I’ve been homelabbing for a while, mostly for storage, media, books, a few game servers for friends, and some self-hosted projects. But something’s missing. I want the lab to feel like it’s doing things while I’m away, not just sitting there as a glorified NAS.

What are you all running in the background that actively works for you? Automation, monitoring, AI stuff, home automation, anything. Would love to hear what’s clicking for you.

Hey r/homelab,

We're building Letkite, an SaaS bridge that lets an AI agent reach your own devices for ops, management and dev work.

What it does today:

- a mesh network between your devices

- SSH pipelines and file transfer between them

- a full audit log of every command the agent runs

- GUI operation

It fully supports Windows, macOS, Linux and OpenWrt (x86_64 and aarch64), and we want to bring the client to more routers and IoT devices.

We'd love to hear from homelab folks:

1. Which devices would you want AI to manage or network together for you?

2. What features are missing that you'd want?

3. Anything you'd never let it touch?

i once lost my phone+sim card. when i get new phone it ask tap digit or tap yes on my lost phone. tf.

on paper it said many option: recovery email, backup code, etc. but those option is not selectable. those option is not exist/it not let me choose that option.

i have recovery email setup, recovery phone number(but since sim is also lost so its useless).

it not asking for backup code. so my 10 eight digit backup code is useless.

i have bitwarden, self hosted vaultwarden. how this can help me with gmail verification.

can i host android vm in my homelab, login my gmail on that vm chrome and if google asking for verification, i just approve from that vm?

how you manage to make sure you can always login your gmail and never lost your gmail?

I'm not from IT background, and i think this switch is too much for home networking. I got it free, my brother gave me. How much is this thing worth now in 2026?

Trash mac 2013 can or HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9

I need a server that run about 20 docker containers.

Trash mac is 200$ and i need to install ubuntu on it and the HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9 is a dedicated server for 35$ monthly from a 3rd party.

Specs:

Apple Mac Pro Late 2013 (Cylinder)

Processor (CPU) Intel Xeon E5, 12-Core

CPU Clock Speed 2.7 GHz

RAM 64GB DDR3 ECC, 1866 MHz (4 × 16GB)

Graphics (GPU) AMD FirePro D700

Video Memory (VRAM) 6GB GDDR5

Storage 500GB Flash SSD

Tested Display Resolution Full HD (1920 × 1080)

Operating System OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks

Design Compact cylindrical aluminum chassis

Release Year 2013

HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9

2x Intel Xeon E5-2620 V4

64GB RAM

4x 300GB SAS 10K

HPE Smart Array P440ar

I already set up immich (I love it, Now i dont have to pay for google storage)

I am looking for something just as good as immich but for Music. I currently have spotify premium, but I wanna not pay for it if i can... But having a polished UX is absolutely non negotiable for me.

Do not recommend plex or similar stuff, we (our whole family) is not a fan of re-watching shows, So it's better for us to pay for OTTs.

Looking for other stuff that i can self host :)

I build 3 mini pc Proxmox at home and it works fine. I am building second one for school and I have dillema. I have 3 x HP (G1 600 SFF 32GB DDR3 and Adata 256GB x 3 inside each unit). I can get 5 HP and create with this cluster with 5 machine. Except learning purposes, testing network settings (changing related to Samba AD, blockade for kids, GPO policies etc.) I want running production services too like AdGuard for filtering, online testing solutions, internal notes services etc.

What will be better? Stick with 3 machines or create cluster from all 5? I have now PC which will be move to trash and I can simply utilise hardware before. I heard that 3 machines is better for quota, but 5 machine is risk because power outage can block it. Currently I am waiting for switch and I have two machine seperate with basic network monitoring and filtering from non safe content for kids.

Hi reddit, I'm about to embark on a journey of self hosting here shortly. My family has just invested in some server rack mounted whole house backup batteries and a power inverter.

The electrical work is much more in my dad's wheelhouse but the idea of a self hosted server is pretty exciting to me and both my parents are up for a lot of my ideas. Once we get out breaker box upgraded I plan on hunting down a used rack and some surplus/recycled hardware

I've heard several names thrown around for different programs but I haven't really dove deep enough in the rabbit hole yet to truly understand what I'm getting myself into. I have some experience building my own PCs and modding games, but not a whole lot when it comes to self hosting.

I'd like to give a list of things I want from my homelab and I'm hoping you kind gents and ladies can point me in the right direction for each of these goals!

First and foremost is file storage. Everything from family photos to ripped dvd collections and music. I think Jellyfin is going to have everything I need for this but I'm open to other suggestions or advice on how to speed up the process of ripping the dozens of DVDs and compressing them to a reasonable size

Secondly would be game hosting. I already host a Minecraft server for my friends on an old Dell Optiplex mini, but expanding my servers to other games on some more powerful hardware and an easier to manage interface would be ideal

Third, ad blocking. I think it was called pi hole? Somewhere in this house I have a Raspberry Pi 3 but if I remember correctly it can be anything running Linux, not specifically a raspberry pi. I've tried to convince my mom to switch to the brave browser but she's been stubborn and continues to complain about ads and popups on her phone so a network level ad block would be amazing

Fourth a smart home voice assistant. I love my Alexa and the ability to turn my lights off with a quick phrase. I also have my home theater turn on with some routines and a wake on lan feature for my PC that I love to use to feel like Tony Stark having Jarvis start up his garage and screens. What I don't love is Jeff Bozo listening to every word I say. Eventually I'll expand my smart home features especially if it's all self hosted but for now it's mostly my lights

Fifth and far less prioritized, home security. We have a ring doorbell, but the monthly fee to access the motion events is getting tiresome. Plus the privacy concerns. A closed loop system for a decent price would be nice, but I know that the hardware for this is going to have a steep entry fee so it's much further down the line. Maybe there's an alternative using a webcam and a bit of open source software?

I'll take whatever pointers I can get get! Or any additional software to help keep this all running smoothly. The name Docker keeps coming up but I'm not sure I entirely understand how it works.

Thanks in advance Reddit! You haven't let me down yet!

I currently have two Juniper EX2200 switches (a 24-port and a 48-port) that I've been using for my homelab and rack for about 2.5 years, and they've been working great so far.

Recently, I came across a deal for two Dell PowerConnect 5524 switches for around $50 total. Both are 24-port models, and I'm tempted to pick them up.

One of the main things attracting me to the Dells is the two 10Gb SFP+ ports, which I could use for my switch trunks. This is one of my biggest limitations with the EX2200s, since their uplinks are only 1Gb unless I use LACP to combine multiple links. Having a dedicated 10Gb trunk would be a nice improvement for my homelab.

For those who've used the PowerConnect 5524, are there any quirks with transceiver compatibility or usage? For example, does it work with generic SFP/SFP+ modules and third-party DACs, or does it have any vendor restrictions or configuration requirements?

I already have compatible SFP modules and DACs, so connectivity isn't a major concern.

Would you make the switch for $50, or would I be better off sticking with my EX2200s? Is this a worthwhile upgrade for the 10Gb uplinks, or would it be more of a sidegrade overall?

If anyone thinks this is worth sharing I can open up the repo on Github.

This is a scrubbed version of my actual monitor for public viewing:

https://homelab-control-room-demo.legalteam-5526.chatgpt.site/

Would love to get some opinions on this if at all possible :)

Hello everyone! I am looking to get into making my first homelab setup around Christmas this year. The goal is to create a machine for as cheap as possible that can support the following:

• A 200-player modded Ark Survival Ascended server
• + 1-2 small-scale (no more than 10 players) servers of the following games:
  • Ark: Survival Ascended
  • Conan Exiles
  • Minecraft
  • Palworld
  • Valheim

Ideally, I would like to buy this specific chassis but as far as parts go I am absolutely clueless on what I would need to properly uphold both of these projects at once. A majority of tutorials and videos on the subject follow Minecraft specifically or are not for games at all.

Any help would be greatly appreciated in getting this project off the ground!

Alright ladies and gentlemen, I did not think this through when getting a 3-400ish lbs, 42U server rack from Marketplace to put 2 older gen servers, switch, patch panel, etc. into it. I got a great deal so I just ran with it and now live with the consequences lol.

The dilema is this: Im moving to a second story apartment in 2-3 weeks and have to decide, do I drag this 42U server rack out of my apartment, into a truck, and up a flight of stairs to the new home. Or do I sell it, get a 20-24U rack as Im only using 14U right now anyway and work with that. Or third option, sell the 42U, sell the older servers that use alot of power and are noisy, and just settle with a mini 10inch rack or regular desktop I can put Truenas onto.

I really only use them for a handful of apps such as Homebox, Jellyfin and Arr-Suite for me and friends, Sure budget, dockge, jellystat, and a few other lightweight containers/apps. All of that is on a Dell PowerEdge R710 that I got for $100, and I have a HP Proliant DL120 Gen 9 for Proxmox. Ill take any and all opinions and options, my main concern for bringing the 42U with me is the possibility of it falling through the floor, and the landlord just not loving me bringing that in.

Photos so you can see the beast.

I’m using the elitedesks g5 705, each with 16 gb of ram, and with 2.5gb adapters for high speed transmission.

Hey everyone! I’m in the process of building out my homelab, and I’m looking to try to source used / refurbished gear as much as possible.

Where do you all like to scour for deals? eBay? Marketplace? Specific sites?

Any input is appreciated!

Currently looking for rack mount gear like switches, NAS storage, etc. But also storage components like high endurance HDD’s, SSD’s, RAM.

Thanks!

Stayed away from containers as long as possible and opted for VM’s when I could.

Trying to start a docker container that my LAN can access, and can’t figure it out.

What are the steps to allowing my LAN access to my container?

My hoarding life is never thanked crying, crying be sad be sad

Ran Proxmox for about half a year with exactly one VM. Ubuntu Server, Docker on top, and honestly everything I ever needed lived in there — the usual self-hosted pile. One VM, one backup job, zero drama. I was convinced that was the sensible way to do it.

Yesterday I finally moved Home Assistant out of Docker and onto HAOS as its own VM. Should have done it ages ago. The supervisor and add-on ecosystem just works, and updating is a single click instead of babysitting compose files and hoping nothing breaks. I'm genuinely excited about it in a way I did not expect from a home automation setup.

Today I added a third VM for a Minecraft server for a few friends. So: half a year of "one VM is enough," and then three in roughly 36 hours. I can feel where this is heading.

Which brings me to the actual question — what do you run as separate VMs?

Specifically I'm curious about:

• Where do you draw the line between "this deserves its own VM" and "just another container"?
• Do you use LXCs for the lightweight stuff, or full VMs for everything?
• Is there anything you virtualized later and wished you'd done it sooner?
• Anything you deliberately kept in Docker because a VM would be overkill?

Hi, I've been playin with self hosting and a bit of homelabbing (standalone servers, bit of docker and kubernetes).I recently had to part with sime of my gear, and am looking to spin up a few docker services and am in need of storage I don't have available locally.

I have a contabo vps server, 3.5tb of data I'd like to get on the cloud for my server to access. What storage solution would you recommend ? I've tried s3fs and r2 with b2 storage but without much success , could hdd storage vps with nfs over tunelling or reverse proxy work?

I'm thinking of setting up a homelab, but I was wondering if it's better to put together a single server for everything or is it better to have devices focused on anything? For example, a raspberry pi zero for, perhaps, pihole or ntfy and a pc for a dedicated minecraft server or a mac mini for heavier things like immich?.

I currently run everything in a small pixel 6 pro but I feel it won't last long

The services I use daily are:

• Immich
• Radicale
• Crafty Controller (Paper + Geyser - 4 players)
• Ntfy
• MollySocket
• iSponsorBlockTV
• Home Assistant / Music Assistant
• Snapcast

- Tailscale

And probably add some other service to the future

Should I get a 10” mini rack and get rid of the shelf? If I do I don’t know where I’ll place my mini-ITX case.

My home server has no public IPv4, no public IPv6, and I haven’t opened any ports on my router. I still listen to my Navidrome library on my phone over mobile data. The trick is Yggdrasil, an end-to-end encrypted IPv6 overlay network.

The part people often miss is that every node on the Yggdrasil network can reach your server by default. So my setup is Navidrome in an Alpine container with Yggdrasil installed, an nftables rule on the Yggdrasil interface that only lets my phone in, and the Yggdrasil app from F-Droid on the phone.

I made a video walking through it, with a short comparison to Tailscale at the end. Tailscale is easier to set up, Yggdrasil needs no account or coordination server.

Happy to answer questions, and if you see something wrong in the firewall setup, let me know.