Are you just getting started on your homelab journey? I’ve been building out my homelab for nearly five years at this point, and I’ve learned a lot on the way. Here are the first things that I would deploy today if I was building a homelab from scratch.
5Proxmox
I severely underestimated the power ofProxmoxearly on in my homelabbing journey. I actually didn’t deploy it until earlier this year—and I wish I jumped on the bandwagon much sooner.
If you’ve never heard of Proxmox, it’s avirtual machinemanager, similar toVMWare’s vSphere—except Proxmox offers acompletely free community edition. This makes Proxmox ideal for homelabbing because it doesn’t cost a dime to run.
Once you have Proxmox installed on your system, then you’ll be able to deploy as many virtual machines as your hardware can handle. I typically have at least a few virtual machines running—one just for Docker, one for game servers, and one for anything else I want to do on the system.
The great thing is, I can spin up virtual machines at a moment’s notice for any reason—then spin them down just as fast when I’m done. Proxmox gives me great flexibility without having to constantly reboot hardware or run multiple physical machines.
Proxmox also supports PCI pass-through, so you can pass a PCI or PCIe device directly to a virtual machine. This is great when you want to use a graphics card RAID/HBA controller, or even the integrated graphics of your processor natively in a virtual machine.
Overall, if you already have a storage server on your network, deploy Proxmox next. I wish I would have separated my storage server and virtual machine server sooner, and Proxmox is the tool to do it.
4Portainer
I’m a hugeDockeradvocate. I think that Docker really makes deploying server applications super simple. However, I hate managing Docker containers through a command line. That’s wherePortainercomes in.
Portainer is a Docker container itself and allows you to manage all your other Docker containers with a neat and tidy web interface.
I’ve found Portainer to be absolutely crucial for managing my Docker server. I very rarely dive into the terminal for that server, as almosteverything I do is handled within Portainer’s interface. I deploy new containers, manage existing containers, and handle almost all of my container settings within Portainer’s web interface.
The only thing I don’t use Portainer for is file management, as it’s not super great at that. For those tasks, I stillSSH into my serverand manage my files through the terminal.
Setting up Portainer early on in your homelab journey will simply mean less time fussing with Docker commands and more time enjoying the services that you run—it’s just that simple.
3Nginx Proxy Manager
Nginx Proxy Manageris one of those tools that you might not think you need, but you really do. I used to hand-write my Nginx configs and attempt to troubleshoot things myself in the early days of my homelabbing, but Nginx Proxy Manager just simplifies everything.
Whether you’re using Nginx Proxy manager for local reverse proxying to access locally-hosted services through a domain name, or opening services up to the World Wide Web, Nginx Proxy Manager can handle it for you.
In fact, I use Nginx Proxy Manager for both of those tasks. I have one instance running for publically-accessed domains, and one running for internal domains only.
Nginx Proxy Manager is simply a tool that I couldn’t run my homelab without, and I think you’ll find it equally useful once it’s deployed in your networking stack.
2Unraid
I’ve usedUnraidfor nearly five years at this point. While it wasn’t the first part of my homelab, it was really the start of my homelabbing journey.
Back in 2016, I got a Synology NAS and loved it. I used it on and off for a few years, but it wasn’t until January 2021 that I really dove down the homelabbing rabbit hole. That’s when Ipurchased a decommissioned enterprise server on eBayto replace my aging Synology and started to really get into what a homelab was all about.
The operating system I chose at that point was Unraid. It gave me the storage flexibility I desired, allowed me to run the Docker applications I needed, and delivered a powerful, but user-friendly interface.
I know that Unraid is a piece of paid software, but for what it delivers, I think it’s extremely powerful. The reason I would recommend running Unraid in your homelab at the start is because it removes quite a few limits that traditional RAID is held back by. One of the biggest is drive size.
Withtraditional RAID, you’re limited to the smallest drive in your server. If you have a 3TB drive, 6TB drive, and two 8TB drives in your server, for instance, you’ll only be able to access 3TB on each drive, for a total of 9TB of storage across all four drives with RAIDZ1.
Unraid, on the other hand, would combine those four drives to be 17TB of storage, nearly double what traditional RAID delivers. This is becauseUnraid functions differently than normal RAIDwhile still providing drive redundancy.
A network attached storage server is crucialto any homelab, and Unraid simply offers the easiest and most flexible way to run one.
Unraid
Unraid is a Linux-based NAS operating system that focuses on storage capacity through its parity system instead of traditional RAID.
1A 2.5Gb/s Network
I ran my homelab off of a standard gigabit network for years. It wasn’t until around February of this year when I finally upgraded to a 2.5Gb/s network. Let me tell you: the different is astronomical.
Recently, I migrated my virtual machine server from one system to another. I had to move about 100GB of data for my Docker virtual machine. With a traditional gigabit network, it would have taken about 15 minutes or so to move everything. With my 2.5Gb/s network, I was able to do it in about seven minutes.
A 2.5Gb/s network enables me to do things such as house my movie files on a separate server than I run Plex on. It also lets me back up my data to my server from my desktop faster, and access files from server to server faster.
Getting up and going with a 2.5Gb/s network is actually more affordable than you might think. TheUnifi Flex Mini 2.5Gis $49 and offers five 2.5Gb/s ports.TP-Link’s 2.5Gb/s Ethernet PCIe cardis around $20 to $25 on Amazon (depending on if you go used or not, which is what I did), making it ideal for upgrading older systems to the faster networking standard.
All-in, I spent right around $100 to upgrade three servers to 2.5Gb/s, including the switch. I wish I would have done this years ago.
If you’re just getting started with a homelab, go ahead and add 2.5Gb/s networking to your must-have list. You don’t need every device in your house on 2.5Gb/s, but at least have your main computers and servers connected on a multi-gigabit network.
Unifi Flex Mini 2.5G Switch
The Unifi Flex Mini 2.5G Ethernet Switch is a fully-managed network switch delivering multi-gig speeds. It works both standalone or with a Unifi Network Controller, making it a versatile option for your network setup. You get an included USB-C power adapter, though the switch can be powered over PoE+ from the upstream switch.
Once you have your homelab up and running, the sky is truly the limit for what services you’re able to run. I have over 30 Docker containers deployed in my network doing various tasks for me. Out of those,there are a few that I think every homelabber should run, so be sure to check those out.
