Introduction#
Since 2023, I have been building and maintaining a personal homelab infrastructure to both experiment with new technologies, secure my data and explore complex system architectures. This project represents a complete IT ecosystem at small scale, covering virtualization, networking, automation, home automation, development, and data services.
My main objectives:
- Gain independence from proprietary cloud services (self-hosting).
- Develop hands-on skills in infrastructure, security, and automation.
- Experiment with an architect mindset by designing an integrated multi-pillar system.
Global Architecture#
Pillar 1 – Infrastructure#
- Virtualization: Proxmox to isolate and manage environments.
- Networking & security: pfSense as firewall and DNS.
- Automation: Ansible + Semaphore for deployments.
- Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana, Uptime Kuma, Homepage for alerting and observability.
- Service management: Portainer for Docker, Vaultwarden for secrets management.
What I learned:
- network architecture,
- security,
- automation,
- monitoring,
- multi-VM/container management.
What’s next ?:
- Using Ansible & Semaphore to backup my data instead of cron
- Trying out checkmate for monitoring
- Monitor my storage with prometheus
- Add NAS inside PLAN
Pillar 2 – Home Automation#
- Central control: Home Assistant as the home automation hub.
- IoT communication: MQTT + Zigbee2MQTT.
- Surveillance: Frigate for video monitoring.
- Organization: Homebox for equipment inventory.
What I learned:
- protocols,
- system integration,
- edge computing
What’s next ?:
- Making my own iot device with esphome
Pillar 3 – Development#
- Versioning & collaboration: self-hosted Gitea.
- CI/CD: Gitea Actions for automated testing and deployment.
What I learned:
- DevOps,
- continuous integration,
- source code management,
- automated workflows.
What’s next ?:
- Improving CI/CD to use semaphore webhook to deploy from pipeline
- Pulling images to use from base in Dockerfile instead of fetching from Docker Hub or github each times
Pillar 4 – Data Services#
- Media: Jellyfin for media streaming.
- Document management: Paperless NGX for scanning and indexing.
- Finance: Actual Budget for personal finance tracking.
What I learned:
- self-hosting,
- sensitive data management,
- service reliability.
What’s next ?:
- No immediate plans, focusing on maintaining current setup and stability
Related Posts:
Results & Learnings#
- Designed and deployed an infrastructure similar to a small-scale enterprise IT system.
- Hands-on experience with:
- IT architecture design,
- automation and CI/CD,
- network security and segmentation,
- monitoring and observability.
- Ability to document and maintain a long-term technical project.
This project is continuously updated as I test new solutions and refine my infrastructure.
