r/homelab

This has been a project I have been working on since January and it is mostly done. I still need a UPS, but otherwise everything is finished.

I ended up running 87 drops all over the house, and it worked out to just under 7000 feet of cabling. The house was under construction for most of the year and the second floor was completely open, so running cables was fairly easy.

Each bedroom has 5 drops (1 per wall and 1 for a TV) and I ran 4 drops to the TVs in the living and family rooms. I ran a dozen drops into my office, and I ended up running 7 drops for access points (I have 3 APs currently installed). There is also a fibre line that runs out to the shed so I can install a camera and an AP.

I also ran 24 drops for cameras and IoT devices. It was excessive, but I wanted the flexibility of installing things in the future.

For the rack I went with a 21U wall mounted one to save space, and I wanted to put a UPS underneath it. The room where it is located is a storage room in the basement, so as much as I wanted to put a full 42U rack in there, I couldn’t justify using that much space.

It was a pain to do it, but I relocated the ISP fibre line from the front of the house to the rack so everything is in one place. I also had an electrician run a dedicated power outlet as well. I also ran a coax line as well if I want to get a backup connection in the future.

I went over budget so I didn’t get new switches yet, so I’m just running some old Cisco switches until next year. I have been setting up my homelab, and the server at the bottom is my Proxmox server, and the box beside the NAS is my OPNsense box. I could also finally rack mount my Raspberry Pi cluster.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the outcome.

I have about 2 proxmox hosts, about 20 vms, 6 computers and a shitload of WiFi based home automation stuff.

Got this used Dell Wyse 3040 for 20$, Paired it with my old laptop's SSD using an SATA to USB 3.0 enclosure I got for another 2$ & Voila! A 22$ ^(Thin) Homelab.

The Dell Wyse 3040 is a "Thin Client", i.e. it is a small computer used to connect to a more powerful computer ("Mainframe"). This means they are not inherently powerful. The Wyse 3040 itself comes with an:

• Intel Atom x5-Z8350 (4 core, Base 1.44 GHz with bursts of 1.92 GHz)
• 2GB DDR3L RAM (Soldered BUT 2GB is the max this CPU can address anyways)
• 8/16 GB eMMC (Mine has 8 GB) (Can be upgraded if you have the soldering skills)
• 1x USB 3.1, 3x USB 2.0, 1x Gigabit Ethernet, 2x Display Port
• 1x M.2 SDIO (Internal) which has the WiFi/Bluetooth card but with a little mod you can connect an SD card to it.

Also shoutout to https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/3040/, who has lovely articles & mods for the Wyse 3040.

Installed Debian 13 on it via a thumb drive, Everything worked out of the box with no issues whatsoever. Installed Open Media Vault on top of Debian 13 (Really didn't want to reinstall everything by using OMV's ISO) & Qbittorrent-nox (Headless Qbittorrent with a web-interface) without any issues either.

Whilst installing Jellyfin, I did face the issue of "/tmp" not being large enough. For whatever reason Their install script requires tmpfs to be atleast 2 GB but I simply modified the script to remove this check & Jellyfin installed just fine.

Finally mounted the external SSD via OMV's web interface, did some tweaks & my ^(Thin) Homelab was up & running.

The RTC battery is dead though, So every time this Wyse guy powers up it first indicates the error code via the power LED & only then it boots up which is a bit annoying but it's fine, I'll replace it soon.

Whilst this computer is not powerful by "modern standards" I think if we had given any thoughts to optimizing software, Hardware like this would be so much more common & Maybe the RAM crisis wouldn't have hit everyone as hard either.

Intel NUCs, etc do exist btw but they are still bigger than this & are more power hungry.

Nonetheless, The Wyse guy is more than enough for my needs & I would've loved to use this as my main PC if only the web was engineered more properly & thus was not bloated at all. Perhaps in another timeline.

My next goal is to design a UPS supply which would sit on bottom of this Wyse guy & power it via Dell's jack, whilst the UPS itself could be powered & charged by a USB brick. That would surely be a fun project!

I've also been wanting to learn FreeCAD, So it would be interesting to create a wall-mountable enclosure for the Wyse guy, with space for the UPS & space for atleast 4 more SSDs on top, All held together nicely.

I'm also saving up for a 2TB HDD, because this SSD is OLD & has just 240 gigs of space which is not enough because I am archiving games & movies, along with storing my own personal stuff.

Edit: As of writing this post, I also stumbled upon this article: https://mcgarrah.org/dell-wyse-3040-emmc-monitoring/, Turned out to be really useful & as it seems, my eMMC is in pretty good state!

root@wise:~# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk0 | grep -E 'LIFE|EOL'
eMMC Life Time Estimation A [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_A]: 0x01
eMMC Life Time Estimation B [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_B]: 0x01
eMMC Pre EOL information [EXT_CSD_PRE_EOL_INFO]: 0x01

With just 0-10% of life time used & less than 80% of reserved blocks consumed. I'm also looking into how I can make my eMMC read-only unless I want to update the software or something.

I found a few old pictures of iterations of my "homelab" in the middle of Nebraska between 1999-2005 ... back in the day. During this time I transitioned from primarily ISP work to ... well you can probably guess where I worked when the last picture was taken ... The first picture with the two desktop machines are fractional T1 bandwidth to a Cisco 2600 and a linux firewall (the "Team Internet" box was just a generic PC running linux with several interfaces) and just two generic desktop machines doing DNS, web hosting and email.... The second picture was multiple internet connections coming in to a Juniper and a Pix firewall .... Do any of you have some OLD pictures of what it looked like at your house when you very first started "self hosting"?

A friend of mine wanted something to mess with and actually learn from, but buying another SBC just for that felt a bit stupid.
Then I remembered he still had his old Redmi Note 9 Pro somewhere.
My first thought was: fine, let's put Debian in a VM on Android and call it a day.
Then I thought about it for more than five minutes and realized that was boring.
I checked postmarketOS support, found out miatoll was still being maintained, and at that point the obvious bad idea became: why keep Android at all?
So we removed it.

A few days later the phone was booting native postmarketOS, accessible over SSH, with a 128 GB microSD for extra storage.
At that point we already had a perfectly usable little ARM server.
We could have stopped there.
Obviously we didn't.

The phone still had a 1080x2400 display, touchscreen, ambient light sensor, accelerometer, battery, USB-C...
Basically a bunch of hardware that would have just sat there doing nothing.
So I started wondering how much of it we could actually reuse.

The kernel didn't have framebuffer console rotation enabled, so instead of going down the kernel rebuild rabbit hole just to rotate a TTY, we ended up rendering our own dashboard with Pillow and writing it directly to /dev/fb0.
Then, since things were already getting stupid, we added:
• system, network and service stats on the built-in display
• automatic brightness using the ambient light sensor
• automatic landscape orientation using the accelerometer
• display off from 00:00 to 08:00
• touch to wake for 30 seconds
• persistent microSD storage

And again, we could have stopped there.

The next day I started thinking that Wi-Fi was still a pointless bottleneck for something sitting literally on top of the router, especially if he eventually wanted to play with WireGuard, NetBird, remote services, file transfers, whatever.
So we bought a USB-C hub with Gigabit Ethernet and PD passthrough.
Ethernet worked almost immediately.
Great.
Then we connected power.

Linux started throwing kernel Oopses and the network died.
The phone itself stayed on, but networking would completely shit itself and the display started filling with kernel logs.
So we started digging.

We found a missing Realtek firmware package, installed it, rebooted, tested again, and... nope.
Still broken.
Eventually the interesting part turned out to be the device tree.

The sm7125-xiaomi Type-C connector was described as:
power-role = "source";

Which is not exactly ideal when you want the phone to stay USB host for Ethernet while also receiving power through the same port.
So we patched the DTB to use a dual role with sink preference and 5 V sink PDOs.

Of course that wasn't the end of it.
Simply putting the patched DTB in /boot/dtbs did absolutely nothing because U-Boot was not loading it the way we expected.
After another round of debugging, we finally got the correct override into the boot entry.

At that point we had:
• native postmarketOS
• Gigabit Ethernet on eth0
• USB-C PD at 5 V / 2 A
• Wi-Fi disabled
• custom local dashboard
• automatic brightness and orientation
• touchscreen and sensors still doing something useful instead of being dead weight

Then we spent a completely unreasonable amount of time testing chargers and cables because some combinations worked and others absolutely did not.
The funny part is that the 20 W PD charger we bought specifically for this thing looked like one of the broken ones for half the afternoon.
Then we tried it again with its original USB-C cable.
And it worked.

So yes, after all of that, the final setup is actually running Ethernet and power through the same USB-C hub.

We documented the DTB fix, the reapply script and the crash logs here:
https://github.com/MarcoBllfr/miatoll-usb-pd-ethernet-fix

The repo now belongs to my friend Marco since this is his machine, and we're hoping to use this whole mess as an excuse to learn how contributing something upstream actually works.
No PR yet.
That's the next rabbit hole.

AI disclosure because I know this sub understandably cares about it:
I used a coding agent heavily during the whole thing for checking commands, digging through logs, writing the dashboard and scripts, and helping investigate the DTB and USB problem.
I was the one driving the process, testing every change on the actual hardware and deciding what to try next, but I definitely did not become a Linux kernel developer in one afternoon.
Half of the fun for me was exactly that.
I was poking at stuff I've heard about for years without pretending I suddenly understand all of it.

I wrote the full story here, with all the photos and the parts where things went wrong:
https://okazakee.dev/en/blog/19/why-buy-a-raspberry-when-you-have-a-redmi

Main takeaway for me: we leave an absurd amount of perfectly usable ARM hardware sitting in drawers just because the vendor stopped expecting us to use it.
This thing has a decent SoC, RAM, storage, a battery, a display, sensors, USB-C and now native Linux.
And yes, buying a Raspberry Pi would have been way easier.

earlier this week i showed off as a proof of a RTL8127ATF working on a mac using a driver made from a git. But it was just a proof of concept. Finally a all in one solution came in, and works like a charm as well on macs.

This is a USB4/Thunderbolt based adapter and shows up under the system as a thunderbolt pcie bridge. then a realtek chip connected to that.

Side note for anyone whos uses macs, those running MacOS 27+, they ship with its own realtek driver. So plugs n play on those.

Here is the link

Hi everyone, after you bastard brought me into this life consuming hobby, I finally finished printing my last part and started the assembled server. Thanks for the inspiration and the community !

The specs are as followed :

all the 3d prints where taken from printable and modified by myself or if nothing fits i would design my own.

I have a covr relay connected to a switch which power 3 pcs.

first is a beelink which is used as the core and is running my homepage, portainer and more.

Second is a raspebrry pi 5 4gb with a radxa penta sata hat connected to 4 hdd in raid one. It is running open media vault. one of the usb will be used as a usb to sata connector plugged in a ssd for boot not to rely on a sd card.

Then there is a full micro atx pc with a full power supply mounted in the back. It is running a minecraft server and powering the 4 fans on the sides.

Honestly it is a spaghetti monster inside but its mine.

Don't hesitate if you have questions i'll try to answer and I can share and inside view of the server if you guys want !

Also now that it is operational, I'll try to make a post about everything running on it with a good diagram or whaterver.

Thank you fellow redditors !

Recently picked up these from a guy on fb marketplace! Super excited to start playing around with them. Yes I know a 48 port switch is overkill. I already had plans to wire the house for Ethernet before this so I’ll have about 20ish ports open to play around with. The server is already running proxmox with a few different VMs. My family has no idea they’ve become test subjects for my little project😂. Any advice on stuff to do and work on would be amazing!

Last week I shared The Crawler Zoo here: a site on my homelab that catches every bot that visits and shows it in a live zoo. Then a post about it on r/InternetIsBeautiful passed 1.3 million views. I expected the box to struggle. It barely noticed.

The only downtime was my own doing

About an hour, when I moved it from VLAN isolation to full network isolation. The lab was previously separated from my home network by a small Mikrotik router with a VLAN that cordoned traffic from my projects from my home network. I have since moved to a Unifi Gateway that more easily and thoroughly separates the traffic.

Why it stayed calm

- One container, SQLite in WAL mode.

- Cloudflare caches the static files only. Pages can't be cached, because every visit has to reach the box to be counted. So the box does real work for every page.

- Live views share one update.The live pages use a stream per viewer, but the server builds one update a second and sends the same one to everyone. A hard cap on open streams means a rush can't run it out of memory.

- Container limits.CPU and memory caps, a read-only root filesystem, all Linux capabilities dropped.

What's new since last week

- Follow a bot live through the endless maze it fell into: /labyrinth

- **The Arena now has live multiplayer games.** The Heist (up to 8 bots on one map), Labyrinth Royale (every bot in one collapsing maze), and an Escape Room for AI agents. The turn timers run inside the same container, with at most 20 games of each kind at once.

- Watch it all live at /arena/live.

- Features are toggled one at a time from the LAN-only admin console, then watch the load before the next one.

https://crawlerzoo.com/arena/live

It ain’t much but I spun up Pi-Hole on my Pi for my first project and now I want more. Any suggestions what else I van do with my Pi

It’s finally done! It took a long time setting this up, with looking for affordable (and sometimes not affordable) hardware and just wrapping my head around networking in general. I have two switches, an opensense device, home assistant, proxmox server, PBS, truenas, APC with battery.

Now the digital tinkering begins.

Hi r/homelab,

I’ve got an HP ProDesk 405 G6 Desktop Mini PC (motherboard DAF92MB26B0 Rev B) that originally came with an Athlon Gold PRO 3150GE and a 16MB BIOS chip (Winbond 25Q128JVSQ). I wanted to upgrade to a Ryzen 3 4300GE, which is officially supported on this model, but only with BIOS version S27.

The problem:

· Current BIOS is S25 (Ver. 02.23.00), which only supports 3000-series CPUs.

· S27 requires a 32MB BIOS chip. My board has a 16MB chip, so a simple BIOS update is impossible.

· After swapping in the 4300GE, I get the error code 7 red / 5 white (which HP documents as "ROM detected failure prior to video").

· I tried running HP’s Firmware Update utility, but it won’t cross-flash from S25 to S27, and it reports no change.

My research so far:

· On vlab.su, a user with a similar board (DA0F92MB6F0 Rev F) tried replacing the 16MB chip with a 32MB MX25L25673G and flashing an S27 dump. It didn’t work – they got 6 red / 3 white instead.

· Another user confirmed that S27 contains different SMU firmware for 4000-series CPUs.

· I’ve found a 32MB S27 dump for my board revision.

· My plan is to replace the 25Q128JVSQ with a Winbond W25Q256JVEIQ (32MB, WSON-8) using a CH341A programmer and a WSON8-to-DIP8 adapter.

My questions:

1. Has anyone successfully performed this exact swap on a 405 G6 (or similar HP mini PC)? If so, what was your procedure?

2. Besides the main BIOS chip, is there anything else that needs to be modified? I noticed there’s also a 4MB EC chip (MX25L3255E) on the board. Could that be involved?

3. Are there any specific steps needed when flashing the 32MB dump – e.g., preserving the board’s serial number, MAC address, or other descriptors? I’ve read that HP BIOS images often contain a descriptor region and ME region that might need to be transferred.

4. If the swap fails, are there any alternative workarounds (e.g., using a different CPU that works with S25, or modifying the S25 image to add 4000-series support)?

I have a CH341A programmer, a WSON8 adapter, and the 32MB dump ready. I’m willing to try, but I’d like to know if there’s a known working method before I risk bricking the board.

Any insight or experience would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I’ve been working on putting together my first homelab and wanted to share my progress so far. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m pretty excited about how it’s coming together.
A little background: I’ve spent about 10 years working in the electrical/construction field, and lately I’ve been seriously interested in transitioning further into IT, networking, security systems, and eventually cybersecurity.
I wanted something hands-on where I could actually learn how networking equipment works instead of just watching videos or reading about it.
I’m currently living with family, so I didn’t want a massive rack taking up space. I decided to challenge myself to build everything around a compact 10-inch rack. I know space and equipment compatibility will be limited, but that’s part of what makes the project interesting.
Current Setup
Here’s what I’ve installed so far, from top to bottom:
Tec Mojo 10-inch rack: The foundation for the setup.
Rack-mounted HDMI monitor: Installed at the top. I haven’t powered it on yet, but the idea is to use it for local troubleshooting, system administration, and working directly with the equipment.
12-port CAT6 patch panel: Three ports are currently patched into the switch. I’m trying to keep everything organized and learn proper cable management from the beginning.
Brush cable management panel: Helps route cables while keeping the front relatively clean.
MokerLink managed 2.5GbE PoE switch: Eight 2.5GbE ports with a 10G SFP+ uplink. I specifically wanted a managed switch so I could experiment with VLANs, network segmentation, PoE devices, and more advanced networking concepts.
Ventilated rack shelf: Installed below the switch for additional hardware.
Blank panels: Filling unused rack space for a cleaner appearance. I’m also ordering another vented blank panel to finish the open section.
Nothing has been powered on yet. I’m still working through the physical assembly, equipment placement, and cable management before moving into configuration.
Hardware I’m Planning to Add
HP Mini PC
I’m waiting to get an older HP Mini PC that was previously used as a home computer. Rather than spending money on another machine, I want to repurpose hardware that’s already available to me.
Depending on its specifications, I’m considering installing Proxmox and using it to learn virtualization, Linux, Windows Server, Active Directory, and other server-related technologies.
Raspberry Pi 5
I also plan to add a Raspberry Pi 5 as a dedicated lightweight server.
Some potential uses include:
Pi-hole for network-wide DNS filtering
Network monitoring
Docker containers
Home automation
Linux administration practice
Small networking and scripting projects
M4 Mac Mini
I already have an M4 Mac Mini that serves as my everyday computer. It won’t be permanently installed in the rack, but I’ll use it for remote administration, SSH, development, and managing the lab.
What I Want to Learn
I’m not building this just to have a cool-looking rack with blinking lights. I want it to be an actual learning environment.
1. Networking
I want to understand VLANs, subnetting, DHCP, DNS, routing, firewall rules, managed switches, and network troubleshooting.
Eventually, I’d like to create multiple isolated networks for different purposes, such as trusted devices, IoT equipment, security cameras, and lab experiments.
2. PoE Cameras and Security Systems
Coming from an electrical background, this is one of the areas I’m most interested in.
I want to learn how to install and configure IP cameras, PoE switches, NVR systems, and network infrastructure.
Long term, I’d like to explore starting a small camera installation and networking business, combining my electrical experience with new IT skills.
3. Servers and Virtualization
Once I have the HP Mini PC, I want to experiment with virtual machines, operating systems, containers, and basic server administration.
I’d eventually like to build a small virtual enterprise network where I can practice skills relevant to help desk, systems administration, and networking jobs.
4. Cybersecurity
Once I understand the networking fundamentals, I want to experiment with firewall configurations, network monitoring, log analysis, vulnerability scanning, and security testing within my own isolated lab environment.
I’m especially interested in learning how to secure networks rather than just getting everything connected.
5. Automation and Development
I also have a few personal software projects I’m working on, and eventually I’d like to use the lab for development, testing, automation, and hosting small services.
Why I Chose a 10-Inch Rack
Honestly, space and budget were the biggest factors.
I could have gone with a larger rack, but I wanted something compact that I could realistically keep in my current living situation.
I also like the idea of figuring out how to make everything fit efficiently.
The limited space forces me to think about airflow, cable management, power distribution, equipment dimensions, and future expansion before purchasing anything.
I’m trying to avoid buying hardware just because it looks interesting. Every device should serve a purpose and teach me something.
What’s Next?
My immediate priorities are:
Finish installing the remaining vented panel.
Clean up the patch cables and cable routing.
Power on and test the rack monitor.
Power on and configure the MokerLink switch.
Establish a connection to my home network.
Get the HP Mini PC installed and running.
Add the Raspberry Pi 5.
Start working through structured networking and server projects.
I’m also considering how best to connect the rack to my existing Verizon Fios network, including whether MoCA might make sense depending on the available wiring.
Looking for Feedback
Since this is my first homelab, I’m sure there are things I could improve.
I’d appreciate feedback on the equipment layout, ventilation, cable management, and anything else you notice from the picture.
I’m especially curious whether anyone else is running a 10-inch rack with a mini PC, Raspberry Pi, and managed PoE switch.
Are there any beginner-friendly projects you’d recommend that would help build practical networking skills?
My overall goal is to use this setup to transition from electrical work into networking, IT, and potentially cybersecurity while also developing skills I could eventually turn into a business.
Still early in the process, but I’m enjoying the build and looking forward to actually getting everything running.
Any advice, criticism, or project suggestions are welcome!

Petg was a b*tch to print with! It took my friend and I a couple months to print decent enough parts to put together a simple LabRax 10" minirack. But I'm glad I finally got it together! Xfinity sent me a free upgraded modem with 10G ports, and it was so easy to swap cables and add in a new 2.5G switch with everything already in one place. Although I wish we had printed more shelves!

My homelab is a Lattepanda Delta running a Samba share and Wireguard, Lattepanda Iota running a Nextcloud server with a Terramaster 2 slot DAS for storage, as well as 1G and 2.5G Ethernet switches. The new Steam pyrowave codec on the experimental build makes in-home gamestreaming look FANTASTIC over 2.5G lan with an upgraded nic on my HTPC.

This is all set up in the livingroom right next to my tv stand btw

A few months ago, I posted my bare-metal HP EliteDesk 800 G5 OPNsense build here. The feedback, discussions, and advice from this community were incredible and taught me a ton.

Since then, the lab has evolved beyond desktop shelves. I wanted to build a proper, structured environment to practice enterprise networking, virtualization, and systems administration. The entire process from unboxing and torquing together the flat-pack steel rack to terminating cables and tuning clusters was an absolute blast.

1. The Physical Rack & Power Infrastructure
Chassis/Frame: 22U enclosed steel server rack (600x1000mm) with perforated front/rear doors for passive airflow.
Power Delivery: Dual PDUs (PDU 01 top, PDU 02 bottom). Everything critical is systematically labeled to keep track of load distribution and ensure maintenance doesn't involve blindly pulling cords.
Cabling & Patching: Keystone patch panel directly above the switch using slim patch leads to keep runs short, clean, and serviceable without massive cable bundles blocking exhaust.

2. Edge Routing & Switching (10GbE Backbone)
Building on my previous post, the network core is structured around multi-gig redundancy and 10GbE uplinks:
Firewall (HP EliteDesk 800 G5 SFF):
Intel Core i5-9500 | 16GB RAM | 2x 256GB NVMe (ZFS Mirror).
NICs: Intel i226-T2 (Dual 2.5GbE) handling dual WAN connections (two separate ISPs configured for automated multi-WAN failover) + Intel x520-DA2 (Dual 10GbE SFP+).
Core Switch: TP-Link TL-SG3428XMP (24x Gigabit PoE+ with 4x 10G SFP+ uplink ports).
Linked to the OPNsense box via a 1m 10G SFP+ Direct Attach Copper (DAC) cable.
Access Point: TP-Link Omada EAP650 PoE+ ceiling-mount AP.

3. Compute Cluster: 3x HP Z2 G4 Workstations
Directly beneath the switch and firewall sit three identical HP Z2 G4 SFF workstation nodes forming the hypervisor tier.
Per-Node Specs:
CPU: Intel Core i7-8700 (6C/12T)
RAM: 64GB DDR4
Storage: 1x 256GB NVMe (Boot/OS) + 1x 1TB NVMe (VM datastores)
Networking: Intel x520-DA2 (Dual 10G SFP+) connected back to the switch via 3m DACs, alongside the onboard 1GbE NICs.

4. Storage Architecture & Hypervisor Lessons: Ceph vs. Local ZFS
The Ceph Experiment: As you can see in the rear wiring shots, I originally set up full cluster storage using Ceph, isolating dedicated Ceph storage traffic onto the 10GbE SFP+ links while relegating corosync/general cluster management to the onboard 1G NICs. It was a fantastic learning experience in distributed storage dynamics, quorum, and network latency.
Current Running State: For my current 3-node scale, I transitioned to Proxmox VE with local ZFS storage pools, scheduled ZFS replication jobs, and Proxmox High Availability (HA). This significantly reduced storage write amplification and overhead while keeping failover rock-solid for lightweight workloads.

5. Network Segmentation & Environment Overview
Network isolation is handled at Layer 2/Layer 3 with dedicated VLANs:
VLAN Architecture:
Core Management: Hypervisors, out-of-band interfaces, and managed network hardware.
IoT / Smart Home: Local-control devices strictly isolated from reaching the wider LAN or internet.
Guest Network: Segmented visitor access.
Storage: Dedicated subnet carved out for high-bandwidth node replication.
Tenant / Isolated Dev: A dedicated VLAN routed through an encrypted site-to-site tunnel for a friend who needed an isolated sandbox to develop and test applications safely away from my internal systems.

Operations & Monitoring Stack:
Running a central Docker VM managing operations tooling: network operations control (NOC), centralized telemetry and infrastructure mapping, security auditing/SOC logging, and automated container lifecycle maintenance.

6. What’s Next for the Lab?
Because a homelab is never truly "done," the next phases involve:

1. Bulk Storage Expansion: Adding high-capacity spinning disks to stand up a dedicated centralized storage pool and continuous security video ingestion.
2. Document Management: Setting up automated OCR indexing and digital archiving pipelines.
3. Enterprise Directory & Cloud Testing: Standing up directory domain services, enterprise identity management, and multi-node lightweight cloud testing.
4. Security Lab: An isolated virtual cyber range for defensive auditing and offensive security experiments.
5. Edge AI & Computer Vision: Slotting in dedicated hardware acceleration (GPU or edge TPU) to test small, local language models and agricultural-tech computer vision pipelines.

Massive thanks to everyone here who shares build logs, answers obscure driver questions, and troubleshoots networking issues. Happy to answer any questions about thermals, DAC compatibility, or SFF workstation rack-mounting!

P.S. If you’re wondering about the "high-density 1U server shelf" supporting the nodes at the bottom: yes, that is indeed a retired Quanta QSSC-2ML chassis acting as the most over-engineered, heavy-duty shelf in homelab history. It may no longer be crunching enterprise workloads, but its structural integrity is doing a 10/10 job keeping gravity from ruining my cluster.

I needed some caddies to fit 2.5” SSDs in my Jonsbo N3. I tried printing a model I found online but it didn’t fit, so I stayed up late for 3 evenings designing my own and am very happy with how they came out.

They are a one piece PLA print with no supports.

The design includes sprung clips to hold the drive in place which work perfectly and give a very satisfying click when you insert a drive.

The top rail is also sprung and the rails are spaced slightly wider than the slots on the case, meaning that the springs compress slightly as the drives are inserted. This was done to create a snug fit and reduce vibration from adjacent spinning hard drives.

I designed it for the Jonsbo N3 but I assume it’d fit an N2, and possibly some others.

I designed these last year, spent a lot of time on it, and only actually use 2 of them in my server. I had planned to share the design but never got round to it. Posting to see if there’s any interest, and if there is, hopefully that’ll give me the motivation to upload the files somewhere (haven’t shared a design before so recommendations on where to share would be appreciated)

The person I bought those rails from apparently had them mounted the wrong way. (the left rail on the right and vice versa)

Do you know any good way to get them apart. I can't reach the lever which should as far as I know be visible here and should release them. (they are as far extended as they go.