hlab: infrastructure
I got upset with the ongoing enshittification of things. For me personally this was Amazon, Netflix and Spotify. Therefore I found I need to host tools and services myself, if I don’t want to run in rising prices and features cut every now and then.
My requirements were to build something quiet, as I value a very quiet and calm work atmosphere - both, the rack and the nas, sit in my office.
moho
moho is a 10 inch rack hosting my main services and components in my homelab. It currently runs a 2-node Kubernetes cluster on it, with
various services, Codeberg runner, and further tooling. The plan is to make it a 3-node HA cluster.
Info
Find my GitOps Kubernetes cluster in my Codeberg repo.
Rack
The rack is a DeskPi Rackmate T1. To power all the devices inside, I attached an extension lead, Digitus 4-socket lead, at the back.
Devices
| Device |
|---|
| 1x Netgear GS308EPP, 8 Port, PoE |
| 2x Raspberry Pi 4B, 4GB |
| 1x Beelink Ryzen 7, 5825U, 32GB RAM |
| 1x Beelink Ryzen 7, 5700U, 32GB RAM |
| 2x SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD, 1TB |
Applications
The following applications I host myself on the cluster.
- Silverbullet: note-taking and todo application
- Vaultwarden: password manager
- Mealie: recipe manager
- Stirling PDF: PDF toolbox
- Miniflux: feed reader
- Paperless-ngx: document management system
- Authentik: OIDC identity provider for all my homelab applications
- Woodpecker CI: running my own workloads, also from my Codeberg archives
Cluster-internal applications
belle
belle is a custom build NAS, as I feared upcoming enshittification coming along very soon to NAS vendors as well. It did not took long
and it happened with Synology limiting their NASes to only a special set of hard drives.
Furthermore the price difference is huge, or better, the price/value ratio.
I got a lot more power with buying older parts and assembling the parts myself.
| Component | Part |
|---|---|
| Case | Fractal Node 304 |
| Mainboard | ASUS Prime H310I-Plus R2.0, LGA 1151 (used) |
| RAM | 2x Corsair Vengeance, DDR4, 16GB (=32GB) |
| CPU | Intel i3-9100 |
| CPU FAN | Noctua NH-U12S |
| PSU | Corsair RM650x |
| Disk (Storage) | 2x WD Red Plus 3.5”, 8TB |
| Disk (System) | Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB SSD |
| OS | TrueNAS Scale |
It runs Jellyfin and some Samba shares for moho, such as a share for my documents and for backups.
The hard disks run in RAID 1 mode, full mirroring. That leaves me with 8TB storage, which is enough right now. Let’s see for how long ^^.
fido
fido is an older Lenovo T14 Gen. 2, 14" with 48GB DDR4 3200Mhz RAM, an integrated Radeon Vega Mobile,
an AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 5650U and 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe.
| Component | Part |
|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 5650U |
| RAM | 48GB DDR3 3200 Mhz |
| GPU | ATI Cezanne [Radeon Vega Series ] |
| Mainboard | |
| Storage | Samsung SSD 980 PRO, 2TB |
| Display | Lenovo LCD Display, 14", 1920x1080 |
| OS | Arch Linux |
| WM | Sway |
Configuration in my Arch Linux can be found in my dotfiles.
Most used
- Ghostty, foot terminal
- Helix: editor
- Profanity: XMPP command-line client
- Headlamp: Kubernetes UI
- Betterbird: email client
- Vivaldi: browser
jethro
jethro is a MacBook M2 Pro, 14" from 2023, with 32GB DDR5 RAM, an Apple Silicon 12-core CPU
and 1TB SSD drive.
| Component | Part |
|---|---|
| CPU | Apple Silicon, 12 CPU-core, 19 GPU-core |
| RAM | 32 GB DDR5 RAM |
| GPU | Integrated |
| Mainboard | - |
| Storage | 1 TB SSD |
| Display | Apple Display, 14" |
| OS | MacOS Tahoe |
Network
The network is a Gigabit everywhere. My uplink is via cable (1 Gbit downstream, 50Mbit upstream), and inside my rooms is also Gigabit LAN.
- Fritzbox Cable: DHCP and DNS provisions for all clients
- DNS: 2 Raspberry Pis running a redundant Pihole setup for all clients