Some more homelab shenanigans
After setting up my to Proxmox nodes (not a cluster yet: I am still exploring how to set this up) and messing around a bit with it, I went full-out. After all; if you have the hardware why not use it? So what have I set up so far?
So, what did we accomplish so far?
Well a bit of a list actually. It cost me a couple of weekends working on this, but the result is kind of satisfying so far. All in all I:
- Setup Immich which has been great as a Google Photos alternative!
- Setup my bookmark tool Karakeep and as a backup Linkwarden (following the age old adagium: “one is none, two is one”)
- Setup two Adguard instances that keep my network Ad-free
- Setup an additional Pi-hole ad filtering instance so I can switch to that in case of issues.
- Setup two Jellfin media instances (again: one is none, two is one, also: Plex Media Server is really getting out of hand with their prices so this is an insurance in a way)
- Setup additional Plex media server instances (since I have a lifetime Plex pass – bought when it was still affordable)
- Setup Seerr for media requests for my Arr stack (a collection of open-source, self-hosted applications that automate the process of finding, downloading, organizing, and managing digital media.).
- Set up an Ubuntu 26.04.xx VM
- Setup Azuracast to run the Ubuntu 26.04.xx VM in order to resurrect my iLounge 24×7 radio station.
- Connected my Azuracast to Last.fm to scrobble my playlists (which didn’t work first);
- Set up my own AMP Game Application Management Panel (I will need to move this to another server, but I learned a lot already from setting it up
- Set up a Luanti server under AMP (basically a free, open source Minecraft clone)
- Set up a Xonotic FPS shooter under AMP (a pretty cool free and open-source Unreal Tournament-like shooter)
- Added a Proxmox Backup Server (aka PBS)
- Added a Pulse monitoring service that keeps an eye on my Proxmox instances hardware and LXC containers and my PBS (very handy)
- Setup Uptime Kuma to monitor my individual applications
- Installed automatic updates for my Proxmox LXC’s
- Installed automatic updates for the Proxmox LXC’s operating systems (usually Debian 13.x based)
- Last, but definitely not least – as it in a way is the most important part: Nginx proxy manager. This tool ties everything together for outside access. It really is great.
AI struggles
Like a lot of people I am trying to use AI to help me out with configuring things. But I did find that AI has a lot of trouble giving you directions when it comes to guiding you through a lot of issues. Nine out of ten times it goes for the most convoluted way of doing things, i.e. via the command line when you can do things using a GUI. And when it does try to guide you using the GUI, it really messes up by coming up with things that don’t even exist.
It is really good at messing things up.
What’s next?
Well, since nothing is perfect I do see my Node 1 (the one with the VM on it) going down more that I would like. When this happens and I am not present, I have to wait till I get home and reboot things. In order to solve that problem I would definitely like to own a KVM over IP. Except I need one that can handle both of my Nodes. Also, monitoring everything from inside my network isn’t the best option either: if the node that runs Pulse goes down, or the PC that runs Uptime Kuma does, I don’t even know something is down. My internet has proven to be very stable and fast so far, but I wouldn’t mind a 5G backup option either.
Anyway, I will write a follow-up soon about the operating systems I use for some of my other servers.
One thing about homelabbing: you’re never done