Hopefully this is not too long! There has been a lot of changes since the last time I posted a full overview like this
Wow, you must be rich
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
You’ll be surprised how cheap some equipment goes for when a company runs out of business. Just sayin
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.
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?
Also wanna know
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
Yeah but can it host PiHole?
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
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
Maybe I’ll give it a go again, after all it does have a really nice slick WebUI
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.
Check out the Star Trek theme for PiHole! It’s one of the default options.
It is beyond me that you dont get symetrical connection with fiber in the US.
I am in the US and I do… In fact, I can upgrade to symmetrical 5Gb now with AT&T
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Hi OP. If you’re reading this, I have a few questions:
- 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.
- Wouldn’t a whitebox build for your NAS save power?
- What are you using both switches for? Are you running out of ports?
- Since you’re running VMWare, are you running VMs for every service? Why not containers?
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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!
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
I work in a school and I think you have more stuff than we do lol.
I don’t know if I should be happy or sad
Proud.
Fucking amazing writeup, I haven’t read it all yet but from what I read there’s a lot of good information and inspiration
Thanks!
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?
I already made a detailed write up on the whole install and all the issues I faced, and monitoring. Here you go!
https://blog.networkprofile.org/17kw-enphase-solar-install/
https://blog.networkprofile.org/power-monitoring-setup-iotawatt-grafana/
These are great write ups. Much appreciated.
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!
Thanks!
Great job on the cabling and the setup! As an Apartment dweller, I hope you don’t mind my living vicariously through your setup!
I’ve been there! Such a hassle. It was great when I moved and was finally able to do what I wanted
Like the idea of multi-room UPS. Question, once the UPS battery run out during a power outage, is there any other type of power generation (Solar, Propane or gasoline) as a backup (aware of the servers will consume more watts than it can generate)?
Ops got a diesel backup generator, says it takes 10 min to kick in if there’s a power outage.
its a Natural Gas generator, and it actually takes 10 SECONDS!
Yes, I have a 27kw Natural Gas standby generator with an ATS. It takes 10 seconds from power failure, to it switching to generator power. So, the UPS just bridges that gap
In the extremely unlikely even the natural gas goes out, I have a 7.2kw Tri-fuel portable generator (Gasoline, NG and Propane) and I keep around 80 gallons of gasoline on hand, and I have an inlet and interlock on the main breaker, so I can switch to that if needed
Holy #%!@ng sh#%.
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!
Thanks!
That’s awesome!
Thanks!
This amazing I great write-up/slash guide that people can follow.
Thanks! No idea why you were downvoted
