Left the door to the lab open when I kicked my old girl out of the bathroom this morning, and she found the next warmest spot in the house. I found Princess Fluffybutt sleeping peacefully on my mission critical single point of failure.

I love this old-ass cat so much. She's 23 years old. I know we don't have long together, so she gets away with everything.

I don't have the heart to move her yet. Work can wait; keep the fans slow at least. I can putter until she wants lunch.

Time to drag up the air compressor again.

I just got an email, it’s available and single units for $39 ship end of October, 3-packs seem to ship after November. Looking good, I ordered one, $19.99 shipping to Europe though.

(i am not affilated, just excited since I have the “big one” and find myself connecting it from one NUC to the other constantly and just added another NUC)

After the red 3-node Lab Rax, I built a second one, this time in blue and with a different goal: something a non-technical person can plug into their router and actually use every day without ever opening a terminal.

What it does:

• Movies & shows on any TV, phone or tablet (Jellyfin, with Intel Quick Sync hardware transcoding)
• Automatic photo & video backup from phones (Immich)
• Shared network drive for the house (Samba)
• Network-wide ad-blocking (AdGuard Home, optional)
• Radarr / Sonarr / Prowlarr / qBittorrent with hardlinks for managing the media library

What's inside:

• Dell OptiPlex 3040 Micro: i5-6500T, 12GB RAM, 256GB SSD
• Datto Alto: Celeron 3865U, 16GB RAM, 120GB SSD
• D-Link 5-port Gigabit switch built into the front panel, plus keystone jacks
• 2x 4TB Seagate drives (one for media, one for photos) on SATA-to-USB adapters inside the case
• Top exhaust fan, carry handles, and "There's no place like 127.0.0.1" on the front

Software side:

• Proxmox VE 9 on both, as two standalone hosts (not clustered on purpose, with only two nodes I didn't want to deal with quorum)
• 6 LXC containers: Jellyfin, the media stack, Samba, AdGuard, Immich (Docker) and a small dashboard
• Everything on DHCP with .local names (mDNS), so it works on any home network without changing a single IP
• Custom dashboard at labrax.local: status lights for every service, one-click links to all apps, search & add movies/shows, delete old titles to free up space, and one shared password for all the apps that can be changed from one place (screenshot in the gallery, password hidden). The dashboard and its API were written with AI help.
• Both hosts power back on by themselves after a power outage

Lessons learned: the Datto wouldn't come back after a power cut because its CMOS battery was dead, and it's not a regular coin cell but one with a 2-pin connector, so I had to order a CR2032 with leads. Also, going full DHCP + mDNS instead of static IPs made the whole thing portable, which was the main point of this build.

Happy to answer questions about the case or the setup!

Hi everyone, this is my homelab server. It’s running an i9 11900k, 32GB DDR4, 8 hotswapable 4TB sas drives in raid 5, 2 256GB NVMEs, 1gb internet (mobo supports 2.5gb), running Cockpit. I’m using only for Plex atm but it’s been super reliable and I love this old Cooler Master case I built it in. Although this adds substantial weight, with drives and hardware included it is a brick. I was thinking of adding home automation as well, just don’t know where to start 😬

I have Wireguard VPN configured on my Unifi Dream Router and have the client and cert installed on all my devices. Why would anyone need a travel router when they can just deploy the VPN app and cert on their device?

The only thing I can think of if you have a work laptop and you can't install the app but still want to connect to VPN for personal use but your work laptop should already have VPN client to connect to corp network for security.

Hey r/homelab,

I spent the last few weeks rebuilding my media server, and drew the result. Everything runs on a single N100 mini-ITX board with Debian and Docker Compose, plus a small Proxmox box on the side for monitoring and DNS.

The short version

• 443 is the only open port. Port 80 is closed, UPnP is off, IPv6 inbound blocked at the router.
• Pangolin (Traefik inside) as the single entry point, with PocketID as identity provider: passkeys only, groups mapped to roles.
• Two access policies: "Family" (requests (seerr), files) and "Admins" (the *arr stack, qui…). Apps with their own TV/phone clients (Plex, Jellyfin) skip SSO and use their own login.
• Admin tools (Arcane, Backrest, CrowdSec Manager) have no public DNS record at all. They only resolve on my LAN, and over the VPN.
• Cloudflare in front of the web apps: restricted to two countries, cloud-hosting networks challenged, AI crawlers blocked. Streaming (Jellyfin + Plex) and downloads (custom files app) stay DNS-only, per Cloudflare's terms.
• CrowdSec reads Traefik's logs, with AppSec virtual patching. Repeat offenders get escalating bans and a Discord notification.
• qBittorrent lives inside gluetun's network namespace: no tunnel, no traffic.
• Backups: Backrest (restic) every night to an SSD on the router, with apps paused for a few seconds during the snapshot. Compose files are backed up to a private Git repo by Arcane. I may do offsite backups later too.
• Monitoring runs on a different machine (Beszel hub on Proxmox), so a dead server still triggers an alert.

Things that bit me along the way — maybe useful to someone:

• Attackers, attackers everywhere. When I was about to setup Crowdsec, I saw 50k+ traffic in less than a few hours. Mostly GCP and OVHcloud, so mostly VPS (bots). Make sure to check that, it's scary.
• My router's IPv6 firewall was off by default, for a few years. Every container port I had published was reachable from the internet over IPv6. Worth checking yours.
• Behind Cloudflare's proxy, CrowdSec would have banned Cloudflare instead of attackers, until Traefik was told to trust Cloudflare's IP ranges (forwardedHeaders.trustedIPs), so the logs show real visitor IPs.
• sniStrict: true in Traefik: scanners hitting the bare IP now fail at the TLS handshake, instead of getting a 404 and a certificate that can reveal your domain.

The one piece I'm building myself: file browser app

A small file browser for the media library, in the spirit of an old Apache directory listing but modern: browse folders, then download through short-lived signed links instead of exposing the files directly. You can grab a single file, a ZIP, a list for download managers like JDownloader, or share a whole folder for a limited time. It reads identity and roles straight from Pangolin's headers, so admins can rename and delete while family can only browse and download. It runs as two containers from the same image: one with read-write access behind SSO, and a separate, read-only one that serves the actual downloads. So the only part exposed without a login can never modify anything. I made this because all the other similar solutions wouldn't fit my needs.

Still on the list: a dead-man's switch for when the whole house goes offline, and an off-site copy of the backups.

Happy to answer questions!

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.

This lil rack was made from an old full sized server rack, I used the rails and welded it together, came out okay. I’m running Proxmox and running an old raspberry pi that is running pi-hole. Most likely invest in an additional newer raspberry pi and a Poe switch, I already have some hotswap bays coming so I can upgrade the hard drive bay.

My Mini 7U 10-Inch Homelab
Here’s my little 7U, 10-inch homelab! It’s a compact setup built around a few small servers, Apple devices, and some 3D-printed parts.
The setup:
Servers: Dell Wyse 3040 and Dell Wyse 5070
Apple devices: Apple AirPort Express (2nd gen), used as an AirPlay receiver, and Apple TV (3rd gen), also used for AirPlay
Networking: An 8-port Gigabit Easy Smart Switch and a 5-port Easy Smart Switch
Storage and accessories: A drawer for HDDs, adapters, remotes, and other miscellaneous bits
Cable management: Custom mounts and cable management to keep everything neat and compact
The rack and several of its parts are 3D-printed, making it a fun little project that fits into a surprisingly small space.
If anyone has questions or wants any of the STL files I used, feel free to contact me!
Hope you like my little homelab!

Finally making some progress on my new 1u Incus homebuild

Put together parts I had laying around + some cheap finds on hks version of marketplace + some amazon purchases to round it out.

Only had 1u of space available in my 12u home rack so forced to use a small form factor. Would have preferred to use a 2u but oh well. Have to make the most of what is available.

Will streamline the cables a bit more by the psu once I install the 2 x ssd's.

Radiator fans are a little wonky due to the chassis screws but at least it fits. Zip-ties add to it. :)

Hardware:

-Chassis - Silverstone Technology RM100 1U Rackmount Server Chassis with ATX Motherboard

-PSU - Silverstone Technology FX350-G-VT Flex ATX 1U 350 Watt 80 Plus Gold Power Supply

-Air Flow - 5 x Noctua NF-A4x20 PWM

-CPU cooler - DYNATRON 1U CPU Server Water Cooled Radiator. I did get the Dynatron A18 1U Active PWM Blower first but it was like a jet so I switched to a water cooler based on a post I saw on reddit for 1u builds.

-CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

-MOBO - ASUS TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS. Chopped off part of the heatsink so It would fit in this chassis. Its ugly but it works.

-MEM - 64gb ddr4

-NETWORKING - 2.5gbe

-Storage - 1 x 500gb nvme for OS, 1 x 1tb for the containers/vms/appdata

-It boots to bios, the lid on top closes and temps are around 50C idle.

Next steps:

-Install 2 x intel enterprise 2tb ssd's for the containers/vms data/logging/telemetry. Need to take them from my gf's nas first.

-Install a nvme heat sink for the 1 exposed drive.

-Install Incusos and the services I want to try.

What I'm thinking to try:

-Incusos - Plan is to use code-server to write the infrastructure code, Gitea to version it, Semaphore to run the automation, and authentik for SSO/MFA. Aiming for a repeatable, code-driven setup rather than lots of manual configuration. We’ll see how it goes, will be the first time using Incus. Curious to see how it performs compared to my experiences in the homelab with proxmox, unraid and truenas. :)
-Wazuh, edr/xdr. Keen to see how this works and compares to mde/crowdstrike/PAcortex/sentinel.

-Security Onion, just heard others use this so wrote it down to spin it up and learn where it fits and its uses.

-Greenbone/Openvas, cve scanning and maybe cis benchmark scanning also if its supported.

-Sigwood, just saw it on reddit a week back. Sounds good so will give it a try.

If you have any suggestions on my plan or security tools/services/platforms I should add to the above stacks/give a try I'm all ears :)

I see a lot of people most commonly using the UGREEN two and four bay NAS, but they are expensive even used. Any cheaper alternatives? What has been reliable for you? Thanks!

I'm looking for an node to run local llm's in my 10" rack.

Are there any alternatives to a mac mini comparing the space and price?
I never owned a mac and not looking to get my first one because of this side project.

I want to do some small image generation and coding assistance in my vscode.
Would also be pretty sick to hook it to Hermes and Home Assistant.

I finally upgraded my home rack with a second hand UPS that was a steal (apc 1500va). So I am sharing the current state of my home rack so far!
If anyone is interested I can share more details about it like power draw and on-battery runtime, custom pc specs, softwares running, network diagram…

I'm planning my first home server and would appreciate feedback before buying hardware. My priorities are security, low maintenance, reasonable cost, and learning Linux. I want to start with a simple, reliable setup and avoid unnecessary complexity.

Initial build

Hardware

• Mini PC: Intel N100/N150, 16 GB RAM, 500–512 GB SSD, wired Ethernet
• External USB drive: 2 TB for photo archive backups
• Dedicated home dashboard: 52Pi 10.1″ touchscreen

Software

• Debian 13, headless (no desktop environment)
• Docker Engine + Docker Compose
• AdGuard Home for network-wide DNS filtering
• Uptime Kuma for monitoring
• Homarr for a browser-based service dashboard
• Samba for accessing the photo archive from my Mac

My router is a Netgear Nighthawk R6700v3. For photos, I plan to periodically export originals from Apple Photos to a local archive on the server and back them up to the external drive. I'll look into an off-site backup as well.

Future ideas — not part of the initial build

• DAKboard for the dedicated kitchen calendar/weather display
• Home Assistant for smart-home integrations, including my Kasa HS220 dimmer
• Immich for browsing photos from the local archive

I'd only add these once the core server and backup process are working reliably.

Questions

1. For a beginner, is Debian + Docker Compose a good choice, or would another OS be easier to maintain?
2. Is an N100/N150 mini PC with 16 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD a good fit? Or overkill?
3. What's the best way to configure AdGuard Home with the R6700v3?
4. Is my photo archive and backup strategy sensible? What would you change?
5. Is there anything important I'm overlooking for security, backups, or reliability?
6. Would you simplify or change anything in the initial build?

I'd especially appreciate advice from people who started with a similar setup. I'd rather start small and reliable, then add services as I learn.

Finally got my first homelab up and running!

Been piecing it together over the last few weeks.
Running Proxmox, Docker, Cloudflare Tunnel, WireGuard, a NAS, Pi-hole, and a Mac mini for automation and AI experiments.

Wanted something compact but still capable of handling a bunch of different projects.
Still learning and tweaking things, but pretty happy with how it’s turning out!

Any suggestions or things you’d change?

Hello all, hoping for some help! I am setting up a homelab with the best equipment I have, an “free” old gaming pc (figured this is better than spending money on a new setup). I recently came across these hard drives at an estate sale and picked them up for a whopping $2. I confirmed they were wiped at pickup.

From what I can tell, these things are pretty old (7 Seagate 7200.10 and 2 7200.12). I want to see if it’s worth it to try and use this as a storage solution with a lot of parity/backup, or if they’ll be too risky with their age. If so, I do want to know if it’s okay to use a jbod/acrylic case solution to house these outside of the pc case and connect via SATA? I’m not sure if I could squeeze in one or two drives in the case, unfortunately the bottom port is full with the psu and leftover storage for the pc. Still new to this so please call out any errors of my assumptions on my end.

I was able to start a Jellyfin library on the old pc hdd, but I did so while it is still on windows and need to migrate to ubuntu soon (and set up/learn about docker to my understanding).

Thanks, all!

Hello, My friend and I are planning on purchasing a prebuilt mini server pc to run a small amount of mods on it for our duo Minecraft server. We wanted to purchase a new system for the server, do you guys have any recommendations for a mini pc. Budget is around 350. We saw this one and wanted to know if it would be decent enough. Any recommendations or tips are appreciated. Thanks :)

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.

edit: Thank you everyone for the advice! Love this community.

Figured I'd need a little more space for the family photos.

Expanded the SAN and added some capacity to the Hitachi AMS 200 for Tier 2 storage.

Nothing too elaborate. Just trying to get Immich running.

Think this will be enough?

I wanted to upgrade my setup from a UDR to a UDM and have something a little more future proof. My local shop just happened to have a UNIFI UPS so i bought that as well for…redundancy.
The plan is to have this little rack in the garage as my main router networking seperate from my main rack.

Hope it's okay to ask some beginner questions. I turned a large tower PC I owned for years into a NAS with OMV. I have fourteen 3-TB hard drives in there, aside from the one SSD running the OS, so that represents about 42 TB of storage. I'd like to use it to hold my archival data and backups of my other computers with redundancy for safekeeping. I have less than 10 TB of data I care about currently so it has room to grow with my future data hoarding tendencies.

So I'm looking at a RAID setup of some kind. Would RAID 5 make the most sense? All the drives are currently formatted as ext4. For some reason I can't seem to create any kind of RAID using the Multiple Drive plugin. I have all fourteen hard drives showing up in Disks in my OMV Workbench and fourteen devices showing up as mounted and available in File Systems from /dev/sdb1 to dev/sdbo1. Yet if I go to Multiple Devices and hit Create I cannot add any devices in the dropdown box. Did I skip a step or am I missing something about how to create a RAID in OMV?

Posting this here for others who have been having the same issue with the U6+. There is longer post in the Ubiquiti sub on it, but they appear to have locked it.

I had the same issues many others have reported: after a simple power cycle in Aug 2026, my AP became completely unresponsive and failed to adapt or respond to either soft or hard factory reset. Just a solid white ring light from power-up onwards.

I reached out to support to due my due diligence and they ultimately told me to put in an RMA request. I bought it from a 3rd party seller on Amazon, and was a couple months out of the 2yr warranty so wasn't too hopeful. However it was approved within 24hrs of putting in the request.

Just a bit of info for other who may have been dealing with the same issue.

I've been a ghettoSMTP user for a long time now, to get around the ever-present port 25 block. I use SMTP2GO for outbound with no issues, but I need a new inbound solution. What's everybody using?