HomeLab Starter
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pfSense vs OPNsense: Choosing a Homelab Router/Firewall
pfSense and OPNsense are the two leading open-source router and firewall distributions. This comparison covers features, update philosophy, hardware requirements, and when to choose each for homelab use.
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UPS Monitoring for Your Homelab with NUT
Protect your homelab from power outages using Network UPS Tools (NUT) — monitor battery status, trigger graceful shutdowns, and alert before power fails.
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Software Defined Radio for Your Homelab: RTL-SDR and SDR++
Turn a $30 USB dongle into a radio receiver that captures FM, aviation ADS-B, weather satellites, and more. A practical guide to RTL-SDR with SDR++ for homelab exploration.
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Talos Linux: An Immutable OS for Kubernetes in Your Homelab
Talos Linux is a minimal, immutable OS designed exclusively for Kubernetes. Covers what makes it different, installation, cluster management with talosctl, and why homelabbers are adopting it.
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SNMP Monitoring for Homelab Network Devices
SNMP lets you monitor switches, UPS units, and network devices from Prometheus, Grafana, or LibreNMS. This guide covers enabling SNMP on common homelab hardware and collecting metrics with the SNMP Exporter.
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Home Assistant Energy Monitoring: Track and Reduce Your Electricity Bills
Set up Home Assistant's Energy Dashboard to monitor real-time and historical electricity consumption. Covers smart plugs, whole-home monitoring with a CT clamp, solar integration, and cost tracking.
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Jumbo Frames and MTU 9000 in Your Homelab
Jumbo frames (MTU 9000) reduce CPU overhead and improve throughput for high-speed storage traffic in your homelab. This guide explains when MTU 9000 helps, how to configure it across Linux, switches, and NAS devices, and how to verify it works.
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Running an NTP Time Server in Your Homelab
A dedicated NTP server on your homelab gives every device accurate time, reduces external NTP dependency, and enables GPS-disciplined Stratum 1 timing. This guide covers chrony setup, Pi-based Stratum 1, and NTP client configuration.
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Suricata IDS/IPS: Network Threat Detection for Your Homelab
Suricata is an open-source network intrusion detection and prevention system. Covers installation on Proxmox or OPNsense, rule management, EVE JSON logging, and integration with a SIEM.
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Docker MACVLAN and IPVLAN: Giving Containers Their Own IP Addresses
MACVLAN and IPVLAN network modes let Docker containers get IP addresses on your physical network, making them accessible from other devices without port forwarding. Covers when to use each, configuration, and Proxmox/homelab use cases.
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HBA Cards for Homelab NAS: Expanding Your Storage Controller
Host Bus Adapter (HBA) cards give you more SATA and SAS ports for a homelab NAS or storage server. Covers choosing an HBA, IT mode flashing, PCIe slot requirements, and recommended cards for Proxmox and TrueNAS.
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Scrypted: The Smart Home Hub That Bridges Every Platform
Scrypted is a self-hosted smart home platform that connects HomeKit, Google Home, Alexa, and Home Assistant under one roof. Covers installation, camera integration, and plugin-based device management.
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OpenWrt for Your Homelab: Full Router Control on Consumer Hardware
OpenWrt turns consumer routers into powerful, fully programmable network appliances. This guide covers installation, VLAN setup, traffic shaping, and why OpenWrt beats stock firmware for homelab networking.
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VLAN Network Segmentation for Your Homelab
Isolate your IoT devices, lab experiments, and trusted clients using VLANs — a practical guide to network segmentation with managed switches and pfSense/OPNsense.
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Dynamic DNS for Homelab Remote Access
Dynamic DNS (DDNS) keeps a hostname pointed at your home's changing IP address, enabling remote access to homelab services. This guide covers how DDNS works, providers (Cloudflare, DuckDNS, No-IP), and auto-updating your IP with a simple script.
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Planning Static IP Addresses in Your Homelab
How to plan and assign static IP addresses in a homelab network. Covers IP address schemes, DHCP reservations vs true static IPs, documentation, and subnet planning for VLANs.
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Intel AMT: Out-of-Band Remote Management for Homelab Servers
Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) provides BIOS-level remote access, power control, and KVM over IP for Intel vPro CPUs. Covers enabling AMT, using MeshCommander, and how it compares to iDRAC and IPMI.
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Sunshine + Moonlight: Self-Hosted Game Streaming for Your Homelab
Sunshine is an open-source game streaming server that pairs with Moonlight clients to stream your PC games over your home network (or remotely). Low latency, 4K 120fps, and completely self-hosted.
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OpenMediaVault: Turn Any PC Into a Home NAS
OpenMediaVault is a free, Debian-based NAS OS with a web UI. Covers installation, disk management, SMB/NFS shares, Docker via Portainer, RAID, and how it compares to TrueNAS.
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iSCSI Storage for Your Homelab: Shared Block Storage Across VMs
Set up iSCSI targets and initiators to share block storage across your homelab VMs and containers. Enables live migration, shared disks, and storage consolidation without expensive SANs.