I decided to kick off my resolution of posting at least one article every day with a Home Lab Tour!
This will serve two purposes: Let everyone know what I’m working with and my preferences for software and hardware. Second, I want to look back at the end of the year and see how far I have come and what has changed.
I want to preferace this with none of my setup is in a “finished” state. Every system has room for improvement, a lot of which I want to document on this site as I do things. Because of this, I elected to not post picture of my setup in this article but I plan on posting them once I finish the systems.
Hardware:
Servers:
Dell PowerEdge R720
- 2x Intel Xeon Processor E5-2670
- 24x 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 DIMM Memory (192GB Total)
- 8x 600GB 15k RPM SAS Drives
- 4x Integrated 1GB NIC’s
- 2x Intel Ethernet 10GB Adapters
- 2x 750W Power Supplies
- iDRAC 7 Enterprise
I’m only using a single server at the momment due to power consumption but as you can see, its a big power house. I have a second, identical R720 right bellow it in my server cabnet that is ready to be powered on if anything were to happen to my primary server or if I need to do any testing on a separate system. My servers are currently running an older version of ESXi due to CPU compatibility limitations however one of projects I plan on doing this year is migrating to some newer Dell PowerEdge R630’s I recent acquired which will support all the way to the newest version of ESXi. The four integrated 1GB NIC’s are all bonded together and trunk all my VLANS so all servers have access to my network based on the need of the application. The 10GB NIC’s are run to a seperate 10GB switch which is manging an iSCSI network for storage access. When I acquired these server, I didn’t have a good solution for Virtual Machine Storage. In fact, I still don’t have a “SAN” solution in my setup. Because of this, I ordered eight 600GB 15k RPM SAS Drives that are loaded directly into the server running RAID 5 for super fast application storage. Since I don’t do any live migration to other servers, this works fine for my lab and is fast enough to not bottleneck performance.
Storage:
Synology DS1019+
- 5x 8TB Western Digital Red Pro Drives
For Home Labs, its hard to go wrong with any of the Synology storage systems. I had previous experience with Synology at a previous employment and really liked all the extra features they give you include with no subscriptions. Before I purchased this DS1019+, I had a few old USB connected Drobo arrays connected to a computer for storage. This DS unit became my do everything storage solution for a while allowing me to consolidate and centralize everything. Fast forward a few years and a few more purchases, this DS unit has become my central storage for just my multimedia and file shares, utilizing only iSCSI connections to storage servers. I have always preferred Western Digital drives over other manufacturer. In light of the recent hot water the company has been in, I may re-evaluate drive purchase in the future, however the 5 Red drives I currently have in the system only have arount 50k hours on them so they aren’t going anywhere fast. One of the 1GB interface’s on the DS connects to my main server network switch for data access and the other connects to the 10GB switch for iSCSI access. Some of the good Network Engineers out there might see a problem with that last sentence. Yes, I know 1GB transfer rates for your main storage system is not great. Up until recently, I have been the only person that used my system so 1GB worked fine and very rarely did I saturate it to the point where I was frustrated with the amount of time it took to copy files. I am starting to get to a point where I have enough systems trying to access this storage that I am seeing slow downs and buffering. A new storage solution is definitly on my list.
Synology DS1813+
- 8x 4TB Western Digital Red Drives
This storage system is only used for onsite backup. It is an older Synology unit but still works really well for what I need it to do. I use a simple file share to do a file level backup of all my media and important documents. I also use the “Active Backup for Business” to snapshot all of my virtual machines. The 4x 1GB NIC’s on it are all bonded together and go directly to my main server network switch.
Desktop
- Lian Li LI PC-O11 Dynamic EVO Black
- ASUS ROG STRIX Z690-E GAMING WIFI
- 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700K, 3600 Mhz, 12 Core(s), 20 Logical Processor(s)
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra Hybrid Gaming GPU
- 32GB (2x 16GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR5 5600MHz DRAM
- SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe
- ASUS ROG STRIX 850W Gold PSU
- 3x ASUS TUF Gaming VG279Q1A 27” Gaming Monitor
This is now my 3rd full custom PC build that I have done myself, the first 2 were 10+ years ago back in college so it was time to get back into custom builds. I built this computer in 2022, took a good 3 months researching parts and figuring out exactly what I wanted. I didn’t go “top of the line” for everything but definitely in the top 25% at the time. I absolutely love how it turned out and it has been a rock solid production PC. Gaming had some bumps at first, I had a few games randomly crash on me but they release a BIOS firmware and it hasn’t done it since. I’m definitely not finished with it either, I still need to fix some of the cooling with a better fan configuration and the lighting could use some work. Also, the motherboard configurations aren’t exactly where I want them. But I built this PC to be an ever evolving platform, as new parts come out I plan on upgrading but keeping the bones of the system the same.
Laptop
Dell G5 5590
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2592 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
- 16GB (2x 8GB) 2667MHz SODIMM
- 256GB Samsung PM991 VNMe OS Drive
- 1TB Toshiba Data Drive
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
I have a love hate relationship with this laptop. I purchased it back at the beginning of COVID because I was using a small form factor Dell Optiplex which was not powerful enought to play any games let alone Assassins Creed Valhalla which was coming out soon after. I purchased this PC so I could play games during all the lockdown time however it ended up not being powerful enough to play Valhalla. I was able to play some Steam games so that worked and it is powerful enough for all my productivity work while I was really digging into docker and finances. Currently, because of my desktop, I don’t really have much of a need for a laptop except when I’m traveling. Becasue of this, I’ve basically turned it into a “Thin Client” and user a VPN to connect to my Home network to access a virtual machine that has access to everything I need. I plan as part of this tech year to build out a new VPN system that will make the use of this laptop much more useful and take advantage of the power it does have.
Networking:
I really like using the Ubiquiti Unifi Platform. The way everything ties together and is managed through one easy to use interface really makes networking easy. One thing I plan to do over the next year is really go into depth on my configurations that I spent so much time dialing in.
Firewall
- Unifi USG Pro 4
I will be honest and say firewalls are the one issue I have with the Ubiquiti system. Anyone that has done any enterprise level networking will say the same thing. It took me a long time to understand the “best” way to setup the ACL’s. I believe I have mine setup as good as I can get them so I’ll be doing at least one walk through for that. As for the physical configuration, I have the “WAN” port plugged into the ethernet side of my Modem (which connects to Comcast Business). I don’t have a super fast internet connection so the 1GB ethernet is more than enough. “WAN2” uses a 1GB SFP to Fiber cable which is connected my Network Backbone Switch. Nothing fancy but it works well and the USG hasn’t had a single issue since I installed it.
Switches
Server Cabinet Switch
- Unifi USW 24 G1
This was my first managed switch I purchased for my home lab and I have really liked it. Again, sticking with the Unifi platform made it super easy to integrate this switch into my existing configuration. I’ve never had an issue with this switch. I was using this for my one network switch but it doesn’t have POE functionality, which I needed when I started installing security cameras. Also, only having 24 ports was starting to get pretty limiting. Because of this, I replaced it with the network switch I’ll talk about next but I still use this switch and moved it to my server cabinet to manage all my data connections for all of my physical servers and storage systems. I have it uplinked to my newer switch using a 1GB SFP to Fiber allowing me to maintain a good throughput but giving flexability with a 50 ft fiber cable.
10GB iSCSI Switch
- Mikrotik CRS305-1G-3S+IN
I purchased this switch because at the time this was the only affordable way to get any 10GB networking into your home lab. I really don’t like the management of the Mikrotik systems but this switch is basically used as an offline unmanaged switch, only serving the iSCSI network. This allows me to run 10GB between all my virtualized servers. It does what I need it to really well and haven’t had any issues with it, It has an uptime of about 2 years I believe with constant file transfer between servers. My primary Synology storage system also is plugged into the 1GB ethernet port on the switch so all of my servers can have direct iSCSI access to the storage.
Network Rack Switch
- Unifi USW 24 PoE
This switch is now the master switch of my whole network. The internet connection comes in from the USG over 1GB Fiber to one of the SFP ports and the uplink from the Server Cabinet Switch comes in to the other SFP port. Again, running theme, I haven’t had any issues with this switch since I installed it a few years ago. This switch being PoE is great for central power distribution. Of the 24 ports, I am using 16 of the ports for PoE connections.
Edge Switches
- Unifi USW Flex Mini (5 Port)
Another nice advantage of having a central PoE switch, in areas that I need more port density like in my office or the living room entertainment center, I can drop one of the Flex Mini from Unifi in and not worry about plugging it into the wall. These are also nice because they are full managed switches on the same Unifi platform so I can pass any VLAN to any port at the edge. Definitly recommend picking up a couple of these if you are already running Unifi.
Wireless Access Points
Primary WAP
- Unifi U6 LR
This is now my 3rd Unifi WAP that I have purchased. In fact, I still have all 3 and they all still work only taking the old ones offline because of upgraded speeds. The reason for purchasing this one was actually not for faster speeds as I have a last gen model which works fine, I actually wanted this WAP for the Long Range (LR) functionality. I noticed that stuff like my phone wouldn’t stay connected to my wifi while I was doing stuff outside the house or it would stay connected but not have a good enough signal to do anything which is worse then it disconnecting. When I installed this WAP, I ran a certerally located line to my house, as dead center as I could get to the layout. It has worked great. The distance on it is definitly as advertised. I’m able to stay connected and stream music from anywhere on my 3/4 of an acre.
Secondary WAP
- UAP AC Pro
This was my primary WAP for a long time and like I said the only reason I replaced this one was to get increased range on my wifi. I still keep this WAP online, getting updates and broadcasting SSID’s, in fact a few of my devises actually prefer it based on where I have it located. Its also nice to maintain wireless connectivity for some devices when I upgrade my primary WAP.
Security:
NVR
- Unifi UNVR
Sticking with the Unifi theme, when I started looking at security camera systems for my property, I figured I already like Unifi products, might as well use them. Especially since I heard great reviews of the cameras so far and they were just coming out with a log of their Gen3 products. When I started, I decided to go fully in and get the top of the line, enterprise level NVR mostly because I didn’t know how many cameras I was going to install in the end and having more than one drive in case of failer is always a good idea. The only alternative at the time was a Cloudkey Gen2 with a single drive for footage. This unit has 4 drive bays for footage so I populated all 4 with 8TB Purple (made for security systems) Western Digital drives. Giving me about 16TB of useable storage which is more than enough for my property. I am currently running 10 cameras and this system gives me about 2 months worth of footage storage. I’m only using about a third of the camera capacity so I definitly plan on adding more cameras, especially some of the new Gen5s.
I did have one issue with this box about a year after I purchased it. The main OS storage failed. Turns out, the model that I purchased was an early production model and instead of using good storage, they used a poorly made USB flash stick connected to a internal USB port on the main board. After doing some research online, users figured out all you need to do to get it working was open it, use a heat gun to remove the old drive, put a new blank drive in and start it up. I did this and it worked and I haven’t had any issues since. A few months later, they realised this was a bigger issue and allowed users to do an extended replacement for these models. Since mine is working fine, I just decided to go with the new solution.
Cameras
- G4 Bullet
I currently have 3 of these Bullets installed on the exterior of my house to watch vehicles and points of entry. Very solid construction and works great with my PoE Switch for power. The picture quality is really good especially when you add in that they can do smart detection. Rarely do I recieve any false positive notifications.
- G3 and G4 Instant
These are great little popup cameras for around the house. I use 4 of these on the interior spaces of my home in rooms like the living room, office and kitchen. They are very low profile, don’t stand out or aren’t ugly. They plug into USB type C power and transmit over wifi so you can drop them in pretty much anywhere. Great little cameras especially for the price, I picked mine up for $99 each I believe.
- G4 Dome
I have 2 of these cameras, one in my garage and other in my Server/Utility room. They are good cameras and good picture quality however for what I am using them for, if I did it again, I’d get something like the G3 Flex and save myself $200. I got them for the PoE functionality for indoor use and these are really overkill if you don’t have them in a large space.
I do plan on having more cameras installed in 2024, I have a Gen4 Doorbell I haven’t installed yet that I am really looking forward to. Stay tuned for those reviews.
Docker Containers:
If you have visited my knowledge base at all in the past, you will know that I love containers. Since college, I’ve had an interest in virtualization. COVID really gave me free time to really dig into the technology and figure out how to best use and manage it. A lot of the content over the next year is going to be focused around different useful containers and how to deploy them. Hopefully everyone reading this will be able to take advantage of some of the awesome containers I find.
For my underlying server OS for all of my docker servers I use Ubuntu server, current version is 22.04 LTS. Everyone has their preference when it comes to linux distributions, Ubuntu Desktop is what I learned Linux on so when it came time to learn server, it was an easy transition.
The container management system I prefer is Portainer and install it on all of my docker servers. Using their stack system to deploy compose files is super easy and nice to update. Also having the GUI interface to manage a CLI system definitly helps visually see what is happening on your server. Current version is 2.19.4.
Next, I wanted to list off some of the notable containers I use sometimes on a daily basis. All of which I have either done a walk through on deployment or am planning on doing one this year.
Heimdall
is a way to organise all those links to your most used web sites and web applications in a simple way. Docker Hub
Nginx Proxy Manager
This project comes as a pre-built docker image that enables you to easily forward to your websites running at home or otherwise, including free SSL, without having to know too much about Nginx or Letsencrypt. Docker Hub
Linkstack
allows you to create a personal profile page. Many social media platforms only allow for one link. With this, you can have all the links you want clickable on one site. Set up your personal site on your own server in a few clicks. Docker Hub
Tandoor
Recipes is a Django application to manage, tag and search recipes using either built in models or external storage providers hosting PDF’s, Images or other files. Docker Hub
Tautulli
is a python based web application for monitoring, analytics and notifications for Plex Media Server. Docker Hub
Uptime-kuma
is a self-hosted monitoring tool. Docker Hub
Vaultwarden
Self hosted Password Manager. Docker Hub
IT Tools
Useful tools for developer and people working in IT. Docker Hub
Unifi Network Application
is a powerful, enterprise wireless software engine ideal for high-density client deployments requiring low latency and high uptime performance. Centralized management of the Unifi system. Docker Hub
WordPress
is a free and open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL, which runs on a web hosting service. Docker Hub
Jackett
works as a proxy server: it translates queries from apps (Sonarr, SickRage, CouchPotato, Mylar, etc) into tracker-site-specific http queries, parses the html response, then sends results back to the requesting software. Docker Hub
Lidarr
is a music collection manager for Usenet and BitTorrent users. It can monitor multiple RSS feeds for new tracks from your favorite artists and will grab, sort and rename them. Docker Hub
MeTube
Web GUI for youtube-dl with playlist support. Allows you to download videos from YouTube and dozens of other sites. Docker Hub
Overseerr
is a request management and media discovery tool built to work with your existing Plex ecosystem. Docker Hub
Sonarr
is a PVR for usenet and bittorrent users. Docker Hub
Radarr
A fork of Sonarr to work with movies. Docker Hub
Transmission Over VPN
This container contains OpenVPN and Transmission with a configuration where Transmission is running only when OpenVPN has an active tunnel. It has built in support for many popular VPN providers to make the setup easier. Docker Hub
Wireguard
is an extremely simple yet fast and modern VPN that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography. Docker Hub
Thats it for this 2024 Home Lab update!
I hope everyone that reads this follows along for the next year of projects, definitly some fun stuff to take advantage of out there. Leave a comment if you want any more detail on anything in my current setup.
