My HomeLab: Part 1
Old Computers? New Servers!
I am sure that I am not the only technology enthusiast among us who has old, what some may call bad, computers lying around in closets around the house. Well...what if I told you that your own personal home-lab was...also...in those same closets! Long story made short, old computers make GREAT virtualization servers; in this article I will explain why, and how you can reap this benefit for yourself!
My Machine Of Choice!
Lenovo ThinkPad (I do not even know the model designation; it is OLD):
Processor: 4 Core 3rd Generation i3.
RAM: 8GB DDR3(?)
Storage: 500GB HDD
In most 2022 use cases, this machine would be thrown out or gathering dust, but with some fancy software, and a few tools, we can give it NEW LIFE and purpose for FREE.
The HyperVisor - Tying It All Together
The crux of this, and most enterpise / HomeLab environments, is virtualization. Virtualization is a technology that allows us to simulate software, hardware, and even infrastructure within other pieces of software, hardware, and infrastructure. In order to do this, a special type of operating system is used. This is called, the HyperVisor.
Type 1 HyperVisors, My Obvious Choice!
Without a lengthy explanation of HyperVisors (Check out NetworkChuck or MikeMyers for that!), it is suffice to say that a Type 1 HyperVisor was my obvious choice. Running the host on bare metal was a neccesity in my case since I had very little system resources to work with in the first place and could not have a host OS eating them up.
OpenSource? YES!
In terms of HyperVisors, I have recently fallen in love with Proxmox, a free, open-source, Ubuntu-Based HyperVisor that is totally free to use. Open source software is typically much more stable to use AND is totally free of cost! In this case, Proxmox gives me backup support, support for containers, virtual machines, clustering support and extensive enterprise-grade flexibility and agility.
领英推荐
Installation!
Installation was simple and clean; after making a bootable drive using the free tool Ventoy (Expect another article) , I flashed the ISO to my laptop's hard disk. After modifying the boot order to allow for this, and enabling virtualization within my BIOS-UEFI settings, I booted to Proxmox, went through the setup wizard, and launched the service on my network (making sure to reserve its address within my router's DHCP server)!
What Do I Do With It?
As of right now, with my limited resources, I am only running three things: A local DNS Server, a Windows File Server, and a Linux Lab.
Conclusion?
I can not wait to see the potential of this setup going forward; I plan on racking it with an actual server some day. I also plan on adding a UPS, Rasberry-Pi, and UniFi Dream Machine router to my stack. The goal is to create a Proxmox cluster that is secure, available, and useful for myself and my family! Maybe I can even add VPN functionality for remote usage! Stay tuned for Part 2 as I learn more!
Thank you for reading!
Tyler J. Sell
RESOURCES:
Software Engineer at Akuna
2 年That's amazing, Tyler! I've been using container-based apps for my homelab so far but it sounds like Proxmox really worked out well for you, so I'll give it a try. Can't wait to read your next post!
Gov. Cybersecurity Engineer | A.A.S Computer Eng. | Net+ | Sec+
2 年Roger Hall I’m going to try my hand at clustering this with a few other Proxmox hosts to run a fairly robust, albeit cobbled together, server suite. Any suggestions on services that I should try self hosting?
Gov. Cybersecurity Engineer | A.A.S Computer Eng. | Net+ | Sec+
2 年Dielle D. This is a more detailed explanation of my process! I included some of the resources I used at the bottom. You do NOT need a hefty network infrastructure to start self hosting a lab environment! Look at MY picture XD!