Overview

Introduction

I started building my own homelab to gain hands-on experience and deepen my understanding of network security and cybersecurity.

A self-hosted lab provides a safe environment for experimentation, allowing me to tackle questions and challenges that can’t be addressed on production equipment. This homelab is my playground, where I can freely explore and learn.

Through trial and error, I’ve learned some valuable skills that are not only beneficial for my personal growth but also advantageous to my workplace.

After extensive researching and self-learning, I finally found a setup that worked for me.

Home network Diagram

Hardware and Software/OS

Type	Hardware	Software/OS
Firewall/Router	Mini PC Intel N4505 N6000,4 x 2.5GbE I226-V, 8G RAM, 128G SSD	OPNsense, WireGuard VPN, Unbound Recursive DNS
Access switch	Cisco Catalyst C3560X-24P-S	Cisco IOS XE
Core switch	Cisco Catalyst 1000-8T-2G-L	Cisco IOS
Wireless Access Point	Mesh AX1800 WPA3, 802.11ax, PoE+ powered
Proxmox Server	Bare-metal Server 3.7 GHz 12 core / 64GB / 2TB SSD/ Dual 10G NIC card	Proxmox VE
Unraid Server	Bare-metal Server 3.7 GHz 12 core / 64GB / 2TB SSD/ 1 TB HDD/ Dual 10G NIC card	Unraid NAS OS, Steam-headless docker, Pi-hole Docker

Note: Unraid Server was my first bare-metal that I built and configure, but after a while I switch to Proxmox for a several reasons.

• Proxmox has more virtualization and networking capability.

• Unraid can host dockers like Portainer, however I can run both of them as VM in Proxmox cluster.

• With Proxmox I can handle backups, snapshot and failover. This is great for change management.

In sum, Proxmox is a hypervisor which offer better capabilities for me to learn and experiment.