Personal homelab
A small server setup at home where I self-host a few services and try out infrastructure tools.
- Context
- Personal project
- Year
- 2023 - ongoing
- Stack
- Proxmox · Docker · Kubernetes · Raspberry Pi
My homelab runs on Proxmox VE, a platform for running virtual machines and containers on your own hardware. I use it to host a few services for myself and to try out tools before I need them elsewhere.
What runs on it
I use Docker and Kubernetes to deploy and manage the services. At the moment it hosts:
- Home Assistant, for smart home automation
- Jellyfin, a media server
- Pi-hole, which blocks ads for the whole home network
- Nextcloud, for file storage
- Open WebUI, for running AI chat models locally
A few Raspberry Pis sit next to it for smaller tests.
How it started
At Thomas More I was a member of SIN, a student association that runs a web hosting platform for students, and I helped maintain that platform. Working on it made me want an environment of my own where I could set things up, break them and set them up again.
What I learned
When I host something myself, I also have to fix it when it stops working. That has given me hands-on practice with virtualisation, containers, networking and security that coursework alone did not. The list of services might change over time as I experiment with new tools and setups.