Project XenLab

Overview

Project Status: Planning

This repo will include my current Homelab stack, resources, provisioning scripts, etc. Please view the CHANGELOG.md file for more information on changes to the project.

What is a Homelab?

Homelab is a laboratory at home where you can self-host, experiment with new technologies, practice for certifications, and so on. For more information about homelab in general, see the r/homelab introduction.

I want to thank @khuedoan for inspiring me to present my homelab progress and journey pubilcally. He has an amazing repo of his setup/progress which can be found here.

Hardware

• Omnimount Design 27U Network Cabinet
• 3 × Dell SFF OptiPlex 7040:
  • CPU: Intel Quad Core i7-6700 @ 4.0GHz
  • RAM: 16GB
  • SSD: 512GB
• 1 × Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
• 1 × Raspberry Pi 2 Model B
• Apple Mac Mini Early 2009
• Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X
  • Ports: 5
  • Speed: 1000Mbps
• MokerLink 24 Port PoE Gigabit Managed Switch:
  • Ports: 24 + 4 GE Uplink + 4 Combo SFP
  • Speed: 1000Mbps
• Synology DS1515+:
  • CPU: Intel Atom C2538 @ 2.4GHz
  • RAM: 8GB
  • HDD: 30TB (20.9TB Usable)

Basic Topology

Current Tech Stack

Logo	Name	Description
	Proxmox	Server Virtualization Platform (Debian)

Planned Tech Stack

	Ansible	Automated bare metal/VM provisioning and configuration
	Let's Encrypt	Automated Open Certificates
	Cloudflare	DNS and Tunnel
	Grafana	Operational dashboards
	Kubernetes	Container Orchestration System
	NGINX	Reverse Proxy / HTTP Sever
	Vault	Secrets and encryption management system
	Terraform	Automation / IaC (Infrastructure as code)
	Gitlab	Git Repos / DevOps Toolkit
	Docker	Build/Run/Deploy Containers
	PiVPN	Raspbery Pi-based VPN Server (Wireguard)
	Portainer	Container Management
	Scrypted	Home Video Integration and Automation Platform.
	Ubuntu	Debian based Linux Distro

Goals / To-Do List

• Move components to server rack
• Acquire network hardware for VLAN / PXE support
• Selfhost Gitlab & develop CI/CD pipelines
• Automated MaaS / PXE BARE METAL PROVISION
• Automated Terraform VM provisioning
• Automated Ansible/Packer Configuration Management
• Kubernetes Installation & Management
• Develop Custom 'Control Plane' to manage homelab
• Self Hosted Gitlabs, GitLab/Github Runners & CI/CD Pipelines
• Private Container Repo
• Utilize Synology NAS (implement automated off-site backups)
• Dashboards, consolidated logging, monitoring and alerts
• Expose VM to the internet securely (web app)
• Utilize RaspPi Pi for piVPN
• Utilize RaspPi for piKVM
• Establish Automated Updates w/ alerts
• Establish Hybrid Cloud (On-Prim <-> Cloud) Architecture
• Create Github Pages hosted MkDocs site for documentation / tutorials
• Upgrade small Switchs to Rackmount Switch
• Cable Management

License

Distributed under the GPLv3 License. See LICENSE.md file for more information.

Acknowledgements

Here is a list of some of the great people who have directly or indirectly contributed to this project:

• @khuedoan
• @techno-tim

If I missed you from this list, please reach out so I can correct it.