelhouse. I don't need to babysit people ;) Plus, working on servers is where it's at!!

|15Z|07ylone

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/08/19 (Linux/64)
* Origin: bbs.planetcaravan.org:23 ssh:1337 (46:10/196)

For the wifi, I replaced the old Ubiquiti UAP-AC's with Mikrotik wAP

Wanna get rid of those? :)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (46:3/203)

For the wifi, I replaced the old Ubiquiti UAP-AC's with Mikrotik wAP

Wanna get rid of those? :)

They actually already got repurposed at my son's place!

|15Z|07ylone

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/08/19 (Linux/64)
* Origin: bbs.planetcaravan.org:23 ssh:1337 (46:10/196)