Hopefully this is not too long! There has been a lot of changes since the last time I posted a full overview like this

    • Faceman🇦🇺@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      11·
      3 years ago

      I think the reason we aren’t rich is because we do shit like this.

      Anyway, I’m off to buy enough HDDs to get me through the end of the month.

    • GiantPossum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      10·
      3 years ago

      Honestly its all cheaper than you think, 100% of it I bought used bar a few things, and over a long amount of time too. Plus messing with stuff like this has 100% helped me advance my career

    • CriticalMiss@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 years ago

      You’ll be surprised how cheap some equipment goes for when a company runs out of business. Just sayin

      • LrdThndr@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 years ago

        I’ve been trying to hunt down cheap used network equipment lately. It’s a weird thing to be disappointed that there aren’t any failing businesses around me :(

        I’m about to make an 8 hour round trip drive for a cheap server rack this coming weekend. Please send help.

  • Fabbbrrr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    3 years ago

    Wow. That’s really an overkill.

    Any idea what’s the power consumption of all that hardware?

    How many hours a month do you spend upgrading or maintaining the network and all other software?

    • GiantPossum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      3 years ago

      Honestly, I’m not 100% sure. I don’t have a way to monitor just the stuff in the rack as the UPS also powers a lot of other stuff in the house. Either way, I’ve worked to make everything fairly low power, or at least as low power as feasible. The things that use the most power is the disks

      I can tell you its less than 800w though, as that’s the lowest the UPS goes at night. But that also does include both me and my wifes desktops which stay on 24/7, and an Apple TV, and standby power for all devices etc

  • node815@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    3 years ago

    Great job on the cabling and the setup! As an Apartment dweller, I hope you don’t mind my living vicariously through your setup!

    • GiantPossum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      3 years ago

      I’ve been there! Such a hassle. It was great when I moved and was finally able to do what I wanted

    • GiantPossum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      4·
      3 years ago

      It sure can, but so far I’ve not found much use for it. I set it up to see if it can block YouTube ads in the mobile app, but it can’t. Since I already use uBlock Origin, I don’t know what I gain

      • dinckel@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        3 years ago

        At least from my experience, with a proper blacklist it shuts down a ton more stuff. Not just pure ads, but a ton of tracking and websites/apps phoning home too. You can configure it to be as strict or lenient as you’d like, basically. For me it’s nice, because I can just apply it to the entire network, and I don’t have to worry about trying to explain how this works to my family

          • retrodaredevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 years ago

            Also has the benefit of being a completely local DNS server for all your devices to use. I think you are also able to add custom entries if you wanted to be able to refer to your devices using dns. It also has some caching benefits so there are less DNS requests going out of your home network.

            Personally I set up AdGuard Home because it has DNS over HTTPS support out of the box, which means your ISP cannot see your DNS requests. Pihole supports this too, but it requires additional setup.

          • Artemis@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            3 years ago

            Check out the Star Trek theme for PiHole! It’s one of the default options.

  • 𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙚@programming.devEnglish
    6·
    3 years ago

    Gah, treasure trove of info. Thank you for sharing! How’s the garage rack holding up? I’m so tempted to put some servers in my garage but the heat can get excessive.

    • GiantPossum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      3 years ago

      Zero problems, often times stuff in the house is actually hotter than stuff in the garage funnily enough, even in summer

  • mordred@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    3 years ago

    Fucking amazing writeup, I haven’t read it all yet but from what I read there’s a lot of good information and inspiration

  • mipadaitu@lemmy.worldEnglish
    61·
    3 years ago

    Solid writeup. Good looking setup. I like how you have a great reason for every decision you made.

    Crazy overkill for almost everyone, but you’re living in the future!

  • iconic_admin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    3 years ago

    Crazy awesome setup! I noticed you had an enphase inverter next to your electrical meter, I assume for solar panels. Would you mind giving details about that system? What size array do you have and how efficient has it been? How are you monitoring the solar systems output?

  • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    3 years ago

    Hi OP. If you’re reading this, I have a few questions:

    1. You’re using the Linode box as the server, on which you forward ports for your services. Am I to assume that you somehow access your homelab via your VPN using the Linode box too? Usually people would access their lab at home directly.
    2. Wouldn’t a whitebox build for your NAS save power?
    3. What are you using both switches for? Are you running out of ports?
    4. Since you’re running VMWare, are you running VMs for every service? Why not containers?
    5. Even if most of the content on your blog is static, how are you hosting it for it to load so quickly? Are you using some sort of CDN in front of your Linode box to cache the static assets like pictures?

    It was great reading about your lab. I’ll try and follow your blog on RSS if you have a feed. Thanks.

    • GiantPossum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      3 years ago
      1. You’re using the Linode box as the server, on which you forward ports for your services. Am I to assume that you somehow access your homelab via your VPN using the Linode box too? Usually people would access their lab at home directly.

      Yes, I also access the lab via the Linode box. I do however have direct VPN access too. The reason for using the Linode box is that for some reason, the speed and latency via the Linode box is far better that directly in. I can only assume its some kind of peering thing. I always connect in via my phone on T-Mobile, so perhaps the connection between T-Mobile and Linode, and the connection between AT&T and Linode, is better than T-Mobile to AT&T Residential? Unsure, all I know is that it works 100x better. And it also means I don’t need 2 different connections for the primary and secondary WAN, I can just connected to Linode and it will connect over whatever connection is active

      1. Wouldn’t a whitebox build for your NAS save power?

      This really is a whitebox build, it uses very little power. The disks use the most amount of power, which there is no getting around

      1. What are you using both switches for? Are you running out of ports?

      The 1Gb switches? yes, I ran out of ports on the Dell, or am very, very close

      1. Since you’re running VMWare, are you running VMs for every service? Why not containers?

      Everything that can run in containers already is, on Debian VM’s within ESXi

      1. Even if most of the content on your blog is static, how are you hosting it for it to load so quickly? Are you using some sort of CDN in front of your Linode box to cache the static assets like pictures?

      I am using CloudFlare in front of it, so that’s probably why. But even directly its pretty quick. I guess NVMe storage and decent internet means its fast?

      Thanks!

      • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 years ago

        How do you relay your VPN connection over your Linode box? I can understand a direct VPN connection, but I can’t understand the networking behind relaying the VPN connection around the Linode box.

        Ah, yes CloudFlare is a great proxy/CDN. Thanks

    • steeev@midwest.socialEnglish
      1·
      3 years ago

      Not OP, but also curious about number 5, I noticed that blog article loaded lickety-split!

      • GiantPossum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        3·
        3 years ago

        Good to hear! I replied above about it, here was my reply

        I am using CloudFlare in front of it, so that’s probably why. But even directly its pretty quick. I guess NVMe storage and decent internet means its fast?

  • Foreverwinter@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 years ago

    You. I like you.

    Honestly amazing setup. It’s more robust than some industrial applications I’ve seen.

    Thanks for such a great write-up. I’ll definitely be referring back to it as I upgrade my homelab.

    Cheers!

  • Faceman🇦🇺@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    41·
    3 years ago

    Sweet setup, what’s the reason for the extreme attention to backup power? is the grid really that unreliable where you are?

    I’ve had one unplanned power outage in the last 10 years so it seems like a crazy amount of backup to me.

    • GiantPossum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      7·
      3 years ago

      The grid both is and isn’t unreliable. I’ve not had many random outages, but I have had 2 x day long outages on hot Friday’s when they were replacing power poles, which the generator of course kept me through. Working from home, and being in the Texas heat, that would be bad. And I like many people now have really bad power outage PTSD after the 2021 Texas Freeze where we all lost power. I’ll never let that happen again! And turning everything off is such a hassle, I want it to to all stay on no matter what. Since I work from home, that adds another layer too. Plus, I just like cool things