My Homelab - User contributions [en]

The assessments are here

2026-09-04T01:15:51Z

Lynn:

The software landscape is vast. It is a little like being in a candy store the size of a Walmart. With hypervisors like Proxmox and TrueNAS it is rediculously easy to sping up virtual machines or launch software with docker. What used to take hours installing an OS and configuring a physical resource only takes minutes. Installing software used to be its own hurdle. Getting it to work on you specific combination of hardware and OS could literally take days.

=The tools that I use, or have used=
In my opinion, it makes no sense to run a hypervisor tool like VirtualBox or VMWare Workstations since it makes more sense to run docker natively rather than going to the complexity of a layer of abstraction. I also think that attempting to try to do this on a desktop is a little crazy as well. At the same time, if it was you have to test with; if it works, it works. These are listed roughly in order of use.
==Hypervisors==
For the most part these tools are bare metal installs. Let's not get into the crazy case where a hypervisor is installed on a hypervisor. Yes, it can be done but I personally think that it is crazy.

===VMWare===
Stay away, far, far away and it is still too close. They were the Gold Standard and about the only virtualization tool on the block. A decade or so, ago VMWare treated noncommercial users pretty well. It passed through EMC, Dell and then to Broadcomm. Broadcomm eliminated the perpetual licensing, and the cost of ownership went way up.

It was possible to download the product and get a limited use key. After yet another acquisition by venture capital firm KKR, the VMWare Workstation Pro and VMWare Player shifted to a free for personal use status, but these ae really intended for an individual developer's desktop rather than a server implementation.

===Hyper-V===
===VirtualBox===
This was the first virtualization product that I used. It runs on a number of architectures as an application. It was developed by Sun Computer Systems and moved to Oracle when Sun was acquired.
===Proxmox===
===TrueNAS===

It is a nice tool for testing on your desktop.

==Foundations==
===Docker===
====Docker Compose====
====Dockerge====
====Dockhand====
===VPN===
====Private Internet Access====
====Nord====
==Docker Stacks==

=YAMS=
[https://gitlab.com/rogs/yams YAMS on Github]

How did I get here?

2026-09-04T01:14:32Z

Lynn:

I have been through a lot of hardware, software and solutions over the years. As of now, I am regretting scrapping some of the hardware that arrived over time. I don't feel bad about getting rid of the large 1U and 2U servers that I had at one time. They were not terribly fast, but very noisy and power hungry. After my wife and I downsized from a medium sized house to a 2 BR apartment, it made no sense to keep them. Yes, they were fun to tinker with, but they were also a sledgehammer to the fine task that I was attempting to accomplish.

The software configuration has been a longer journey. Like a lot of people I started with a fairly simple sincle server implementation built around a self-crafted docker-compose.yml file that had, primarily, the *arr servers. This was front-ended with a Caddy configuration as the reverse proxy. It worked, but was somewhat difficult to manage. As I recall, I got hung up on configuring Authelia.

I discovered SmarthomeBeginner which is now [https://www.simplehomelab.com/ SimpleHomeLab]. Anand has put together a large number of guides that largely map his journey. The guides are actually very good, but have to be taken independently. They are very good references but they are a moving target. Later guides tend to replace earlier ones and he has changed methods several times. There are a number of implementation strategies that have not really changed and they are a good reference for how things actually work. In short, this a another solution that requires a lot of localcustomization.
He later wrote a very comprehensive tool to implement a complete home server called Deployrr. See below.

The next solution that I tried was [https://yams.media/install/steps/ YAMS], short for Yet Another Media Server. This is still running and serving the *arr collection from Chico1. It actually works pretty well, but needed Pi-Hole and Traefik as a separate front end to be truly useful. As a media server it does address setting up a VPN via Gluetun and making the *arrs available locally.

Deployrr, originally Installarr, has been the most comprehensive too that I have seen so far. It is a licensed product that starts with a bare metal server and builds out the prerequisite tool set. Importantly, it totally configures the traefik reverse proxy tool. Built into deployrr are about 140 preconfigured applications. Extending that set can be easily accomplished; just install the application and tell Deployrr where it is. This feature makes up for the fact that the installed base of applications has not grown much in 2026. It is still an excellent choice however.

Return to: '''[[Main Page]]'''

How did I get here?

2026-09-04T00:41:08Z

Lynn:

The Network and Home Servers

2026-09-04T00:31:27Z

The Network and Home Servers

2026-08-24T21:09:52Z

Lynn: /* TrueNAS Qwerks */

The Network and Home Servers

2026-08-24T21:09:24Z

Lynn: /* TrueNAS Qwerks */

2026-08-21T21:30:47Z

Lynn: /* Hyper-V */

The assessments are here

2026-08-21T21:01:08Z

Lynn: /* The tools That I use, or have used */

The assessments are here

2026-08-21T02:00:27Z

Lynn: Created page with "The software landscape is vast. It is a little like being in a candy store the size of a Walmart. With hypervisors like Proxmox and TrueNAS it is rediculously easy to sping up virtual machines or launch software with docker. What used to take hours installing an OS and configuring a physical resource only takes minutes. Installing software used to be its own hurdle. Getting it to work on you specific combination of hardware and OS could literally take days. =The tools..."

Main Page

2026-08-21T01:43:11Z

Lynn:

__NOTOC__
=Introduction=
This wiki covers my journey toward the perfect Homelab/Home server for me. This likely is not the perfect one for you.

I am a retired IP professional who spent 45 years in the trenches doing much this same work and got paid for it. Now I do it for fun and, face it, it keeps off of the streets and out of jail.

[[How did I get here?]]

I have been through a lot of hardware, software and solutions over the years. As of now, I am regretting scrapping some of the hardware that arrived over time. I don't feel bad about getting rid of the large 1U and 2U servers that I had at one time. They were not terribly fast, but very noisy and power hungry. After my wife and I downsized from a medium sized house to a 2 BR apartment, it made no sense to keep them. Yes, they were fun to tinker with, but they were also a sledgehammer to the fine task that I was attempting to accomplish.

[[The Network and Home Servers]]

I have been through a number of solution packages getting to where I am, and I am largely still looking. Hopefully I will be able to declare success in the relatively near future...

Like many of you I started out with discrete tools as I was learning how to use Docker. I am not sure how I would get along without this tool. Below I will list what I feel are the strengths and weaknesses of the configurations that I have tried. To a large degree, if you starting out building a home lab, you need to have the ability to manage the configuration that you pt together because generally none of them are a perfect solution. One of the common problems since the developers are likely to be home hobbyists like ourselves, The projects tend to stall out after a while. The developer moves on or experiences people being demanding, ungrateful and sometimes just plain nasty.

I have been willing, and happy, to pay them subscription fees to fund their efforts. These are usually modest, typically equivalent to two or three lattes a month. Getting traction on their part is often difficult and reaching critical mass generally doesn't happen. I recognize that most of these people have real jobs and developing the code is just a side gig that helps to pay the electric bill and buy some hardware. So, with that, let me tell you how I got to here.

[[The Homelab Stack History]]

The stack implementation progression has been SimpleHomeLab, Funky Penguin, YAMS and then Deployrr. I am now working with The TrueNAS-Compose suite. I have tried to give a reasoned top-level assessment of the good and bad aspects of the tool on the assessment page.

[[The assessments are here]]

For more of a deep dive deep dive into them just head over here:

[[Technical details are here]]

Consult the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.

== Getting started ==
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]

Main Page

2026-08-21T01:37:03Z

Lynn:

__NOTOC__
=Introduction=
This wiki covers my journey toward the perfect Homelab/Home server for me. This likely is not the perfect one for you.

I am a retired IP professional who spent 45 years in the trenches doing much this same work and got paid for it. Now I do it for fun and, face it, it keeps off of the streets and out of jail.

[[How did I get here?]]

I have been through a lot of hardware, software and solutions over the years. As of now, I am regretting scrapping some of the hardware that arrived over time. I don't feel bad about getting rid of the large 1U and 2U servers that I had at one time. They were not terribly fast, but very noisy and power hungry. After my wife and I downsized from a medium sized house to a 2 BR apartment, it made no sense to keep them. Yes, they were fun to tinker with, but they were also a sledgehammer to the fine task that I was attempting to accomplish.

[[The Network and Home Servers]]

I have been through a number of solution packages getting to where I am, and I am largely still looking. Hopefully I will be able to declare success in the relatively near future...

Like many of you I started out with discrete tools as I was learning how to use Docker. I am not sure how I would get along without this tool. Below I will list what I feel are the strengths and weaknesses of the configurations that I have tried. To a large degree, if you starting out building a home lab, you need to have the ability to manage the configuration that you pt together because generally none of them are a perfect solution. One of the common problems since the developers are likely to be home hobbyists like ourselves, The projects tend to stall out after a while. The developer moves on or experiences people being demanding, ungrateful and sometimes just plain nasty.

I have been willing, and happy, to pay them subscription fees to fund their efforts. These are usually modest, typically equivalent to two or three lattes a month. Getting traction on their part is often difficult and reaching critical mass generally doesn't happen. I recognize that most of these people have real jobs and developing the code is just a side gig that helps to pay the electric bill and buy some hardware. So, with that, let me tell you how I got to here.

[[The Homelab Stack History]]

The stack implementation progression has been YAMS, Funky Penguin and Deployrr. I am now working with The TrueNAS-Compose suite. I have tried to give a reasoned top level assessment of the good and bad aspects of the tool on the assessment page.

[[The assessments are here]]

For more of a deep dive deep dive into them just head over here:

[[Technical details are here]]

Consult the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.

== Getting started ==
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]

The Homelab Stack History

2026-08-21T01:33:55Z

Lynn:

=The early days=
Like most systems administrators, I was loath to throw anything away that wasn't broken. Time and time again, having that odd cable, odd peripheral or obscure tool saved me a lot of time and the companies money.

Even before I retired, I couldn't keep it all. this eventually led to major runs to the e-waste facility. It is interesting that those places tend to come and go pretty frequently. From observation, it appears that the have an imbalance between intake and disposal.

So, I confess that I am a data hoarder. I was a very early adopter of software on CDs. I actually had a subscription that brought me 10 to 20 disks/month. Many of them were not terrible useful at the time but the good ones in the bundle made up for it. I think that some of them are still in the back of a closet waiting for hardware and OS environments that only exist in the computer history museum.

At that point in time I had a large collection of ripped music CDs, that are still at the house that we left to our daughter, books, a lot of files from various jobs and a ton of email. Video file came along later. I gathered stuff, and still do, for the sake of the collecting. Now sharing with friends and family is a side benefit but at the time it required burning CDs or DVDs. Streaming was not even feasible.
=Along Came High-Speed links=
It was suddenly possible to have just about anything accessible with a little looking and a small investment of time. The price of disk storage was coming down; I still remember being impressed when it crossed the $.25 per megabyte threshold. Clearly the resource had to be used. What took days to download with even a 56Kb modem could be fetched in minutes.
=Then Plex entered and the *arr stack to manage it=
I could now watch movies on my computer. At first, all it took was to put the files in the root folder and call it good. You all know the drill. Suddenly you have hundreds and the thousands of hours of content. I spun up a NAS and ran Plex from there

The *arr collection added a means to organize the chaos. Initially, Radarr and Sonarr ran natively on a Linux system that had been a desktop at one time. Then I moved to a significant server and installed Proxmox. Then I added a large TrueNAS system that I am presently consolidating most everything on.

The Homelab Stack History

2026-08-21T01:33:18Z

Lynn: Created page with "=The early days= Like most systems administrators, I was loath to throw anything away that wasn't broken. Time and time again, having that odd cable, odd peripheral or obscure tool saved me a lot of time and the companies money. Even before I retired, I couldn't keep it all. this eventually led to major runs to the e-waste facility. It is interesting that those places tend to come and go pretty frequently. From observation, it appears that the have an imbalance between..."

Main Page

2026-08-21T00:54:14Z

Lynn:

__NOTOC__
=Introduction=
This wiki covers my journey toward the perfect Homelab/Home server for me. This likely is not the perfect one for you.

I am a retired IP professional who spent 45 years in the trenches doing much this same work and got paid for it. Now I do it for fun and, face it, it keeps off of the streets and out of jail.

[[How did I get here?]]

I have been through a lot of hardware, software and solutions over the years. As of now, I am regretting scrapping some of the hardware that arrived over time. I don't feel bad about getting rid of the large 1U and 2U servers that I had at one time. They were not terribly fast, but very noisy and power hungry. After my wife and I downsized from a medium sized house to a 2 BR apartment, it made no sense to keep them. Yes, they were fun to tinker with, but they were also a sledgehammer to the fine task that I was attempting to accomplish.

[[The Network and Home Servers]]

I have been through a number of solution packages getting to where I am, and I am largely still looking. Hopefully I will be able to declare success in the relatively near future...

Like many of you I started out with discrete tools as I was learning how to use Docker. I am not sure how I would get along without this tool. Below I will list what I feel are the strengths and weaknesses of the configurations that I have tried. To a large degree, if you starting out building a home lab, you need to have the ability to manage the configuration that you pt together because generally none of them are a perfect solution. One of the common problems since the developers are likely to be home hobbyists like ourselves, The projects tend to stall out after a while. The developer moves on or experiences people being demanding, ungrateful and sometimes just plain nasty.

I have been willing, and happy, to pay them subscription fees to fund their efforts. These are usually modest, typically equivalent to two or three lattes a month. Getting traction on their part is often difficult and reaching critical mass generally doesn't happen. I recognize that most of these people have real jobs and developing the code is just a side gig that helps to pay the electric bill and buy some hardware. So, with that, let me tell you how I got to here.

[[The Homelab Stack History]]

Consult the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.

== Getting started ==
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]

2026-08-17T22:16:14Z

Lynn: Created page with "-- This implements Template:Template link general and various other templates in its family local getArgs = require('Module:Arguments').getArgs local yesno = require('Module:Yesno') local cfg = mw.loadData('Module:Template link general/config') local p = {} -- Is a string non-empty? local function _ne(s) return s ~= nil and s ~= "" end local nw = mw.text.nowiki local function addTemplate(s) local i, _ = s:find(':', 1, true) if i == nil then return 'Template..."

-- This implements [[Template:Template link general]] and various other templates in its family
local getArgs = require('Module:Arguments').getArgs
local yesno = require('Module:Yesno')

local cfg = mw.loadData('Module:Template link general/config')

local p = {}

-- Is a string non-empty?
local function _ne(s)
return s ~= nil and s ~= ""
end

local nw = mw.text.nowiki

local function addTemplate(s)
local i, _ = s:find(':', 1, true)
if i == nil then
return 'Template:' .. s
end
local ns = s:sub(1, i - 1)
if ns == '' or mw.site.namespaces[ns] then
return s
else
return 'Template:' .. s
end
end

local function trimTemplate(s)
local needle = 'template:'
if s:sub(1, needle:len()):lower() == needle then
return s:sub(needle:len() + 1)
else
return s
end
end

local function linkTitle(args)
if yesno(args.nolink) then
return args[1]
end

local titleObj
local titlePart = '[['
if args[1] then
-- This handles :Page and other NS
titleObj = mw.title.new(args[1], 'Template')
else
titleObj = mw.title.getCurrentTitle()
end

titlePart = titlePart .. (titleObj ~= nil and titleObj.fullText or
addTemplate(args[1]))

local textPart = args.alttext
if not _ne(textPart) then
if titleObj ~= nil then
textPart = titleObj:inNamespace("Template") and args[1] or titleObj.fullText
else
-- redlink
textPart = args[1]
end
end

if yesno(args.brace) then
textPart = nw('{{') .. textPart .. nw('}}')
elseif yesno(args.braceinside) then
textPart = nw('{') .. textPart .. nw('}')
end

titlePart = titlePart .. '|' .. textPart .. ']]'
if yesno(args.braceinside) then
titlePart = nw('{') .. titlePart .. nw('}')
end
return titlePart
end

function p.main(frame)
local args = getArgs(frame, {
trim = true,
removeBlanks = false,
frameOnly = false,
wrappers = {
"Template:Tlg",
"Template:Template link general",
},
})
return p._main(args)
end

function p._main(args)
-- TemplateStyles
local templateStyles = {
mono = false,
nowrap = false,
}

local bold = yesno(args.bold) or yesno(args.boldlink) or yesno(args.boldname)
local italic = yesno(args.italic) or yesno(args.italics)
local dontBrace = yesno(args.brace) or yesno(args.braceinside)
local code = yesno(args.code) or yesno(args.tt)
local show_result = yesno(args._show_result)
local expand = yesno(args._expand)
local classes = {}

-- Build the link part
local titlePart = linkTitle(args)
if bold then titlePart = "'''" .. titlePart .. "'''" end

if yesno(args.subst) then
local substLink = cfg['subst-link']
if _ne(substLink) and yesno(args['link subst']) then
titlePart = '[[' .. substLink .. '|subst]]:' .. titlePart
else
titlePart = 'subst:' .. titlePart
end
end

if yesno(args.nowrapname) then
templateStyles.nowrap = true
titlePart = '<span class="nowrap">' .. titlePart .. '</span>'
end

-- Build the arguments
local textPart = ""
local textPartBuffer = "|"
local codeArguments = {}
local codeArgumentsString = ""
local i = 2
local j = 1
while args[i] do
local val = args[i]
if val ~= "" then
if yesno(args.nowiki) then
-- Unstrip nowiki tags first because calling nw on something that already contains nowiki tags will
-- mangle the nowiki strip marker and result in literal UNIQ...QINU showing up
val = nw(mw.text.unstripNoWiki(val))
end
local k, v = string.match(val, "(.*)=(.*)")
if not k then
codeArguments[j] = val
j = j + 1
else
codeArguments[k] = v
end
codeArgumentsString = codeArgumentsString .. textPartBuffer .. val
if italic then
val = '<span style="font-style:italic;">' .. val .. '</span>'
end
textPart = textPart .. textPartBuffer .. val
end
i = i + 1
end

local tagName = nil
local css = nil

-- final wrap
local ret = titlePart .. textPart
if not dontBrace then ret = nw('{{') .. ret .. nw('}}') end
if yesno(args.a) then ret = nw('*') .. ' ' .. ret end
if yesno(args.kbd) then
tagName = 'kbd'
end

if yesno(args.mono) then
templateStyles.mono = true
table.insert(classes, 'monospaced')
end

local plaincode = yesno(args.plaincode) and not code
if code or plaincode then
if tagName then
-- kbd == true && code == true
ret = ('<%s>%s</%s>'):format(tagName, ret, tagName)
end
tagName = 'code'
if plaincode then
css = {
background = 'transparent',
border = 'none',
color = 'var(--color-emphasized, #101418)',
}
end
end

if show_result then
local result = mw.getCurrentFrame():expandTemplate{title = addTemplate(args[1]), args = codeArguments}
ret = ret .. " → " .. result
end

if expand then
local query = mw.text.encode('{{' .. addTemplate(args[1]) .. string.gsub(codeArgumentsString, textPartBuffer, "|") .. '}}')
local url = mw.uri.fullUrl('special:ExpandTemplates', 'wpInput=' .. query)
mw.log()
ret = ret .. " [" .. tostring(url) .. "]"
end

if yesno(args.nowrap) then
templateStyles.nowrap = true
table.insert(classes, 'nowrap')
end

if tagName or #classes > 0 or css then
local span = mw.html.create(tagName or 'span')
:addClass(table.concat(classes, ' '))
:wikitext(ret)

if css then
span:css(css)
end
ret = tostring(span:allDone())
end

local ts = {}
if templateStyles.mono then
table.insert(ts, mw.getCurrentFrame():extensionTag{
name = 'templatestyles',
args = { src = 'Template:Mono/styles.css' }
})
end

if templateStyles.nowrap then
table.insert(ts, mw.getCurrentFrame():extensionTag{
name = 'templatestyles',
args = { src = 'Template:Nowrap/styles.css' }
})
end

if yesno(args.debug) then
ret = ret .. '\n<pre>' .. mw.text.encode(mw.dumpObject(args)) .. '</pre>'
end

return table.concat(ts) .. ret
end

return p

Li

2026-08-17T22:07:18Z

Lynn:

#REDIRECT {{Localized link}}

Li

2026-08-17T22:07:00Z

Lynn:

#REDIRECT {{Template:Localized link}}