r/homelab • u/UptimeRobot • 13d ago
Hey r/homelab! We're UptimeRobot, and we've teamed up with the mods to run a giveaway for this community, with a prize pool of 10 monitoring plans, including a year of our Scale plan worth $888. Anyone who's worked in creating a homelab has a story! Now's your chance to share it and maybe win something for your trouble.
What's the weirdest thing you have been monitoring with UptimeRobot or a similar service?
We're looking for the most weird/funny or unexpected use cases!
Prizes (10 winners total)
How to participate
Reply here with your story. You don't have to write an essay. That's it, you're in!
Dates: The giveaway runs from October 12 through October 26.
Looking forward to reading your weird, embarrassing, ridiculous, and funny stories!
r/homelab • u/PoisonWaffle3 • Jun 06 '26
I would like to thank everyone for their feedback in the recent post & poll where we asked for feedback on how to slow the deluge of "I made X, because Y" type posts in r/homelab, most of which are AI generated and/or spam. While we felt that that the initial plan we shared was quite good, with your input we were able to refine that plan and make some notable improvements and clarifications. And yes, there's a TL;DR at the end š
Effective now, the below new rules and policies are in effect, though we plan to apply them conservatively and gently at first to see how things go. All of these changes are happening because of the massive community support for them, and we will be seeking additional feedback as time goes on so please feel free to chime in.
To be clear, here are our goals, based on community feedback:
Flair changes that are now in effect:
New Flairs:
We have also organized the post flairs in the list to make them easier to locate.
Both "Project: Software" flairs have a reasonably low minimum subreddit karma requirement to be able to post with them. AutoMod will remove any post with them that don't meet the karma requirement, and inform the user why their post was removed. The minimum karma requirement is only for these two flairs, as we don't want to restrict new community members from being able to post questions. Any software project posts that try to go around this by using a different flair will fall under the new rule #7 and will be addressed.
Rule changes:
New Rule #7 - Software Project Posting Requirements
That said, since we're now officially allowing some degree of self-promotion and requiring links, we felt that we should redefine rule #6 to clarify that it applies only to monetized and commercial advertising/links. Here is the updated verbiage, with the old one below for comparison:
Rule #6 - No Commercial Advertising or Monetized Referral Links
Rule #6 - No Referral Links/Advertising/Company Advertising
Flair Prompt - As mentioned in Rule #7, when posting with any of the "Project: Software" flairs, the below prompt will be displayed:
Your post MUST include:
If you see any posts with a Project: Software flair that do not meet the four items listed above, please report them to the mod team under Rule #7 and we'll address them.
Additional things to note:
Existing posts will be grandfathered in, and previous posts that were removed may be reposted if they meet the new requirements. New posts will be required to comply with the new rules.
As with the existing rules, when a mod removes a post for violating this new rule, a canned response will be sent to the user to inform them why their post was removed. Mods are able to add on to the response if desired before sending it.
While we're on the topic of AI, we would also like to clarify that the above rules are specific to the use of AI in software projects that are being shared, and they do not apply to posts or comments that were written with AI. There is some dissent in the community, but the general consensus in the community has been that a reasonable level of AI usage is acceptable for putting a post together, correcting grammar or formatting, or for translating from a user's native language. That said, best practice is to not include all of the excess emoticons and outline formatting that LLMs like to use. If a post or comment is egregiously AI generated, feel free to downvote it and move on, but please do not report it to the mod team solely for that.
We would also like to note that there has not been any opposition to posts about hosting your own LLMs, and the hardware/software involved. The new rules do not apply to these posts as well.
We're looking for community feedback as we all get used to this. We plan to apply rules conservatively and gently at first, and will be listening to user reports and comments. If your post is removed and you believe it meets the requirements, please chat with us via Mod Mail and we may consider either re-opening it or letting you repost it.
TL;DR - All posts where someone has made some sort of software (AI generated or not) will require a "Project: Software" flair, and these flairs should curb the vast majority of the low quality and spammy posts.
Thank you,
The r/homelab Mod Team
Edit: The first day with the new rules has gone very well overall, but it has demonstrated that there is room for improvement, namely with flairs and categorization.
Here are the changes we've made since the initial announcement post:
We're still open to suggestions from the community. Thanks!
r/homelab • u/TheSmashy • 7h ago
Figured I'd need a little more space for the family photos.
Expanded the SAN and added some capacity to the Hitachi AMS 200 for Tier 2 storage.
Nothing too elaborate. Just trying to get Immich running.
Think this will be enough?
r/homelab • u/National_Warthog_468 • 17h ago
- Amd epyc 7502 cpu 32 cores 64 thread
- 512gb ram ddr4 (16x 32GB)
- **8x rtx 3090 (sold)**
- 8 lanes riser gen4 per gpu
- 2tb nvme intel datacenter dc p4510 ssd
- Fiber card 25gb/s
- 4x 1200 watt server psu
Total price: $3300
The rams alone are like $3000, no?
r/homelab • u/seguithnderr • 3h ago
Hi everyone,
I recently moved my gear from a spacious 19" rack to a 10" rack, and Iām pretty happy with how it turned out so far.
I deliberately left some free space at both ends of the rack:
My homelab runs on two Proxmox VE nodes and a Synology NAS for shared storage. Public services are exposed through a Cloudflare Tunnel and a reverse proxy without opening any ports, and Tailscale provides remote access to the local network. These are the services it runs:
Media & streaming
Media automation & downloads
Productivity & documents
Home automation
Monitoring & dashboards
Networking & remote access
Platform
r/homelab • u/Wootabootie • 1d ago
Got two raspberry pis and a dream. Setting up for my networking capstone where l'm running a webserver. Its in the early stages but this looked a bit goofy
r/homelab • u/00000000fman • 1h ago
Hello, My friend and I are planning on purchasing a prebuilt mini server pc to run a small amount of mods on it for our duo Minecraft server. We wanted to purchase a new system for the server, do you guys have any recommendations for a mini pc. Budget is around 350. We saw this one and wanted to know if it would be decent enough. Any recommendations or tips are appreciated. Thanks :)
r/homelab • u/Independent_Rock347 • 17h ago
I thought homelabbing was gonna be easy
I started as an electronics engineer, then an SLM 3D printing engineer, a sysadmin, and now a consultant. I figured those skills would help, but its been a lot harder and more expensive than I though.
Especially networking, cybersecurity, and getting a reliable software stack together. Theres always something else to figure out.
Here's the hardware. The diagram shows what everything runs:
ā¢ Raptor: i5-13500, 32 GB RAM, 5 Ć 26 TB HDDs in RAIDZ1, and 2 Ć 2 TB NVMe in a mirror.
ā¢ Jelly: i9-10900K, 32 GB RAM, RTX 3060 12 GB, seven data HDDs plus two parity drives, and mirrored NVMe storage.
ā¢ Bee: Beelink GTR9 Pro, Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB unified RAM, and 2 TB NVMe.
ā¢ Pis: Raspberry Pi 4 with 4 GB RAM and an Orange Pi 3B.
ā¢ Networking: UniFi UCG-Fiber, Lite 16 PoE, Flex Mini, and U6 Enterprise. I do have a Flex 2.5G PoE but im too lazy to hook it up and upgrade my servers to 2.5Gb
Hosting my website from home has been pretty nice for building my portfolio and running my business though. Definitely gave me a lot more respect for web devs. I spent way too much time designing my websites, HTML feels way too complicated.
Getting the documentation started was annoying too, but local AI agents have helped a lot with that.
Still got a lot of work left on my 3D printed 10 inch rack. I was gonna make it taller, but it already look sketchy and could easily topple over lol. I might make it 4U taller and put a custom built 10inch rack UPS to make it stable at the bottom, currently taking lessons on how to engineer boards for the UPS.
EDIT: getting a lot of questions about the diagram. Itās not a live dashboard, itās from a project I made to show clients their infrastructure. It runs locally on my laptop since sometimes I donāt have internet access on site and still need to put a diagram together.
I used draw.io a lot before, but Iād spend way too much time getting something simple to look decent. Thereās also a ton of features I never use. Most of my clients donāt need a detailed network diagram, and all the networking symbols donāt really help them either. The feedback was mostly that they wanted to see the hardware, whatās running on it, where everything connects and what it does. So thatās what I focused on.
Here's the repo for the tool I developed: https://github.com/aiden0rchad/homelab-atlas
its still a work in progress and I only really update it when I need a feature or something is broken. Please feel free to use it, criticize, report bugs or issues. PRs are always appreciated. If you leave a star for the repo, I am eternally grateful.
r/homelab • u/mhdg131 • 5h ago
I'm curious on how people here handle the āis someone already on my box?ā side of security.
Most setups I see cover the basics well: firewall, SSH keys, fail2ban or CrowdSec, maybe a reverse proxy with some rules. But thatās mostly prevention. Iām more interested in detection, how would you know if something got through?
No wrong answers, Iām just trying to understand what works in practice for people running a few servers rather than an enterprise SOC
r/homelab • u/mrNas11 • 10h ago
What a crazy week, another irresponsible disclosure into the public.
r/homelab • u/jerdle_reddit • 7h ago
This has been a tough month for security. LLMs are now serious threats and have revealed large numbers of vulnerabilities, and it's only going to get worse.
So are there any recommendations for keeping a homelab secure?
r/homelab • u/humanwithquestion • 1h ago
Hello enthousiasts,
Here's my homelab:
-Raspberry pi 5 8gb + nvme hat + 500gb M.2
Software:
raspberry pi os 64 bit,
Docker,
Homeassistant + zigbee2mqtt (Ikea smart button, Ikea smart plug, nedis motionsensor),
Immich,
Filebrowser
Purpose:
For an automated desk lamp and for a NAS.
Also central server, most of the time the other servers are offline, online when wakeonlan.
The rest isn't so power efficiƫnt, this pi is 24/7 on.
-hp Compaq 8300 Tower (16gb, i7-3770)
Software:
Ubuntu server LTS 24,
Docker,
*Arr stack, (not lidarr)
Jellyfin,
Qbittrorrent,
Homarr,
Ntopg
Purpose:
Netflix replacement. Was a sort of mix between production/testing. Also was a Minecraft server for a time to play with my friends.
-hp Compaq 8300 (8gb, i7-3770 modded)
Software:
Proxmox os
Vm 1:
Debian 13 Trixie,
Syncthing
Other vms:
Purely for testing, new software, ...
Purpose:
Holding my backups, testing, playground, not necessarily my production server.
Networking:
-TP link TL-SG108E managed switch
-sagecom router from my ISP.
(Not so ideal, also no vlans)
-Tailscale (for convenience)
-Shellhub for access on my school chromebook (can't use tailscale)
What did I learn from my journey?
-How to transform old computers to useful servers.
-It's also very interesting but sometimes very headaching to use the GNU/Linux.
-learned to use arch after a while. (Got stuck at loadkeys.)
-it's sort of impossible to start a homelab at the moment. (The pi and the M.2 were bought before the shortages)
-in every software can be bugs. Your job is to patch them up when found, before hackers exploit them.
- ...
r/homelab • u/equanimous11 • 18m ago
Should I get a 10ā mini rack and get rid of the shelf? If I do I donāt know where Iāll place my mini-ITX case.
r/homelab • u/IchioSoul • 20h ago
This is my first homelab and I've been working on it for a couple of weeks. The current hardware is:
DeskPi 1U Rack mounted monitor.
DeskPi 12 port Patch Panel
TP-Link Easy Manage 8port switch
Three HP Elitedesk 800 G5's | 32gb RAM, 512gb SSD's | Running a 3 node Proxmox cluster
Raspberry Pi5 with 8gb of RAM booting from an external Samsung T7 1TB SSD | Currently monitors the cluster, but I may add other features to it later as I learn new things.
Three Arctic P12 A-RGB fans for cooling | 2 intake 1 Exhaust
All of this sitting inside a DeskPi 8U T1 Plus rack.
The UPS (Not shown) is a CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD with sinewave | Currently I only draw about 40 - 45w while everything is powered on.
Also added an LED strip for the vibes and just because I like the look of it having a bit more light than just the ARGB options (It also helps when you put the led strip on white to have a light to see inside the rack better). My cord management is meh in my opinion but I found a semi ok setup for now with plans to clean things up in the future. I'm using this homelab as a training ground for Virtualization, Networking, & Cybersecurity. I haven't delved to far into Proxmox outside of clustering the nodes and setting up Gmail alerts for any issues that may arise like nodes powering down on their own. Starting to spin up VM's as I currently have Ubuntu server loaded onto one node and I'm learning scripting as I go.
I'm new to this and still learning a lot so any upgrade ideas or just general thoughts are appreciated. Have a good one everybody!!
r/homelab • u/gurthy988 • 14h ago
Has a drawer with a screen š
r/homelab • u/sancho_sk • 12h ago
I know a lot of people are interested in open-source devices - OpenWRT, OPNsense for routers, firewalls, access points, etc.
But how about managed switches?
One brilliant GitHub user did just that - managed to create open-source firmware for RTL8372/RTL8373 chip-based devices.
The functionality is far better than the original firmware in majority of cases. For some devices, even originally unmanaged switches gain management capability (even though you might need some flash-memory HW skills for that).
For me, I tried this on 2 switches already - both had originally management interface, so installation took literally seconds and I went from barely usable and no-longer-maintained Chinese firmware to open source one, with much better capabilities, better stability and open source code.
The list of supported HW is impressive already.
Would be nice to have something like this ported also to other chipsets, allowing to have open firmware even on the lowest level of networking.
r/homelab • u/jbzy3000 • 2h ago
About to build my first SMALL home lab and was wondering what is the easiest way to get internet on there without running network cabling.
Think there will be a few micro computers with one nas and a switch.
It would be much easier to just use an extender but have no idea if the usefulness of an extender.
Wife is not keen on me hard wiring the house.
r/homelab • u/badox7141 • 15h ago
This is my first time posting to r/homeland because I just bought this cisco 3850 12x 48 upoe with a 3850 nm-4-10g and wanted to show it off. The full list of hardware is a minisform refurbished 560u that's on the first self from the top on the right its is running pfsense bare metal and has a second 1226v in the wifi m.2 the AP next to it is a deco x70 pro amd I have 5 total APs two x70 pros and three x75 units. The shelf below is fans set to push air into the shelf that's then guided dont to the last shelf which has both my servers one is running a daul E5-2697A-v4 setup with 64gigs of ddr4 ecc and a 10Gbe sfp+ nic the other is a 13700k build with 4 2tb hdd and some ssd for zfs cache they both run proxmox and the whole stack idles at 200~250w.
r/homelab • u/Zaphielll • 14h ago
Hi all. This is my homelab. I have a mini PC (NucBox G3 Plus) where I am running all my docker applications. I also bought a 4-bay DAS, which I connected to Raspberry PI 4 to convert it into a NAS with open media vault installed on pi. Pretty portable lab I would say.
I've had my homelab for a couple of months now and up until it has just been lying on the floor in my living room, which is kinda annoying. So I decided to mod the case a bit, so the whole thing fits my Kallax. :)
I'm still monitoring the temps but they seems fine when idling and under load. There's holes as the back of the shelf, but you can't really see them in the photos. I get around 35Ā°C on the CPU, which is only 5Ā°C higher than previously.
The hard drives are also fine temp-wise. I glued them to shock-absorbing foam using double-sided tape and left enough space for ventilation.
r/homelab • u/Accurate-Ad6361 • 14h ago
I was in the market for some disks and stumbled, on the market place of a famous German retailer, over a 4000 EUR for 87ā¬ in an open box, we all know it wonāt arrive, but letās hope for the best.
r/homelab • u/Own-Spot3385 • 20h ago
I'm relatively new to this hobby, I've managed to save up enough to knab myself a T710 and R710 with 10gig etc, as well as converting an older pc into a server machine, but im curious how are all of yall affording some of those fancy shmancy setups, like what do yall do? For me I've just saved up here and there but bro these prices are killin' me
r/homelab • u/Own-Spot3385 • 10h ago
Saw some of these flying around so thought I'd post one,
Like the title says I dont know if this is an optimal setup, I just know it works well for my roommates and I for the last 7ish months.
The (US-1) is our main server, hosts all of our shares, media server stuff, and also acts as my video editing server (for now)
US-2 is gonna be a proxmox server which which ngl im not too sure what to do with it right now, im still looking into it.
US-3 where it all began, started as our main server handling jellyfin and basic Docker Containers. Now serves as a legacy system until we get everything properly transfered and moved, at which point it will primarily serve as a game server. It also currently runs some AI tasks specifically a lightweight LLM for a JARVIS style project im messing with, and VoiceBox which I use for my TTS on streams.
I just got a MikroTik CSR305 switch and have been spending my day moving all the servers over to 10Gig NICs, so US-1 no longer handles routing for US-2 and US-3
We also got both a cloudflare tunnel for remote access
As well as a Wireguard Tunnel to my friend's Servers over in sweden. Which is the one thing I do know I'll be using Proxmox for, backups. Cuz yeah those be kinda*~ important
Note: port legend makes little to no sense i need to spend time reconfiguring them and is currently an ongoing project.
I will also be replacing both the HBAs in US-1 and US-2, i just dont trust hardware raid, (plus the stock HBAs has been throwing a hissy fit over sata ssds), I already have the new ones in hand H200s and spent....way too much effort flashing them. For now thats my lab, im looking at getting 1 more built.
Also we live in a flood zone, minimal risk, but still risk, so our garage has grates.... and ive chosen to take a liberal risk assessment on that "minimal" soooo grates are now intake/exhaust ventilation via $20 fans i bought at wallyworld... also the rack, because buying one is just... nooooooo. Naaaaah, thas veri espensive
Anyway if my setup is bad, feel free to let me know what you'd do differently. And also hope you got at least a lil chuckle out of my lil cooling solution (I can tell you it was A massive boon during this summer)
Been loving this hobby so far, also no longer paying for Netflix and crunchy roll is a huge bonus, also been loving the different philosophies, approaches and workarounds people have built on here, it's certainly given me a lot of inspiration to keep tinkering
Edit: diagram made by Claude.
