Build your dream home lab
Hardware reviews, setup guides, and practical tips for building and running a home lab. From your first server to a full rack.
NetBird: Self-Hosted WireGuard Mesh VPN for Your Homelab
Set up NetBird as a self-hosted mesh VPN for your homelab. Connect remote devices, VMs, and containers with zero-config WireGuard tunnels.
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Pterodactyl: Self-Host Any Game Server With a Web Panel
Set up Pterodactyl Panel to manage Minecraft, Valheim, CS2, and more game servers from a clean web interface on your homelab.
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LibreNMS: Network Monitoring and Autodiscovery for Your Homelab
Set up LibreNMS in your homelab for automatic device discovery, SNMP monitoring, bandwidth graphing, and alerting across your entire network.
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n8n: Self-Hosted Workflow Automation for Your Homelab
Set up n8n in your homelab to automate tasks across services — backups, notifications, API integrations, and more — with a visual workflow builder.
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Cilium: eBPF-Based Networking for Your Homelab Kubernetes Cluster
Learn how to replace kube-proxy with Cilium for high-performance eBPF networking, network policies, and observability in your homelab Kubernetes cluster.
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MinIO: S3-Compatible Object Storage for Your Homelab
Set up MinIO in your homelab to get self-hosted S3-compatible object storage for backups, media, and app data — with the same API as AWS S3.
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Headscale: Self-Host Your Own Tailscale Control Server
Run Headscale on your homelab to get Tailscale's mesh VPN without depending on Tailscale's cloud. Full setup guide including clients and subnets.
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Stirling PDF: Self-Hosted PDF Tools for Your Homelab
Deploy Stirling PDF in your homelab for private, self-hosted PDF manipulation — merge, split, convert, OCR, and more without uploading files to third-party services.
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IPv6 for Your Homelab: Setup, Subnetting, and Native Connectivity
IPv6 is no longer optional for serious homelabs. This guide covers getting native IPv6 from your ISP, subnetting your network, configuring your router, and making services reachable over IPv6.
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OpenMediaVault: Turn Any PC Into a Home NAS
OpenMediaVault is a free, Debian-based NAS OS with a web UI. Covers installation, disk management, SMB/NFS shares, Docker via Portainer, RAID, and how it compares to TrueNAS.
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Cockpit: Browser-Based Linux Server Management for Your Homelab
Cockpit is a web console built into most Linux distros that gives you a clean UI for managing servers without memorizing commands. Monitor resources, manage containers, and configure storage from any browser.
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Scrypted: The Smart Home Hub That Bridges Every Platform
Scrypted is a self-hosted smart home platform that connects HomeKit, Google Home, Alexa, and Home Assistant under one roof. Covers installation, camera integration, and plugin-based device management.
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Intel AMT: Out-of-Band Remote Management for Homelab Servers
Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) provides BIOS-level remote access, power control, and KVM over IP for Intel vPro CPUs. Covers enabling AMT, using MeshCommander, and how it compares to iDRAC and IPMI.
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iSCSI Storage for Your Homelab: Shared Block Storage Across VMs
Set up iSCSI targets and initiators to share block storage across your homelab VMs and containers. Enables live migration, shared disks, and storage consolidation without expensive SANs.
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Prometheus and Grafana: Metrics Monitoring for the Homelab
Prometheus scrapes metrics from exporters and stores them in a time-series database. Grafana visualizes them with dashboards. This guide covers setting up the Prometheus + Grafana stack for homelab monitoring with Node Exporter, cAdvisor, and SNMP Exporter.
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UPS Monitoring for Your Homelab with NUT
Protect your homelab from power outages using Network UPS Tools (NUT) — monitor battery status, trigger graceful shutdowns, and alert before power fails.
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HBA Cards for Homelab NAS: Expanding Your Storage Controller
Host Bus Adapter (HBA) cards give you more SATA and SAS ports for a homelab NAS or storage server. Covers choosing an HBA, IT mode flashing, PCIe slot requirements, and recommended cards for Proxmox and TrueNAS.
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Dynamic DNS for Homelab Remote Access
Dynamic DNS (DDNS) keeps a hostname pointed at your home's changing IP address, enabling remote access to homelab services. This guide covers how DDNS works, providers (Cloudflare, DuckDNS, No-IP), and auto-updating your IP with a simple script.
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Talos Linux: An Immutable OS for Kubernetes in Your Homelab
Talos Linux is a minimal, immutable OS designed exclusively for Kubernetes. Covers what makes it different, installation, cluster management with talosctl, and why homelabbers are adopting it.
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Running Windows as a VM on Proxmox VE
How to install and configure a Windows 10 or Windows 11 VM on Proxmox VE. Covers VirtIO drivers, CPU/memory settings, USB passthrough, RDP access, and GPU passthrough for a performant Windows guest.
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Running an NTP Time Server in Your Homelab
A dedicated NTP server on your homelab gives every device accurate time, reduces external NTP dependency, and enables GPS-disciplined Stratum 1 timing. This guide covers chrony setup, Pi-based Stratum 1, and NTP client configuration.