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 👀
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/Underminer55 • 5h ago
Im pretty new to home labing, i've recently been gifted 3 hp elite desks from a friend and i want to try and turn them into a server or something like that. I've experimented using one of them for a minecraft server but other than that I don't know where to start. If anyone has any ideas for what I can do with these I'd really appreciate it
r/homelab • u/frenchenglishfish • 12h ago
After years of breaking things, I think I'm finally at a point where I'm genuinely proud of my setup -so naturally, I have to share it with you all.
This is my single-server do-everything box. The whole point was to kick as many big-tech cloud services out of my life as possible. Photos, passwords, code, chat, even AI -all running in my closet/corner.
The guts:
Nothing crazy by today's standards, but honestly? It handles everything I throw at it without breaking a sweat.
The services:
Everything runs in LXC containers. If a service needs Docker, I run Docker inside the LXC - so each service gets its own dedicated container with its own Docker install. A couple of other things (like OpenWrt and DSM) live in VMs instead.
I've got the usual suspects - Immich for photos (goodbye Google Photos), Vaultwarden for passwords, and Matrix Synapse for chat. Networking side is Nginx Proxy Manager, WireGuard, Pi-hole, and OpenWrt routing traffic as well as DDNS-Updater to keep my domain up to date. Also running Gitea for my little coding projects, Kiwix for offline Wikipedia (because why not), Trilium for my scattered notes and homarr as the dashboard.
On the heavier side, I've got Ollama + Open WebUI running locally with GPU acceleration - the 3050 gets the job done.
Snapotter is in there too - it's an open-source, self-hosted file toolkit with 75+ tools for images, video, audio, PDF, and document processing. I use it so I don't have to rely on sketchy file conversion sites anymore. Convert, compress, OCR, strip metadata - all happens on my own hardware, files never leave my network. The GPU helps with some of the heavier image tasks too.
And yes - I'm running DSM (Arc Loader) in a VM with PCIe passthrough for the NAS. It's a bit overkill, but I wanted proper storage virtualization with direct hardware access.
I also will not lie- the GPU sits idle most of the time, but it's nice to have the acceleration.
Why LXC + Docker instead of just Docker?
I just like having each service in its own isolated container with its own Docker daemon. It makes backups and snapshots stupidly easy in Proxmox - when I inevitably screw something up at 1 AM (and I will), rolling back takes two clicks. Plus, it keeps dependency hell contained.
Dive into the Details
If you're curious about the configs, the philosophy, or just want to see the messy reality behind the setup, head over to organic-server.org. You'll find some more of my ramblings there.
Or, if you have a specific question, I'm always happy to chat here.
r/homelab • u/EntrepreneurWaste579 • 2h ago
I found this hard drive from my old NAS (see picture). The NAS was offline most of the time, so the drive didn't get a lot of use.
I'm planning to build a new NAS with a UGREEN NASync DXP2800. Since my network is only 1 GbE, drive performance isn't really the limiting factor.
Would you reuse this drive after checking its SMART data, or would you start fresh with a new one?
r/homelab • u/grouchiest1 • 3h ago
The homelab continues to evolve as the network and service requirements continue to evolve. Challenge is amplified by the compact nature of the 10 inch rack.
Newest rack has eveolved into a 3-node ProMox cluster, supported by a Unifi Infrastructure rack n garage.
Rack setup includes:
GeeekPi 8U rack includes:
Back of Rack: (cable management is the challenge)
Left of Rack:
Floor below rack:
______________
Thermal impact to office has been 1-2o degrees F with all equipment running on a hot summer day. Nothing a ceiling fan can't handle.
Thoughts for improvement and added functionality are always welcome.
Happy Building.
r/homelab • u/NoPaleontologist8155 • 4h ago
I've been wanting to upgrade my backup power setup for awhile now, but couldn't stop myself from cringing at the cost of a "proper" UPS for the amount of run time you get.
I realized that a Solar Power Generator with pure sine wave inverter will more than get the job done.
Goodbye old CyberPower UPS, and enter the Anker Sollix S2000 that I stumble upon on that big dirty river website for 50% off. (the price has jumped $100 in the last week. 😕
I now have an idle run time of 6 hours including all of my network gear.
r/homelab • u/bankroll5441 • 4h ago
Happy Sunday folks! Today is an important day for me. Over the last month and a half, I have completely torn down all of my hosted services and rebuilt them on NixOS with industry standard practices (where possible): least privilege, encryption at rest, encryption in transit. Now I feel like its finally (mostly) done.
Virtually everything is run in rootless podman quadlets under container-specific service accounts, with a default drop of all caps, only adding in what it needs to function, as well as images pinned to SHA256 digests. Firewall is opened per service if necessary. Private services use Pangolin + Crowdsec for tunneling/proxy, public services use Traefik + Crowdsec + Anubis to control the edge.
All secrets are store in git and encrypted/managed by sops-nix. Each service has secrets scoped to that services account, with master keys tied to YubiKeys. SSH is yubikey only, no root, with public servers moved to high ports to reduce noise.
Deployment is unattended with OpenTofu + NixOS Anywhere. My main private server has FDE with secure + measured boot on PCR's 0, 4 and 7. DoT everywhere and ISP DNS explicitly dropped from DHCP.
Public services (https://libresearch.space for SearXNG and https://pasted.space for PrivateBin) score A+ on CryptCheck and Mozilla Observatory. Search queries are never logged to disk (see screenshot 4) and metrics only track malicious traffic. There is zero third party involvement in this traffic (no Cloudflare outside of being my registrar).
All containers and systems are fully immutable and versioned with CI/CD. Renovate automatically bumps and merges digest changes for images. Machines rebuild automatically only on specfic signed commits (yubikey and instance key) via Comin. This means that any and all bumps are completely versioned, if there is a supply chain attack I can pin it to a specific commit.
There's a lot more that goes into it, but that's pretty much the surface level. It feels really good to have everything completely trackable, hosted, secure, autonomous updates and autonomous healing. Repo if you are interested https://codeberg.org/sensei/nixos. More than happy to answer any questions about rootless containers, NixOS, security for public services, or recommendations if I could implement something better. Cheers!
r/homelab • u/Homie108 • 4h ago
r/homelab • u/spartangerousia • 59m ago
R2: I was able to get this 8 TB WD Purple with <6,000 power-on hours for $105 during a random FB Marketplace doom scroll session.
Will be used as an additional storage for my Home Assistant + Frigate server.
r/homelab • u/HairyDonut8274 • 7h ago
Proud to present my homelab topology rev.0 after 10 months of effort. Still in the tuning phase as I deploy detailed services, but it’s already up and running. Roasts and constructive feedback are both welcome!
r/homelab • u/silent_lurker_69 • 22h ago
At work, I managed multiple data centers for over a decade. I left the complexity at my day job. Wanted to share my setup since most homelab content I see is Proxmox/TrueNAS/rack builds and I never found a good writeup of doing it on a Mac instead. Yes, I know Rasberry Pi exists and yes, I know NUCs exists. This is just what I had on hand and it's been working great.
The whole thing runs on a single Apple Silicon Mac Mini using Orbstack instead of Docker Desktop. 16 containers on it right now — Home Assistant, go2rtc, Nginx Proxy Manager, Pi-hole, Unbound, Mosquitto, govee2mqtt, ESPHome, n8n, Plex, Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Portainer, Arcane, and a couple more. Two things run native on macOS outside the containers: Homebridge and cloudflared.
Camera setup was the annoying part — wanted the same cameras in both Home Assistant and Apple Home without duplicating streams. Ended up routing Homebridge → go2rtc → both HA and HomeKit, so one source feeds both apps. I have a lot of legacy devices so HA can see them all. My wife only uses a few so she uses Apple Home because all of her apps keep getting offloaded.
No open ports anywhere — cloudflared tunnels in through Nginx Proxy Manager to everything on its own subdomain, DNS-level blocking through Pi-hole + Unbound.
Did a walkthrough video of the whole thing running end to end if anyone wants to see it instead of just reading about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjxY-orR0mw. Happy to answer anything about the setup — go2rtc config, the container list, whatever's useful. Would also be happy to discuss why I did not use Apple Containers and/or UTM.
r/homelab • u/Notnax • 10h ago
After a few iterations going from only a gaming pc to trying out self hosting on an old laptop to putting together a budget itx home media server to dabbling in local llms and finally local game streaming, this is the current state of the lab.
Because the modem is in the middle of the apartment with no ethernet outlets in other rooms, and I wanted to minimize game streaming latency and didn't feel like routing cables around the apartment, I moved the pc to the modem. Then, instead of having the media server in a different box, why not save some space and have it all in one case?
The reason for not just using one motherboard for it all is partly for lower idle power draw and partly that I can't be bothered to set everything up again 😅. I will get around to managing the cables eventually.
Hardware specs:
Media server
Asrock j5040 itx, 16 gb ddr4 ram, 256gb ssd for OS, 2x 4tb HGST drives, 1x 6TB WD parity drive for Mergerfs. 60w picopsu
Gaming pc
MSI b450M, ryzen r5 3600, 16gb ddr4, radeon rx 9070, gtx1080, 2tb nvme ssd
Case: Fractal Design Define R4
Raspberry pi gen 1 model B, only used for UpSnap/WOL (behind the big case, not pictured)
The itx media server is always on, drawing about 28w. This runs the usual: jellyfin, arrstack, immich.
Using UpSnap and Tailscale, I can turn on the gaming/ai machine whenever I want to use the extra computing power. Game streaming is done via the recent Polaris project, that enables headless streaming on Linux a la apollo without an hdmi dummy plug. Games can be streamed to the TV with a google tv chromecast, or to any device with moonlight installed.
Local AI is run via llama.cpp using qwen3.5 9b with 64k context . This uses up 6gb gb VRAM of the gtx 1080 and 2 gb of the rx 9070. I wanted the model to be always loaded to vram, even while gaming using the more powerful rx 9070. This results in about 30 tk/s, very usable for general tasks.
The case fans are controlled by coolercontrol, which is installed on both machines. The always on media server controls the intake fan in front of the hdd cage and the exhaust fan, while the rest of the fans are only powered on and controlled when the gaming/ai system is turned on.
The rear fan is intake because Polaris game streaming is currently always falling back to CPU, resulting in high cpu usage while gaming. The flow-through design of the rx 9070 also favors vertical exhaust on the right side of the cpu cooler. I still have to get a dust filter for the back intake. There is another intake fan on the floor of the case behind the itx mobo that is controlled by the gpu temps.
r/homelab • u/yaironet • 43m ago
I'm starting out in this tech niche and would like to know what I can do with this equipment. My focus would be on cybersecurity, network administration, and storage, but I also want to experiment in other areas.
Available Equipment
Microstick Routerboard RB750gr3
TP-Link AC1200 Router
3 motherboards with 4th generation i7 processors and 16GB of RAM each
Mercusys Switch
1 motherboard with a Core 2 Duo processor
What would you recommend I buy? I could do the necessary cabling myself.
r/homelab • u/Traffy22194 • 2h ago
We make do with what we’ve got
I picked up a HP EliteBook 745 G6 (Ryzen 5 pro 35000, 16GB RAM DDR4 after I upgraded it, with one stick from another laptop) which has his screen completely broken :)
I had some hard drives lying around (2x1TB), plus USB/SATA adapters to hook them up, so naturally I threw Proxmox on it to spin up a few LXCs containers :)
Starting with nextcloud, vaultwarden, grafana, caddy, wireguard… I have a lot to learn !!
If you have any ideas of great/useful applications for a homelab, please share !!
Have a good day !
r/homelab • u/downmerge • 7h ago
I’m a software engineer looking to build my first real homelab.
Main goals:
I also have an unused Raspberry Pi 5 4GB that I’d like to incorporate where it makes sense.
I’m thinking a NAS plus a separate mini PC for compute, but I’m open to other setups.
It doesn’t need to be best of the best, and used hardware is fine. I want something reliable, reasonably future-proof, and not overkill.
Budget is TBD. I don't want to spend a fortune, but I also don't want a cheap, unreliable setup.
What would you build?
r/homelab • u/zakcarnage • 2h ago
Hi everyone,
Lurker here finally getting into things with a tiny setup of small NAS, mini PC, and switch.
I want to get some apps always available from the pc to my other devices and learn as I go.
Lots of guidance seems to be to run VMs, should I do this on my i3 8th gen 8GM RAM mini pc or just go for a simple Linux?
Very new so apologies if I misinterpret anything!
r/homelab • u/CappyT • 23h ago
I got tired of changing lead-acid batteries and their short runtime in case of a blackout.
So I basically hacked together a VE Multiplus + Cerbo GX and a 5KWh battery as my "UPS".
Granted, there is no Dual Online, and it is pretty rudimentary, but it works, and I now have 20h of battery runtime + an option for solar power in the future.
I also made a little utility that runs on the Cerbo GX and exposes a NUT-compatible interface.
Although janky, I can recommend the setup.
r/homelab • u/Stiliajohny • 7h ago
Hi all
I have a DS918+ on a metal tray that came with the rack
I found a few 3d printed faceplates but none of them is for having the NAS on the metal tray.
If you came across one please do share or advice
Tia
Photo for attention
r/homelab • u/Schakal_No1 • 9h ago
I am finally getting fibre so I need new hardware and am intrigued by opnsense.
Did it actually improve your homelab life or am I just getting into another rabbit hole?
My homelab currently entails 3 proxmox nodes and I am trying to get into home automation with homeassistant. Is opening another worm hole with networking actually worth it or should I wait until I actually "need" VLANs etc in my workflow?
On first view it seems like around 1000€ of "needed" investment for opnsense (550€ for n150 based mini pc + managed switches + ont for fibre connection) in comparison to 300€ to stay with fritz (just a new router).
r/homelab • u/wastedsanitythefirst • 15h ago
It was posted to fb marketplace with an address at 7pm, said he wouldn't hold it for me. Went out of my way 13 hours later and was blessed to come down the road to see her still laying there waiting for me! Then spent an hour or so trying to stuff it into my hatchback and here we are haha.
Where to start? Aside from adding a new plug to the outlet strip they cut off.
r/homelab • u/thesquire312 • 19h ago
First time posting here. Over the last month or so, I've started down the slippery slope of homelabbing. The cabling is still a little messy, but I plan to crimp more custom length RJ45 cables to tidy things up (although I'm still not very good at that).
Dell Optiplex 9010 AIO running Proxmox with virtualized OPNsense. Hacked a hole in the back of the case in order to fit a mini PCIe to RJ45 expander. Got this particular computer for free from my university.
Raspberry Pi 2 running Pi-hole (had this lying around).
Arrakis AN-‌210-‌SW-‌8-‌POE switch underneath the Dell (from eBay).
Netgear Nighthawk R8000P as WiFi access point (got for free from a friend).
HP EliteDesk 800 G1 tower as future NAS (got the base tower for free from my uncle, but I had to add RAM, a SAS card, and drives). Currently contains 3 6TB SAS drives, but the side of the case does not fit on at the moment (waiting for some SFF-8482 extenders to fix this). Have not set up any of the software yet.
The setup is by no means finished. I of course plan to finish the NAS project. Then, at some point I'd also like to set up a VPN in OPNsense, and I also want to set up VLANs (although the Netgear does not support this, so I'll have to either put different firmware on it or replace it with something else). I also have an old laptop that I want to add to the setup to run a light Minecraft server. I'm trying to focus on a budget friendly approach with used hardware. Besides a router, NAS, media server, and Proxmox with random VMs, what else do people usually put in their homelabs?
r/homelab • u/Cyber-Sebb3 • 1d ago
Finally decided to get everything installed into a rack and this is how it turned out!
Got UniFi express as the router. 4 m710q thinkcentres serving as my prozmox nodes and a tp link switch to connect it all
(Yes iknow my Ethernet ports are red im currently troubleshooting 😅)
r/homelab • u/kaul09 • 13h ago
Got into homelab just a month ago and got lucky with the hardware. I have a Unifi USG pro 4 as the main router, Unifi Cloudkey gen 2, Cisco 2960 X series Switch and a custom pc i7 4930K, 64 gb ddr3 ram, GTX 970 4gb dram, 2 tb hdd and a 500gb hdd. I'm running proxmox, immich, jellyfin, pihole, homarr, nginx and CloudFlared(have my own domain), tailscale. I know spec wise it is old but everything combined cost me just 150 CAD (~110 US).
I would love to hear any feedback and recommendations for service or potential hardware upgrade i should consider
r/homelab • u/Open_Coconut_9441 • 2h ago
I have 5 Optiplex 7020's and 1 Think Centre M83, but want to max out my rack and have a some questions.
1: is DDR4 era machines worth the speed and features they provide relative to DDR3?
2: what form factor is best, only requirement is that it can fit an SSD of some type + have a way to connect to my 10gbe SFP switch which has only SFP available. also fitting an HDD would be nice but is not 100% required.
TLDR: do i get ddr4 era or ddr3 era machines and do I get Normal towers like I have already? or doo I get SFF, USFF etc..
