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class=logo__cursor>█</div></a><div class=search><input id=search__text type=search placeholder=Search... aria-label=Search autocomplete=off><div id=search__suggestions class=search__suggestions--hidden></div></div><nav id=menu><ul class=menu--horizontal><li class=menu__item><a href=/index.xml>RSS</a></li></ul><div class=menu__burger><input class=menu__item type=checkbox aria-label="Open main menu"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon icon-tabler icon-tabler-menu-2" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentcolor" fill="none" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round"><path stroke="none" d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none"/><path d="M4 6h16"/><path d="M4 12h16"/><path d="M4 18h16"/></svg><ul class=menu--vertical><li><a class=menu__item href=/index.xml>RSS</a></li></ul></div></nav><button class="theme__toggle light--hidden" aria-label="Toggle light mode">
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<button class="theme__toggle dark--hidden" aria-label="Toggle dark mode"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon icon-tabler icon-tabler-moon" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentcolor" fill="none" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round"><path stroke="none" d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none"/><path d="M12 3c.132.0.263.0.393.0a7.5 7.5.0 007.92 12.446A9 9 0 1112 2.992z"/></svg></button></header><main><div class=content><article class=post><div class=post-header><h1>What to do with a homelab</h1><div class=post-meta><span>2021-09-06</span><span> by </span><span class=post-meta__author>Dave Gallant</span></div></div><div class=post-content><p>A homelab can be an inexpensive way to host a multitude of internal/external services and learn <em>a lot</em> in the process.</p><p>Do you want host your own Media server? Ad blocker? Web server?
Are you interested in learning more about Linux? Virtualization? Networking? Security?
Building a homelab can be an entertaining playground to enhance your computer skills.</p><p>One of the best parts about building a homelab is that it doesn&rsquo;t have to be a large investment in terms of hardware. One of the simplest ways to build a homelab is out of a <a href="https://ca.refurb.io/products/hp-800-g1-usff-intel-core-i5-4570s-16gb-ram-512gb-ssd-wifi-windows-10-pro?variant=33049503825943" class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>refurbished computer</a>.
Having multiple machines/nodes provides the advantage of increased redundancy, but starting out with a single node is enough to reap many of the benefits of having a homelab.</p><h2 id=virtualization>Virtualization<a href=#virtualization class=post-heading__anchor aria-hidden=true>#</a></h2><p>Virtualizing your hardware is an organized way of dividing up your machine&rsquo;s resources. This can be done with something such as a <em>Virtual Machine</em> or something lighter like a container using <em>LXC</em> or <em>runC</em>.
Containers have much less overhead in terms of boot time and storage allocation. This <a href=https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16047306/how-is-docker-different-from-a-virtual-machine class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Stack Overflow answer</a> sums it up nicely.</p><p><picture><source type=image/webp srcset="/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/proxmox_hu301314f34acbd231910aa3e526d496c0_160705_300x0_resize_q75_h2_box_3.webp 300w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/proxmox_hu301314f34acbd231910aa3e526d496c0_160705_500x0_resize_q75_h2_box_3.webp 500w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/proxmox_hu301314f34acbd231910aa3e526d496c0_160705_700x0_resize_q75_h2_box_3.webp 700w" sizes="(max-width: 499px) 300px,(max-width: 699px) 500px,700px"><img src=/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/proxmox.png srcset="/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/proxmox_hu301314f34acbd231910aa3e526d496c0_160705_300x0_resize_box_3.png 300w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/proxmox_hu301314f34acbd231910aa3e526d496c0_160705_500x0_resize_box_3.png 500w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/proxmox_hu301314f34acbd231910aa3e526d496c0_160705_700x0_resize_box_3.png 700w" sizes="(max-width: 499px) 300px,(max-width: 699px) 500px,700px" alt=image loading=lazy width=1220 height=775></picture></p><p>A hypervisor such as <a href=https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve/get-started class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Proxmox</a> can be installed in minutes on a new machine. It provides a web interface and a straight-forward way to spin up new VMs and containers. Even if your plan is to run mostly docker containers, Proxmox can be a useful abstraction for managing VMs, disks and running scheduled backups. You can even run docker within an LXC container by enabling nested virtualization. You&rsquo;ll want to ensure that VT-d and VT-x are enabled in the BIOS if you decide to install a hypervisor to manage your virtualization.</p><h2 id=services>Services<a href=#services class=post-heading__anchor aria-hidden=true>#</a></h2><p>So what are some useful services to deploy?</p><ul><li><a href=https://jellyfin.org/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Jellyfin</a> or <a href=https://www.plex.tv/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Plex</a> - basically a self-hosted Netflix that can be used to stream from multiple devices, and the best part is that you manage the content! Unlike Plex, Jellyfin is open source and can be found <a href=https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>here</a>.</li><li><a href=https://github.com/dgtlmoon/changedetection.io class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>changedetection</a> - is a self-hosted equivalent to something like <a href=https://visualping.io/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>visualping.io</a> that will notify you when a webpage changes and keep track of the diffs</li><li><a href=https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Adguard</a> or <a href=https://pi-hole.net/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Pihole</a> - can block a list of known trackers for all clients on your local network. I&rsquo;ve used pihole for a long time, but have recently switched to Adguard since the UI is more modern and it has the ability to toggle on/off a pre-defined list of services, including Netflix (this is useful if you have stealthy young kids). Either of these will speed up your internet experience, simply because you won&rsquo;t need to download all of the extra tracking bloat.</li><li><a href=https://gitea.io/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Gitea</a> - A lightweight git server. I use this to mirror git repos from GitHub, GitLab, etc.</li><li><a href=https://github.com/bastienwirtz/homer class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Homer</a> - A customizable landing page for services you need to access (including the ability to quickly search).</li><li><a href=https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Uptime Kuma</a> - A fancy tool for monitoring the uptime of services.</li></ul><p>There is a large number of services you can self-host, including your own applications that you might be developing. <a href=https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>awesome-self-hosted</a> provides a curated list of services that might be of interest to you.</p><h2 id=vpn>VPN<a href=#vpn class=post-heading__anchor aria-hidden=true>#</a></h2><p>You could certainly setup and manage your own VPN by using something like <a href=https://openvpn.net/community-downloads/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>OpenVPN</a>, but there is also something else you can try: <a href=https://tailscale.com/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>tailscale</a>. It is a very quick way to create fully-encrypted connections between clients. With its <a href=https://tailscale.com/kb/1081/magicdns/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>MagicDNS</a>, your can reference the names of machines like <code>homer</code> rather than using an IP address. By using this mesh-like VPN, you can easily create a secure tunnel to your homelab from anywhere.</p><h2 id=monitoring>Monitoring<a href=#monitoring class=post-heading__anchor aria-hidden=true>#</a></h2><p><picture><source type=image/webp srcset="/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/netdata_hu78bc2e52079d7a1d3cf726e171d4b7dc_70867_300x0_resize_q75_h2_box_3.webp 300w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/netdata_hu78bc2e52079d7a1d3cf726e171d4b7dc_70867_500x0_resize_q75_h2_box_3.webp 500w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/netdata_hu78bc2e52079d7a1d3cf726e171d4b7dc_70867_700x0_resize_q75_h2_box_3.webp 700w" sizes="(max-width: 499px) 300px,(max-width: 699px) 500px,700px"><img src=/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/netdata.png srcset="/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/netdata_hu78bc2e52079d7a1d3cf726e171d4b7dc_70867_300x0_resize_box_3.png 300w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/netdata_hu78bc2e52079d7a1d3cf726e171d4b7dc_70867_500x0_resize_box_3.png 500w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/netdata_hu78bc2e52079d7a1d3cf726e171d4b7dc_70867_700x0_resize_box_3.png 700w" sizes="(max-width: 499px) 300px,(max-width: 699px) 500px,700px" alt=dashboard loading=lazy width=1124 height=435></picture></p><p>Monitoring can become an important aspect of your homelab after it starts to become something that is relied upon. One of the simplest ways to setup some monitoring is using <a href=https://www.netdata.cloud/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>netdata</a>. It can be installed on individual containers, VMs, and also a hypervisor (such as Proxmox). All of the monitoring works out of the box by detecting disks, memory, network interfaces, etc.</p><p>Additionally, agents installed on different machines can all be centrally viewed in netdata, and it can alert you when some of your infrastructure is down or in a degraded state. Adding additional nodes to netdata is as simple as a 1-line shell command.</p><p>As mentioned above, <a href=https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Uptime Kuma</a> is a convenient way to track uptime and monitor the availability of your services.</p><p><picture><source type=image/webp srcset="/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/uptime-kuma_hue98ab284e327523b28029e370b7b9d34_120263_300x0_resize_q75_h2_box_3.webp 300w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/uptime-kuma_hue98ab284e327523b28029e370b7b9d34_120263_500x0_resize_q75_h2_box_3.webp 500w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/uptime-kuma_hue98ab284e327523b28029e370b7b9d34_120263_700x0_resize_q75_h2_box_3.webp 700w" sizes="(max-width: 499px) 300px,(max-width: 699px) 500px,700px"><img src=/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/uptime-kuma.png srcset="/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/uptime-kuma_hue98ab284e327523b28029e370b7b9d34_120263_300x0_resize_box_3.png 300w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/uptime-kuma_hue98ab284e327523b28029e370b7b9d34_120263_500x0_resize_box_3.png 500w,/blog/2021/09/06/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/uptime-kuma_hue98ab284e327523b28029e370b7b9d34_120263_700x0_resize_box_3.png 700w" sizes="(max-width: 499px) 300px,(max-width: 699px) 500px,700px" alt=uptime-kuma loading=lazy width=831 height=1009></picture></p><h2 id=in-summary>In Summary<a href=#in-summary class=post-heading__anchor aria-hidden=true>#</a></h2><p>Building out a homelab can be a rewarding experience and it doesn&rsquo;t require buying a rack full of expensive servers to get a significant amount of utility. There are many services that you can run that require very minimal setup, making it possible to get a server up and running in a short period of time, with monitoring, and that can be securely connected to remotely.</p></div><script type=text/javascript src=https://storage.ko-fi.com/cdn/widget/Widget_2.js></script><script type=text/javascript>kofiwidget2.init("Buy me a coffee","#458588","F1F2S4LWI"),kofiwidget2.draw()</script><section id=comments class=comments><div class='container sep-before'><div class=comments><script>var getTheme=window.localStorage&&window.localStorage.getItem("theme-storage"),getTheme=getTheme??"light";let 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