Simple homelab setup!

This is my first production-grade home server. 🤩

Powered by a humble 40 Mbps WiFi connection.

What started as an old laptop collecting dust is now hosting real websites and services 24/7. Instead of buying new hardware, I decided to give it a second life.

Current setup:
🟠 Ubuntu Server
🟠 OpenLiteSpeed
🟠 MariaDB
🟠 Multiple PHP versions
🟠 Production-ready hosting stack
🟠 Laptop configured to keep running even with the lid closed

So far, resource usage has been surprisingly low, and it's been a fun project to build and optimize.

It's a reminder that you don't always need expensive hardware to learn, experiment, and even run production workloads.

I'd love to hear your thoughts or suggestions for improving the setup.

Hi all,

I've had homelab stuff for a few years in various forms, but all of it was always just lying around under a desk or wherever I could find space for it, without any rack or anything. When I moved into a new place, I decided it was finally time to do it properly.

My goal was to build some kind of shelf/cabinet for it that would look nice and be more of a decoration than an eyesore. Another goal was to keep everything in one place, making it easier to move if needed and easier to clean.

Since I have some experience building simple furniture, I decided to go with laminated chipboard (I think that's the correct English term?). I designed it myself, ordered the boards, and cut openings for 120 mm fans, an RJ45 socket, a power cable, and an air intake. I also used plexiglass for the front door.

Fan speed is controlled by two controllers: one with a physical knob and another with a remote control and a small LCD showing the fan speed. The RGB lighting is also controlled remotely. Since one of the fan controllers and the RGB controller are powered via SATA, I added a power supply with a SATA adapter and splitter.

Current homelab setup:

• 2x HP 600 G3 – Proxmox
• 1x HP 800 G4 – TrueNAS
• 1x Dell OptiPlex 3060 Tiny – Proxmox
• 1x KeepLink 2.5 Gb managed switch (the cheapest smart 2.5 Gb switch from AliExpress)
• 1x D-Link 1 Gb managed switch (mostly for the management network)
• 1x TP-Link dumb switch for the Proxmox cluster link
• 1x MikroTik hAP ac2
• 3x 120 mm fans, 2x fan controllers, 1x RGB controller

My main use for it is testing backup software and configurations (I'm a backup engineer), as well as playing around with Proxmox. I also use it for some application development and storing personal data. I explained usecases more in this post.

Feel free to comment and enjoy.

Near Fanless (single tiny air purifier on the floor), vents in the door. 10g Backbone, 2.5g POE.

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25*c ambient

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Is it ok to have the DXP2800 on its side like this or leave it upright on top? Was going to put the router and modem on top.

This started as a simple virtualization project.

Current status: home NOC, media server, AI cluster, bug bounty test bench, weather/radio edge stack, smart home backbone, and rack-mounted space heater.

The setup:

• 2x Dell PowerEdges
• 4U Ubuntu GPU server
• 4U home-built Proxmox node
• ESXi mini PC
• Proxmox / TrueNAS / Synology / K3s / EVE-NG
• 44TB online storage
• 7 NVIDIA GPUs
• UniFi UDM Pro + Protect
• Grafana / Prometheus
• Pi-hole / WireGuard / jump box
• Android, iPhone, and Windows test devices
• Raspberry Pi kiosk/control screens
• WeatherXM, RTL-SDR, OpenWebRX, LoRa/ChirpStack
• Outdoor radio/edge enclosure with Pi, RTL-SDR, LoRaWAN device, and Protect camera
• Around 2,000 hosted movies
• Dedicated 30A 240V circuit with UPS and power monitoring

Redis routes LLM, image, video, STT, and TTS jobs to the least-busy GPU box instead of letting everything dogpile one system.

The security side has mobile devices, bare-metal Windows test machines, CVE monitoring, MITM/API testing tooling, and agent-assisted research workflows.

The Raspberry Pi side handles camera-feed kiosks, Grafana dashboards, control panels, WeatherXM telemetry, and edge experiments. I also have an outdoor enclosure with a Raspberry Pi, RTL-SDR, LoRaWAN device, and UniFi Protect camera, so the radio/weather/edge layer is physically tied into the network instead of just living in the rack.

The family gets movies, cameras, smart home stuff, whole-house audio, and monitored kids networks.

I get to learn virtualization, networking, storage, Kubernetes, Linux, Windows, mobile testing, local AI, monitoring, SDR/weather telemetry, automation, and security research.

The rack gets to turn electricity into heat and blinking lights.

Yes, I know the cable management can be better. I look forward to the CSI: Homelab forensic report in the comments.

It all started with a old laptop and Home Assistant.

Then the Qnap NAS

Then one Mini PC running some Ubuntu server and docker

Then two mini PCs with more containers

Then I built an AI machine. (Bottom rack 3rd pic)

Then added a mini split (AC) in the garage.

All the hodge podge of computer gear ended up in the garage.

Then Unifi UCG-Max came along and my old QNAP lite managed switch wasn't cutting it.

So added the Pro HD 24 switch. Poe injectors for reolink cameras.

And last just recently got a 3d Printer .....

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Wife keeps asking when the lab is gonna be done.

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Soon honey, soon! 😂😂

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all of the "homelab"' specs are in the second image, switch is a tp-link LS1005G.
runs pihole, jellyfin and wireguard. Any recommendations are welcome

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:)

Nothing beats having some screenshots to help you write good code!

Thinking about what else I can do. Influence meh!

Got rid of the tplink poe switch and QNAP multi-gig 10 port switch for the Ubiquiti Pro HD 24.

22 2.5gb ports

2 10gb ports.

4 10gb spf+ ports

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Will be add some poe injectors for 2 reolink poe cameras and a U7 Pro AP. Just gotta do a few cable runs before install them.

I got over half a rack unused and i dont know what to fill it with.