I’m basically always changing things, rethinking my setup, and iterating on what my homelab should be. Right now, I’m planning a full rebuild. And yes… this time it will totally be the final architecture™ 😄

Over the last months I collected a bunch of lessons learned. The biggest one: bare-metal installs tend to just idle in my environment. So I’m going back to heavier virtualization to pack more workloads onto the lab and actually use the hardware properly.

Servers should sweat a little. Otherwise what’s the point, right? 💻🔥

This redesign is intended to serve as my technical playground and reference architecture for the coming months, giving me a stable foundation to iterate on instead of constantly rebuilding from scratch.

Even though I’ve been on a pretty strong Linux path for years, I’m now considering running a small Windows domain at home again. The clients will be Windows 11, and I’ll span the domain across two domain controllers for redundancy.

At the same time, I still want to keep pushing Linux automation, use SELinux properly, and—long term—get back into running a Kubernetes cluster.

Rebuilding my homelab with a focus on virtualization, Active Directory, Kubernetes and central storage — aiming for a clean, reproducible environment for learning, testing and self-hosting.

Personally, I’m still very much on the Linux trip: free software, digital sovereignty, and reducing dependency on US-centric cloud services. But I’ve also noticed that Windows on the desktop still has an edge for me (hardware support, drivers, “it just works”).

By integrating Windows Server, I’m mainly aiming for hands-on experience in:

  • Active Directory
  • Group Policies (GPOs)
  • PKI / Certificates
  • DNS

So my mindset isn’t “Linux vs. Windows” anymore.

It’s clearly: Linux and Windows. 🤝

I deliberately decided to use Windows/Microsoft tech primarily inside the LAN for identity, clients, and classic infra. For applications, hosted services, and platforms I’m going Linux-first—especially for monitoring & logging, automation, container platforms, and (eventually) Kubernetes.

This Linux-heavy part also mirrors my professional focus, because those topics are a big chunk of my day-to-day work and career development.

Additionally, this environment is meant to support hands-on preparation for future IT certifications and professional training paths — because nothing beats learning by breaking things in your own lab first. 😅


🎯 Project Goals

The homelab will be rebuilt from scratch with a structured approach and these focus areas:

  • 🪪 Windows AD domain for centralized authentication
  • 🧱 Virtualization using Proxmox on two servers
  • 💾 Dedicated Linux-based storage server (SMB + NFS)
  • ☸️ Kubernetes cluster for container workloads
  • 📊 Monitoring and observability
  • 🧰 Self-hosted services (GitLab, Nextcloud, Jellyfin, etc.)
  • 🐧 Debian as the default Linux distro

Domain name: muench.home.arpa
Clients: Windows 11
Lab network: 192.168.10.0/24


🖥️ Hardware & Server Architecture

The homelab consists of three physical machines:

Hostname Role Hardware
PVE1 Proxmox Node 1 HP DL20 Gen10+
PVE2 Proxmox Node 2 HP DL20 Gen10+
PVE3 Storage Server HP MicroServer Gen10+ V2

DNS will be provided via the Windows Domain Controllers. Proxmox will use centralized storage exported from PVE3.

Two identical compute nodes + one storage brain. 🧠💾


🧠 Proxmox Node 1 (PVE1)

Basics

  • System: HP DL20 Gen10+
  • RAM: 64 GB

Management

  • iLO: 192.168.10.29
  • Proxmox Host: 192.168.10.30

Storage

  • 512 GB SSD – OS / infrastructure VMs
  • 2 TB SSD – local VM data
  • NFS storage from PVE3

VMs on PVE1

Infrastructure first — because chaos comes later. 😄

Infrastructure

VM IP OS Role
VM11 192.168.10.31 Windows Server 2025 Primary AD, DNS, Issuing CA, GPO
VM12 192.168.10.32 Linux Seed VM / Template Builder / Ansible

Core Services

VM IP OS Services
VM13 192.168.10.33 Linux GitLab, Pi-hole, Nextcloud (RSYNC), Grafana

☸️ Kubernetes Cluster – Part 1

VM IP Role
VM14 192.168.10.34 MASTER1
VM15 192.168.10.35 MASTER2
VM16 192.168.10.36 WORKER1
VM17 192.168.10.37 WORKER2
VM18 192.168.10.38 Free

🧠 Proxmox Node 2 (PVE2)

Basics

  • System: HP DL20 Gen10+
  • RAM: 64 GB

Management

  • iLO: 192.168.10.39
  • Proxmox Host: 192.168.10.40

Storage

  • 512 GB SSD – OS / infrastructure VMs
  • 2 TB SSD – local VM data
  • NFS storage from PVE3

VMs on PVE2

Second node mirrors PVE1 — identical storage layout, same flexibility. 🔁

Infrastructure

VM IP OS Role
VM21 192.168.10.41 Windows Server 2025 Secondary AD, DNS, Issuing CA, GPO

Free Capacity

VM IP Role
VM22 192.168.10.42 Graylog
VM23 192.168.10.43 Icinga2DB, Vault

☸️ Kubernetes Cluster – Part 2

VM IP Role
VM24 192.168.10.44 MASTER3
VM25 192.168.10.45 MASTER4
VM26 192.168.10.46 WORKER3
VM27 192.168.10.47 WORKER4
VM28 192.168.10.48 Free

💾 Storage Server (PVE3)

  • System: HP MicroServer Gen10+ V2
  • Role: Central storage

Storage is where the magic lives.

  • RAID5
  • Linux-based
  • NFS for Proxmox & Kubernetes
  • SMB shares

🏁 Conclusion

This rebuild aims to create a stable, modular, and extensible platform:

  • clear separation of infrastructure, storage, and workloads
  • modern virtualization with Proxmox
  • Kubernetes as the container foundation
  • Active Directory as the identity backbone
  • Debian as the default Linux
  • monitoring by design

The homelab will serve both as a learning environment and as a productive private hosting platform — focused on automation, security, reproducibility, and staying pragmatic with Linux and Windows.

It is also intended to support ongoing professional development and may be used as a hands-on platform for preparing IT certifications, testing architectures, and simulating real-world infrastructure scenarios over the coming months.

Because let’s be honest: every serious IT journey starts with “I’ll just quickly rebuild my homelab…” 😄

By raphael

Leave a Reply