Home lab
My Daily Companions
I strive to use resources sustainably and consciously, opting to repair rather than replace items whenever possible. This philosophy is reflected in the list of my daily companions. The only exception is my iPhone, which is provided by my employer and replaced approximately every three years.
- Apple iPhone 16 Pro (2024), A18 Pro, 6.3”, 128 GB
- Apple iPad Mini Cellular (2024), A17 Pro, 8,3”, 128 GB
- Apple MacBook Pro (2021), M1 Pro, 1 TB, 16 GB RAM
- Samsung 4K Display
- Logitech MX Keys for Mac
- Logitech MX Master 3 for Mac
As a computer scientist, I don't just use my PC for browsing the web or writing letters only. I've been self-hosting smaller services, such as my password manager, for several years to keep my data secure. Last autumn, I took a significant step by replacing all possible services with self-hosted alternatives, including my own social media services and mail server.
Proxmox Cluster
Below you will find a few photos of my old “home lab” (29.05.2024). As you can see, there was still room for improvement in terms of professionalization at the time.
my grown homelab within an IKEA sideboard
In the meantime (28.07.2024) something has happened, and the current status is as follows.
nearly current state
Hardware (last update: 18.11.2024)
- 1x Lenovo ThinkCentre M920Q Tiny, Intel i5-8500T CPU, 64 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD storage
- 1x Lenovo ThinkCentre M920Q Tiny, Intel i5-8500T CPU, 40 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD storage
- 1x Lenovo ThinkCentre M920Q Tiny, Intel i5-8500T CPU, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD storage
Software (last update: 04.08.2025)
Proxmox Virtual Environment with various LXC containers for:
- AdGuard Home (ads blocking DNS server, primary and secondary for redundancy)
- AdGuard Sync (for synchronizing settings)
- AnonymousOverflow (StackOverflow privacy frontend)
- Audiobookshelf (self-hosted audiobook and podcast server)
- Bitwarden (long-used password manager)
- Beszel (simple, lightweight server monitoring)
- BookStack (personal knowledge base)
- ChangeDetection (page change monitoring with alerts a breeze)
- DumbAssets (a stupid simple asset tracker)
- DumbKan (a dumb Kanban Board)
- DumbTerm (a stupidly simple web-based terminal emulator)
- DumbWhois (a web application for looking up WHOIS, IP, etc.)
- Elk (a nimble Mastodon web client)
- Fediwall (social media wall for the fediverse)
- Forgejo (self-hosted lightweight software forge)
- FreshRSS (most used application)
- Homepage (simple dashboard)
- Immich (iCloud photo storage alternative)
- Invidious (privacy backend for YouTube)
- IT-Tools (a collection of handy online tools for developers, with great UX)
- Jellyfin (a free software media system)
- Karakeep (occasionally used for scheduling)
- Komga (a media server for comics/mangas/BDs/magazines/eBooks)
- LibMedium (privacy frontend for Medium)
- LibreMDB (a free & open source IMDb front-end)
- Lidarr (a music collection manager for Usenet user)
- Mealie (recipe management)
- MeTube (self-hosted YouTube downloader)
- MiniQR (generate customized qr codes easily)
- ntfy (a simple HTTP-based pub-sub notification service)
- Pangolin (a tunnelled reverse proxy Server like Cloudflare)
- Phanpy (a minimalistic opinionated Mastodon web client)
- Piped (privacy frontend for YouTube)
- Pocket ID (a simple and easy-to-use OIDC provider)
- Portchecker (an online utility to check the port status of a hostname/IP)
- Radarr (a video collection manager for Usenet user)
- RedLib (privacy frontend for Reddit)
- RustDesk (my remote support platform)
- SABnzbd (Free and easy binary newsreader)
- SafeTwitch (privacy forntend for Twitch)
- SearXNG (privacy-friendly Google alternative)
- Sonarr (a tv series collection manager for Usenet user)
- Speedtest-Tracker (Continuously track your internet speed)
- Syncthing (open source continuous file synchronization)
- Umami (a simple, fast, privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics)
- Uptime Kuma (a fancy self-hosted monitoring tool)
- Vaultwarden (Bitwarden compatible server written in Rust)
- Web-Check (all-in-one OSINT tool for analysing any website)
- WireGuard (VPN solution, primary and secondary for redundancy)
Proxmox Backup Server
Hardware
- 1x Beelink EQ12, Intel N100 CPU, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD storage
Software
- Proxmox Backup Server
- Backups are stored on the Synology
Monitoring Dashboard & APT-Cache
Hardware
- 1x Beelink EQ12, Intel N100 CPU, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD storage
- 1x Fujitsu B24-8 TS 24” Display
Software
- Lubuntu 24.04
- Firefox (for monitoring dashboards)
Synology DS223J 2 Bay Desktop NAS
Storage
- 2x 12 TB Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD
Purpose
- Backup storage for Proxmox Cluster applications
- Time Machine server for all Mac computers in our home
External Hosts
1. Netcup
While I love self-hosting applications, I prefer to ensure reliability for communication services. Thus, I host my mail server on a VPS in Netcups data center in Nuremberg.
Hardware
- VPS 3000 ARM G11, 12 vCore, 24 GB RAM, 768 GB storage
Software
- Borg & Borgmatic (deduplicating archiver with compression and encryption)
- Ghost (hosting this page)
- Dockerized Mailcow (mail server, web mailer, contacts & calendar)
- LibreSpeed (self-hosted Speed Test for HTML5 and more)
- Mastodon (self-hosted, globally interconnected microblogging community)
2. Oracle
Hardware
- Oracle Standard A1.Flex, 4 OCPU, 24 GB RAM, 200 GB storage
Software
- Lemmy (a self-hosted social link aggregation and discussion platform)
3. Hetzner Storage Share
- NX11, 1 TB Storage, 3 Subdomains (managed Nextcloud)
Network
- FRITZ!Box 7590 AX connected to Telekom DSL (250 Mbps down, 40 Mbps up)
- Internet fallback via ZTE LTE Stick with Vodafone contract
- 1x Zyxel GS1900-24E (my primary, smart network switch)
- 2x TP-Link TL-SG608E (one for private network, one for Proxmox VLAN)
- 1x TP-Link TL-SG605E (for wireless access points on each floor)
- 1x GL.iNET Beryl AX3000 Portable VPN-Router (secure network access wherever I am)
Additional Stuff
- Anycubic Kobra S1 Combo (a 3D printer makes life easier in any situation)
- Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500 Document Scanner (purchased 15 years ago and still receiving updates)