How to Homelab Episode 1 - Tips on Getting Started

Welcome to a new series, How to Homelab! In this series, Homelab-related concepts are discussed. Learn how to run your own servers, what applications to run, how to set them up, etc. In this video (as well as the next) I'll talk about some general tips on getting started. New episodes should be available every week as time permits.
*Time Codes*:
02:26 - What is a "Homelab"?
04:49 - What should you buy?
09:20 - Raspberry Pi
10:15 - An overview of some of the hardware in my Homelab
📖 Check out jay's latest book, Mastering Ubuntu Server 3rd Edition.
Available in the USA late December 2020, and in other countries early January 2021
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☁️ Proxmox build video:
➡️ • Building a Low Energy ...
☁️ FreeNAS (now TrueNAS) build video:
➡️ • Building a Low Energy ...
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☁️ How to create a cloud Linux server with Linode:
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[@markstanchin1692]

I would enjoy seeing a more hands on building a home lab from scratch series. For example if you would build your home lab up to where you are now from scratch with hands on tutorial videos with hardware that you currently use. Starting with how to plan and segment your network and then setting up VLANs configuring the different servers that you have such as Proxmox, truenas , Synology , ect . I know you have bits and pieces of all these different videos but it would be nice to see a complete series with more hands-on configuration. Thanks Jay.

[@sk8rdude981]

I did it a couple weeks ago and it’s been really fun learning from knowing only windows 10 to deleting it and switching to Ubuntu. I’m learning python to start out and I’m going back to college for my AS in cyber security this summer 😊 this stuff has been life changing !

[@TheClembo]

Thank you so much for doing this series. I've been 'trying' to build a home lab for years but never sure if I'm on the right track. So watching this series with great expectations and hoping to learn a great deal. Cheers from the UK.

[@MrZen42]

Looking forward to these episodes ! Being in a flat, space and noise are big issues for me but the idea of extending the home lab in the cloud is clearly interesting. Especially solutions to ensure security and privacy.

[@w1man]

Just finished setting up my first Ubuntu server running Nextcloud. Your videos have been very helpful! Looking forward to more homelab videos👍

[@naughtmis]

I have loved all of your homelab content so far. I'm excited to see this new setup. I'm especially anxious to see the Pi setup. Thanks for making great content!!

[@byranotieno]

Hey Jay, thanks again for putting out these amazing videos. In the series maybe you could talk about setting a firewall, virtualization servers, storage servers, backup servers and media centers. Thank you once more for the very informative and educational content you put out. I greatly appreciate.

[@richardglass6737]

Looking forward to this series, just started my own home lab

[@alexthelion335]

Me too

[@edwardcdg]

Same here

[@Jahman182]

I'm ready and waiting

[@SimionChis]

So excited for this. Looking forward for the next episodes

[@StephanLiebenberg]

This was the best explanation for a home lab I've heard. I'm super new to the IT world! And most people just assume you understand their jargon. Thanks for simplifying. - the guy who somehow has an IT job with 0 experience

[@huckleberry582]

Yeah, buddy! I've been looking forward to you doing a series like this. i enjoy listening to you teach.

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Glad you liked it. I've been wanting to start this series since last Winter. It's been super busy for me lately with the book, which has delayed my content quite a bit. I'm glad to (finally) be on track for the most part. I am working on a separate video regarding another topic that's been a popular request, so I'm finally starting to catch up on things.

[@mishrasidhant]

Awesome introductory video. I'm HYPED for the rest of the series. I'd personally love to hear more from you about: 1. Recommended tools/solutions to common components that make up your home lab 2. The design process, or your thought process behind deciding on how to connect/design the components of a solution that you're creating 3. The security considerations you keep in mind when you start a project Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge!

[@patrikwyde2265]

More more more, we need more! 😀👍 Thank you very much for this!

[@LCCoxOfTexas]

I run 70%+ of what you do as well and would love to see how you have built things in detail compared to mine. Looking forward to much more content in this mini-series!!

[@OdenKnight]

This is the practical guide to home server & networking. A must watch.

[@2d0list39]

looking forward to more of these man, im new to iT, actually found a passion and a serious drive in learning more in depth of software development on a rasberry pi, my older brother who i currently live with knows about all this and basics and etc, but for me on the other hand i want to master every topic you went over here on how to homelabs as a side quest, also since my macbook air uses a linux os im also going to be tuning in into your linux of sorts playlists, i appreciate your way of this because of the depth and technicality teaches me the actual fundamentals/aspects within each topic, once again man thanks!

[@fvgoya]

This is an amazing series!!!! Waiting the Part ll. Thank you!!

[@nenadpesic3763]

Thanks for this. I hope this series continues! :D

[@MarcinSkoczolek]

I'm with you on using laptops, that's what I'll be doing for my home lab. One of the main reasons I'm interested in setting up a home lab is to learn Linux. Looking forward to the series, your channel, and software recommendations. Thanks!

[@henrymatos9551]

This is a great introduction! thank you. Perhaps a segment on types of OS distribution to use with laptops versus desktop and a separate episode on firewall/security considerations.

[@MelodicMethod]

Thanks for making a series of videos dedicated to this. I would love to know how you've integrated plex into your home entertainment system using your homelab.

[@RonaldMorrissetteJr]

thank you so much for starting this series, I am currently putting together a server on which I am running proxmox, and I plan on running trueNAS, Plex server, pihole, Minecraft server, and more. I'm very interested in how to configure all these things to run smoothly. thanks again for all you do!

[@knightoftheoldcode1391]

Agreed. I’ve been running several RPis in production for a couple years now. I’m working on racking the 4 I have and adding another 6 into what I call my Rackberry Pi Cluster. :)

[@Frangoose]

Looking forward to more! Thanks for the videos.

[@princesaharan9515]

Great look forward for the series, I like you calm voice

[@BrownMInc]

FINNNALLLY a clear entrance for a noob. I feel like so many people get caught up in the details that they forget or assume that going from not knowing to knowing is straightforward. Sometimes you can't even ask the right questions because you don't know what you should be thinking about in the first place!

[@Applepie931]

Very into the idea of this series, hope to see more!

[@siddharthrawat7431]

Amazing video. Please continue this series.

[@ForrestRhoads]

Great video, and great subject matter. I really appreciate the quality of your channel. Is appreciate a segment on tying in with home security systems.

[@Theferg1]

Looking forward to MANY MANY MORE!!

[@edff6890]

Gonna pick the book up! Thanks for the info!

[@andrewr5357]

Thumbs up for the Mastering Ubuntu Server 3rd edition book. I didn't know you wrote books!!! Awesome.

[@siyamahmed2195]

Great series. I am very excited about this. It will be very helpful if you make a video on setting up a server on laptop

[@ggyun]

love this series.

[@williambarrett7108]

This is great I want to create a home lab also, but as of yet I am too clueless to attempt it. A dedicated series would be great! I would also like to know what would be best for pen testing. I will watch every video and wait for the rest with anticipation! Thank you so much for doing this!

[@davidvasquez7927]

Great video, looking forward to the next

[@arkangel7330]

I am looking forward to watching your homelab videos. I still want to build my own.

[@libradoivanmirandamedina3720]

Great first episode. Looking forward for next one. BTW, what model is the rack server behind you?

[@martyb3783]

Great video! I am excited to see more.

[@saidneder41]

This series is amazing!

[@justinlafontaine1516]

Love this series!

[@nikoonk]

Sound like an awesome series!

[@markburns5311]

Perfect timing just built my new Proxmox server

[@Ed-em6mf]

I have old Dell laptop and Raspberry Pi 4 and after listening to you, I should be all ready for network firewall home lab

[@Obi1kenobi10]

I've got an old Dell with a bad monitor. 1/2 the screen is dead. Once I figure out how to get it to ignore the monitor and boot to the 32in TV I have for it I'll be all set.

[@Obi1kenobi10]

@DarkStarrGaming tried that. All I got was beeping.....lots of beeping....God awful beeping....I'll try it again after the exorcisms.

[@brandongraham3509]

Thanks for putting this out there. I'm underway with converting to Linux and better computer usage. This is helpful for a non computer science/systems person. I'd love to see how to set up a more advanced network and firewall beyond a simple consumer router in order to handle these servers.

[@gollenda7852]

Yes, more please. I just started my homelab. Proxmox with Truenas running in a VM. I passed the LSI controller thru to Truenas. Still learning containers and how to deploy them

[@LearnLinuxTV]

That's a really clever way of going about that. I haven't run TrueNAS in a VM due to not having direct access to the hardware, but based on your description it seems you've definitely solved that part.

[@theena]

More please. This is great for non IT people like me.

[@woxit6107]

Thanks for your time and effort.

[@miretrotaller]

Great idea for a series 😊

[@RoadRunner1980]

This is great! I'm using a Synology NAS now and a desktop PC for a onsite backup and virtualization but I would love to build a more professional and flexible lab. So I'm looking forward to the next video's.

[@brianlongoria3263]

Looking forward to more please.

[@Sheikh_Yerbouti]

I am looking forward to this series as well. Late life career changer here and feel I have a lot to catch up on, so went all in and racked up. Then I realised... now what??

[@JoaoSilva-gs5jb]

yes yes yes yes, do more about it! not gonna lie, one of the topics I would like to discuss is about what linux distro to choose for servers, debian vs ubuntu vs centos for multiples things like, nextcloud, onlyoffice, netbox, zentyal, jitsi, jellyfin (opensource alternative to plex)! thanks so much !

[@IPV-uu8kw]

I'm interested in making IT lab but, on a budget. The purpose of the lab is learning Linux as well as studying CCNA cert. I was thinking purchasing two cheap laptops but I'm not a 100% sure.

[@pkasetti]

Underrated series!

[@christophjahn6678]

Thanks for the video! One small addition: You highlight the CPU's TDP on the Intel site when talking about power consumption. The TDP in and of itself is only an indicator of the maximum(!) amount of power the CPU can pull. For non-data center use the idle power consumption is the relevant piece. And this only has a very loose relationship to the TDP (less with newer CPUs). I run an old Intel Xeon E5 2670 (Sandy Bridge) with a TDP of 115 W, but the server idles at 50 W and that includes a lot of memory and a storage backplane. So unfortunately, it is not a trivial topic. Again, thanks for your videos!

[@jforbush]

this series..yes, yes, yes!

[@rudrapednekar1644]

Ive read his book mastering ubuntu server. Its pretty informative! Its good

[@lamorega]

I have a Ubiquiti AP and struggled to set up the controller on both Windows and Ubuntu. I found a tutorial for raspberry pi and was up and running in no time!

[@dermuschelschluerfer]

Im on the Journey of building a soundproof rack, got a cisco switch, one dell r210 ii as pfsense router and a hp proliant d170h g6 blade server with 4 nodes from ebay. Along with a wireless ap and some rpis its gonna be some coom projects

[@ernestolopez3870]

Great vid. Thank you sir!!

[@demanuDJ]

I'm using macbook pro a1286 and a1278 laptops as a home servers, works pretty well for my needs, both running proxmox. Both has hard drive adapters instead of CD drive and 16GB of ram. I'm going to add a Thunderbolt 1Gbit NIC to a1286 to run pfSense or OPNsense on it. Also I'm going to build third server for NAS but this time I'm going to use a special motherboard with mobile i7 2630qm for it. All my servers are very power effective, small and best of all: very quiet. If somebody wants, to try, all you need is to find laptops with broken screens, they are very cheap. Only disadvantage is there is no many ports, only 2 slots for ram and of course: no PCI slots

[@AnzanHoshinRoshi]

Thank you, Jay.

[@LearnLinuxTV]

My pleasure.

[@youtubeoneverything4581]

Lookin forward to ubuntu server on laptop videos

[@SteveM0732]

It would be great if you can cover how to back up the Promox server, FreeNAS server, and the laptop servers. Mostly how to aggregate it all to one on-site location from which you can either encrypt and push to a remote server and/or swap out a HDD and sneaker net a periodic backup offsite.

[@anthonysantana4278]

This is pretty cool, I am interested in port management, I have several servers at home but I am having issues with port forwarding and poking holes in my firewall

[@WilliamHea]

When I think about getting a homelab started, I get overwhelmed with where to start investing my time and what to focus on first. What are the most fun or easy services to start bringing on premise?

[@stefannilsson2406]

My first server reflects "loud and powerhungry" very well. I bought a dell poweredge r810 with 4 130W Xeon E7 8837 cpu's for just 89,99 GBP.

[@squalazzo]

i bought 2 days ago a refurbished lenovo p300 sff with i7 4790, 32gb ram and 240ssd for 390€, to create my home test lab to study k8s, so very interested in this kind of video, already seen most of your previous one :)

[@thomasburns1846]

Looking forward to more home lab videos. I have two Raspberry Pi computers that run bind9, Music Player Daemon, Forked Daapd, Samba, and NFS. They are perfect for my modest needs. The Pi running Music Player Daemon has a HiFiBerry DAC and is connected to my vintage Yamaha amplifer.

[@LearnLinuxTV]

That sounds amazing! I set up Volumio for that purpose lately, but it's not using really cool hardware like yours is.

[@nsxtogo6044]

I do love these videos awesome

[@Bonemanwalkin]

Always like your vids technical but approachable as well.. I have a homelab dell poweredge, I kind of ran into a wall after getting OMV set up and a samba share going, I didn't know what else to do, and I just kinda shut it off . Maybe you can make some next step videos or ideas for services for home

[@user-ks2bm1is8m]

Yes I would love it

[@mayurchavhan8590]

Nice.. I think building DIY NAS is pretty awesome...

[@LearnLinuxTV]

It's very fun.

[@bob84409]

The biggest issue with using raspberry pis for homelab, especially k8s is the arm64 arch. Many distros are still not multi-arch and it's a giant pain having to work around it. I have a 10 pi cluster at home.

[@Tex1961]

I am eager to watch your home lab series. I am just in the planning stage for mine. I am thinking a 2 or 3 year old HP mini running docker on ubuntu with services like pihole, plex, jitsi meet, nextcloud. Your series could be a great help.

[@drwhowhogrub3908]

Hi, good content thanks! I may is missed it but what do you do for power? Can you plug everything into the UPS? I always seem to be running out of power sockets. I don't have a UPS by the way. Cheers

[@eloquenthillbilly]

More please. I wanna see a >$200 options for NAS/PLEX and other things to play with. Whatever you do I'm sure it'll be at least partially applicable to what I want.

[@lis6502]

What i am missing in this video and all alikes is safety. While genuine servers don't combust in regular fashion, these handcrafted might and a fan blowing 20L/s of air will happily feed up flames. Personally i do have fire extinguishers nearby my locations, however this needs to be automated because many of homelabbers are using VPN to be with their machines while physically being outta town. Sure that your setup (having nice metal rack with glass doors) is more sustainable to isolating burning inferno from your basement, especially considering my toys are running in wooden cabinet (due to need minimum Wife Acceptence Factor level ;p), however it's still a serious risk which no one addressed so far. Smoke sensor should be obligatory in such builds if not some automated power-cutoff system with at least air latches that stops fresh air from feeding flames. And i seriously think that this topic deserves separate episode. As for hardware - there are niche device types which are getting more and more affordable, while delivering decent amount of homelabitty to your home labs :) i am talking about terminals, like HP t610 which runs my proxmox lxc containters. It's thin, light on power, somewhat expandable (usb3, SATA connector, ddr3 slots) and personally i found them somewhat between raspberry pis and laptop from scrapyard. Another thing worth mentioning is a router. Personally i rely on Mikrotik, while messing around OpenWRT in different subnet. However i wanted to have reliable network core, so i began to master MT.

[@belalsalas7266]

Hi Jay, thank you for this amazing content, some people have a FreeNAS installed on a VM using Proxmox, is this a good way to do it?

[@stanmoore9171]

Jay, this may be a little long-winded but, hey, you asked for feedback. I think an interesting question is which hypervisor to use. I know you prefer Proxmox and Tom Lawrence prefers XCP-ng. Since I started watching Tom first (I think I learned about you from him), I ran XCP-ng for most of a year. I like the ability there to do incremental backups of VMs. But I've just switched to Proxmox after continuing frustration with Xen Orchestra. First, I had much difficulty downloading it in the first place (now many months ago). However, the free version doesn't do VM backups at all. So I built it from sources, another hassle. With the "from sources" version, there is no notice of updates. So I ran both, the "from sources" version for backups and the free version as an easy way to check on updates. I also lost a port on my server and a port on my switch because of the strong recommendation of a separate network for the management interface. Finally, Xen Orchestra is unable on the GUI to establish NAS storage on QNAP NAS's. They're working on it, but it's not a high priority. It's only a minor annoyance though as other protocols are available. Anyway, I thought I'd offer my two cents on the comparison I also have a question based on future plans that you might consider addressing. I currently have three Proxmox "servers" and use HA. But they're not really servers: an old Dell laptop, a Protectli box with an Intel i3, and a Dell 3060 with an Intel i8500T. My plan is to add a "real" server at some point in the future and justify the cost by using it as my main computer and not replacing my very old Windows computer. I'd like to run Windows on it and pass through the video and audio ports and USB for keyboard and mouse to the Windows VM. From my beginning research, it does'nt look easy. That idea could be of interest to multiple viewers. So you might consider showing us how to do it on one of your servers using Proxmox.

[@ill_wicked]

My home lab has a bunch of similar hardware, plus Network infrastructure and voip. Also a networked rack power i can turn on remotely.

[@alphabanks]

I'm a big fan of using tower servers in my homelab. If I had a basement I would go with rack gear imo its just too loud to have in your home office.

[@oz9717]

this is gonna be good

[@codyhstone]

Love it!

[@MichaelAMalone]

I've looked a bit into get a used server, being in Thailand makes things more expensive... I will watch you build video.... 2 pi 4 8gb are within reach so we will see.... love your tutorials, I should add that I am leaning toward the amd cpus and not intel

[@thomasmiller5502]

I am in the process of building a Raspberry Pi oriented Home Lab. Waiting for Pi 4 Clusters to ship etc.

[@pnbalaji]

Hi Jay, I have been watching your homelab videos and they are very impressive. In the "more detail" video, I see that you have talked great things about the ZFS file system with freenas. However, I could not find any video specifically about the ZFS file system in your channel. If there is a video on ZFS, can you please post me the link for the video? If not, will you be able to do an exclusive video about the ZFS file system, it's pros and cons, how it is comparable to other file systems etc?

[@alexandrosbampounis-tsatso2630]

Hi, what backup solution are you using for your systems? I have several physical hosts that i want to backup over network plus some VMs on a Proxmox node and it would be interesting to know which software you think is most reliable. Thanks!

[@thedoeweb]

Went from refurbished HP ProLiant DL severs, to SuperMicro mini servers to now using Intel NUCs. Lower power, support 64GB and I7 core processor. Lower power and footprint.

[@malcolmanderson6735]

Is love to see a series of network basics and home network setup on a 4 - 6 stack of raspberry pi's. I'm a developer with an a+ cert, but the network+ kicked me in the face (repeatedly). That was the years ago and I know that there is a ton I have forgotten. So if you had a series of "the top 15 services to get a home lab started using a 4 - stack of raspberry pi's" I would be ALL over that.

[@JeanFrancoCaringi]

Thanks for the video Can you please explain hoy tu use names instead of IP address across your LAN ?

[@LearnLinuxTV]

That should factor in soon. I have some topics I have to get through first, but I'm keeping an eye on these comments and if I end up missing anything I'll look to comments for direction going forward. I don't do anything complicated to achieve that, but it does deserve an explanation.

[@JeanFrancoCaringi]

@@LearnLinuxTV thanks I'll wait for it!

[@tonyperez2690]

Could you create a video about TrueNas ? I want to try and make a home lab with a couple of dell switches and a R720. I got them used but i hope they can be used for that purpose. Thank you

[@portfedh]

Very cool guy, very cool content

[@Charlie8913]

Yeah i would like to see more homelab content! Maybe you could do a video about kubernetes and which use-cases/advantages it has in a homelab? Cause so far i haven't found any in comparison to using docker-compose and portainer. I'm using Proxmox and TrueNAS myself, though my main TrueNAS runs virtualized on Proxmox (of course with pci-passthrough of the HBA, cause that's the only secure way). I also use a Raspberry Pi with Octoprint, but i like to run everything else on my main server cause it's already running 24/7 and has a decent CPU and 128GB of RAM. I saw you have some VMs for only one service/app. I prefer more having a VM which runs a bunch of docker containers, it makes adding a new service much simpler and can even auto-update all services. The only thing that hurts me is that you only have 10TB, i mean that's like my backup NAS that I've thrown together of old parts, my main NAS has over 10 times that storage (24 drives in a supermicro cse-847) and 10G networking. I like that you're using encryption. In case you didn't know, TrueNAS now supports ZFS native encryption. So when you get new disks you could consider switching to it by making a new pool with native encryption, moving all your data to it, afterwards you could add the old disks as additional vdev.

[@httosyali]

not gonna lie, im more into the pi stuff. I was thinking of setting up a CI/CD pipeline on pi4 for personal projects. A tutorial on that would be great.

[@MeeJunksEavy]

You had me at Street Fighter II T-shirt boss...

[@josephferren6372]

Many computers in view, none of which look cheap. Also covered in nice looking stickers. Damn big flex XD

[@michaeljaques77]

Proxmox, why you use it, hardware passthru, all that fun stuff.

[@reason2008]

I like the idea of this series. Can't afford much hardware, so maybe you could include ways to build a lab with virtual machines.

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Good point. I think I'm going to mention relatively soon to start with what you have, before buying new stuff. And then replace components as you go. It will probably be talked about in episode 3, but I should've talked about that sooner though.

[@reason2008]

@@LearnLinuxTV Sounds good! Thank you.

[@gadooze]

I have a cheap home lab---an old laptop that I am using for file and media servers, running with OMV and docker.😀