Hi, I'm Ash from OZ NetworX.

The purpose of this blog is to centralise all my notes and experiences from my homelab as I explore various aspects of cosplaying as a sysadmin.

While much of the content here might be familiar to seasoned homelabers, feel free to utilise any information as you see fit.

My adventure into homelabing began several years ago with an old Windows Server 2012 HP box equipped with an 8-core Xeon processor. I delved into setting up Active Directory, learning about Group Policy, roaming profiles, and evolving into Windows network security.

As my curiosity expanded, I imaged the disk running Windows Server 2012, added a GTX for transcoding, and installed Proxmox for the first time. This allowed me to virtualize the server, restore the Windows image to a VM, set up a Windows VM with GPU passthrough (which was quite flaky back then), and run a Plex server for friends and family.

Once I got a taste of self-hosting, my homelab quickly grew. The HP server transitioned into a Windows file server, later evolving into a FreeNAS server for better storage management. I also integrated a Lenovo m93p Tiny running Proxmox with a Pi-hole VM and a domain controller.

My network setup improved again as I flashed my Nighthawk router to run OpenWrt and set up a VPN for remote access. Eventually, I upgraded to an HP ML30, moved all drives from the older HP server to it, and installed FreeNAS for a more robust storage solution.

I then added pfSense to secure my network further, learning from experts like Tom Lawrence, I added more NICs to the old HP Server created a pfSense VM, passed through the NICs and off I went

Pi-hole, the domain controller, pfsense and a few LXC containers lived on the old HP server for a long time before I got the time to take my homelab to the next level

My current setup includes:

• TrueNAS running bare metal on a Dell Precision T5810
• A 3-node Proxmox cluster on an HP Elite 800 G8, Dell OptiPlex 7040 SFF, and Dell OptiPlex 3080 Mini
• pfSense running on an Intel NUC
• Pi-hole also running on an Intel NUC

I experimented with K3s thanks to Techno Tim's guides but have since settled on Docker for running various services. Some of my Docker Compose files are available on my GitHub.

Currently, I'm venturing into SIEM stacks and PCAP inspections. I started with Security Onion on a dedicated security PC, which was fantastic. Now, I'm in the process of building my own stack, so expect to see updates and insights on that journey here.