Homelab

I’ll be honest — I didn’t plan my self-hosted stack. I started with one service, liked the feeling of owning my own data, and just kept adding things. Vaultwarden, then MkDocs, then more. Recently I added Karakeep. Before that something else. Each one solving a problem, replacing a subscription, or just satisfying curiosity. It works — but looking back, a bit of upfront planning would have saved me time, avoided some redundancy, and helped me think more clearly about what I actually needed versus what just seemed interesting at the time. ...

Every homelab starts somewhere. Mine started with a conversation with a friend in bar who had a server sitting in his garage collecting dust and no interest in running it anymore. “You want it?” That’s how I ended up with an HP DL380 G6 — and honestly, it’s been both one of the best and most humbling pieces of kit I’ve ever worked with. The specs This is what’s running everything: ...

If you’ve spent any time in IT circles online, you’ve probably heard the word “homelab” thrown around. But what actually is a homelab, and why do so many IT professionals swear by them? This post breaks down - and makes the case for why you should consider building one yourself. What is a homelab? A homelab is a personal computing environment you run at home for learning, experimenting, and building skills. It can be as simple as an old PC running a couple of virtual machines, or as complex as a rack full of enterprise-grade servers with a fully segmented network. ...

Every blog has on origin story. This one starts with a second-hand server, a lot of curiosity, and a growing frustration with how hard it is to find honest, practical IT knowledge, without starting a conversion with some AI bot. A bit of background I’ve been working in IT support for the better part of a decade. In that time I’ve helped businesses of all sizes keep their infrastructure running - diagnosing Active Directory issues at 8am, chasing down Exchange mail from problems after lunch, and explaining to someone why their VPN stopped working right before an important call. ...

Welcome to BeyondLab — a place where I document everything I build, break, and learn. I work as an IT support engineer and have been running a homelab on an HP DL380 G6 with Proxmox, OPNsense, and a growing stack of self-hosted services. This blog is where that knowledge escapes the lab. Expect posts on: Proxmox and virtualisation OPNsense and networking Self-hosted services MSP and IT support tips from the field