Personal Home Lab

Overview

My personal home lab is a playground for learning and experimentation. Running on dedicated hardware, it hosts everything from self-hosted services to complex Kubernetes deployments, all managed through infrastructure-as-code principles.

Infrastructure

Hardware

• Hypervisor Host: Custom-built server running Proxmox VE
• Network: Managed switch with VLAN support, dedicated router VM
• Storage: ZFS pool for data integrity and snapshots

Virtualization Layer

The lab runs on Proxmox VE, providing:

• Virtual machines for various workloads
• LXC containers for lightweight services
• Centralized backup management
• High-availability clustering support

Network Architecture

One of the most interesting aspects is the network design:

Internet
    │
    ▼
┌─────────────┐
│  Router VM  │ ◄── OPNsense firewall
└─────────────┘
    │
    ├── VLAN 10: Management
    ├── VLAN 20: Production
    ├── VLAN 30: Development
    └── VLAN 40: IoT (isolated)

• Router VM running OPNsense handles all inter-VLAN routing and firewall rules
• Strict network segmentation between environments
• VPN access for remote management

Kubernetes Cluster

A k3s cluster runs my production workloads:

Cluster Components

• 3 control-plane nodes for high availability
• MetalLB for bare-metal load balancing
• Longhorn for distributed persistent storage
• Cert-Manager for automatic TLS certificates

GitOps with ArgoCD

All deployments are managed through GitOps:

• Application manifests stored in Git
• ArgoCD monitors for changes and syncs automatically
• Helm charts and Kustomize for configuration management
• Automatic rollbacks on failed deployments

Self-Hosted Services

The lab hosts various services:

Infrastructure as Code

Everything is automated:

• Ansible playbooks for VM provisioning and configuration
• Terraform for Proxmox resource management
• Helm charts for Kubernetes applications
• GitHub Actions for CI/CD pipelines

Lessons Learned

Running a home lab has taught me:

• The importance of proper network segmentation
• How to debug complex distributed systems
• Backup strategies and disaster recovery
• The value of documentation and automation

Current Projects

• Implementing Talos Linux for immutable Kubernetes nodes
• Exploring Cilium for eBPF-based networking
• Building a log aggregation stack with Loki

This lab is an ongoing project that evolves as I explore new technologies!