HomeLab Starter
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pfSense vs OPNsense: Choosing a Homelab Router/Firewall
pfSense and OPNsense are the two leading open-source router and firewall distributions. This comparison covers features, update philosophy, hardware requirements, and when to choose each for homelab use.
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Wake-on-LAN in the Homelab: Remote Power Management
Wake-on-LAN (WoL) lets you power on computers remotely from your network. This guide covers enabling WoL in BIOS and OS, sending magic packets, scheduling power-on, and using WoL over the internet through a VPN.
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Software Defined Radio for Your Homelab: RTL-SDR and SDR++
Turn a $30 USB dongle into a radio receiver that captures FM, aviation ADS-B, weather satellites, and more. A practical guide to RTL-SDR with SDR++ for homelab exploration.
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Wake-on-LAN: Remote Power Management for Your Homelab
Wake-on-LAN lets you power on machines remotely by sending a magic packet over the network. Covers BIOS setup, Linux configuration, sending WoL packets, remote access over the internet, and automating startup sequences.
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Restic: Modern Backup for the Homelab
Restic is a fast, encrypted, deduplicated backup tool. This guide covers restic's core concepts, backing up to local storage and Backblaze B2, automating with systemd, and verifying your backups actually work.
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Snapcast: Synchronized Multi-Room Audio for Your Homelab
Snapcast streams audio to multiple endpoints in sync — Raspberry Pis, speakers, phones — with millisecond-level precision. Covers server setup, client configuration, Home Assistant integration, and audio source connection.
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OpenWrt for Your Homelab: Full Router Control on Consumer Hardware
OpenWrt turns consumer routers into powerful, fully programmable network appliances. This guide covers installation, VLAN setup, traffic shaping, and why OpenWrt beats stock firmware for homelab networking.
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Sunshine + Moonlight: Self-Hosted Game Streaming for Your Homelab
Sunshine is an open-source game streaming server that pairs with Moonlight clients to stream your PC games over your home network (or remotely). Low latency, 4K 120fps, and completely self-hosted.
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Planning Static IP Addresses in Your Homelab
How to plan and assign static IP addresses in a homelab network. Covers IP address schemes, DHCP reservations vs true static IPs, documentation, and subnet planning for VLANs.
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SNMP Monitoring for Homelab Network Devices
SNMP lets you monitor switches, UPS units, and network devices from Prometheus, Grafana, or LibreNMS. This guide covers enabling SNMP on common homelab hardware and collecting metrics with the SNMP Exporter.
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SFP and Fiber Networking for the Homelab
How to add SFP+ 10G fiber networking to your homelab. Covers SFP vs SFP+ vs QSFP, DAC cables vs fiber transceivers, compatible switches and NICs, and practical cabling for homelab backbone links.
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VLAN Network Segmentation for Your Homelab
Isolate your IoT devices, lab experiments, and trusted clients using VLANs — a practical guide to network segmentation with managed switches and pfSense/OPNsense.
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ECC Memory in the Homelab: When It Matters and When It Doesn't
ECC (Error Correcting Code) memory silently corrects single-bit errors and detects multi-bit errors. For homelab NAS and storage servers, ECC prevents data corruption from memory errors. This guide explains what ECC does, what hardware supports it, and when to prioritize it.
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Jumbo Frames and MTU 9000 in Your Homelab
Jumbo frames (MTU 9000) reduce CPU overhead and improve throughput for high-speed storage traffic in your homelab. This guide explains when MTU 9000 helps, how to configure it across Linux, switches, and NAS devices, and how to verify it works.
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Homelab Temperature Monitoring: Sensors, Alerts, and Dashboards
Monitor CPU, GPU, disk, and ambient temperatures in your homelab using lm-sensors, Prometheus, and Grafana. Covers sensor setup, fan speed monitoring, Grafana dashboards, and alerting for thermal runaway.
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Running Local AI in Your Homelab: GPU Setup for Private LLMs
A practical guide to running large language models locally in your homelab using Ollama, llama.cpp, or LM Studio — with GPU acceleration via NVIDIA or AMD cards.
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Linux Software RAID with mdadm: Setup and Management
mdadm provides software RAID on Linux without hardware RAID controllers. This guide covers RAID levels, creating arrays, monitoring health, handling drive failures, and recovering from faults — all without ZFS.
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PSU Redundancy for Your Homelab: Why It Matters and How to Set It Up
Learn when and how to add redundant power supplies to your homelab servers, what to look for in a redundant PSU, and how it differs from UPS protection.
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Suricata IDS/IPS: Network Threat Detection for Your Homelab
Suricata is an open-source network intrusion detection and prevention system. Covers installation on Proxmox or OPNsense, rule management, EVE JSON logging, and integration with a SIEM.
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Homelab Power Efficiency: Reducing Electricity Costs
Homelab servers can cost $100-600+ per year in electricity. This guide covers measuring actual power draw, selecting efficient hardware, implementing sleep/wake schedules, and calculating the real cost of running 24/7.