Show off your homelab!

[Solaris17]

Hey everyone! There seemed to be some interest from a Few people in THIS thread. So I decided to make a thread were like minded people can tell us what kind of equipment they have running at home. I am confident a closet majority of us run some kind of extended/augmented/just for fun learning lab at home. Be in on there desktops with hyper-V installed to just plain labs! So show us whatchya got!

Spoiler: Pics

Details:

From top to bottom

48Port Cat6 (Grade) Patch Panel
Connected and punched down are all of the data drops from around the house including the servers below.
All links are then connected to the Switch below it using 3ft CAT6 cable.
Links are color coded to indicate linktype.

-Black
Data links from the Servers and Data links from drops around the house.

-Yellow
Management interfaces from the servers. Each one goes to the IPMI Access ports and primary (On board) ports for the servers.

-Red
Red on the left is WAN in and is dedicated to Port 1 on the Switch. Red to the right is Data feed to my PoE injectors.

-Green
Green is hot power from my PoE injectors to my Camera systems and Access Point (AP) elsewhere in the house.

-Blue
Blue is Data from my RIPE probe, NAS, and my Raspberry PI

-White
Data link from my Mac Mini.

Router:
Shuttle DS81
8GB RAM
32GB SSD
I3-4160
running OPNsense
Added is one intel internal NIC with Dual antenne (when wifi is under maintinence)

Mac Mini
16GB RAM
OSX High Sierra
I7
120GB SSD
750GB Data drive (using dual drive sled)

This machine runs my MAC infrastructure
-Time Machine Backups
-Netboot (PXE)

RIPE ATLAS Probe
Network monitoring, global and otherwise

Raspberry PI 3 B+
Used to boot and open my monitoring dash in Kiosk mode Information is gathered about network status and server status using Agents and network monitoring data provided by
Grafana
InfluxDB
Telegraf

Ubiquiti 48Port Managed Switch (non-POE)
Connected to my patch panel and managers all LAN connectivity. The switch like everything else in my network is managed so it is L3. It has a static IP like all other core equipment in my rack.

Some Dell monitor I got from one of the members of TPU Actually! Works great and fits in the rack well.

Lolita Spyder w/ Miami Colorway Key Caps
This KB is connected to the KVM velcro'd to the left side of my Rack near the monitor. It allows me to swap between the two physical servers below it.

Spoiler: TDE-Core

TDE-Core
On the left we have my primary server. Its in some Corsair case with alot of 120mm fans and ventilation

32GB Mushkin Udimm (ECC)
Intel Xeon 1241v3
SuperMicro X10SLM+ -F
Windows Server 2016 DC

Asus(Infineon?) 1.2 TPM Chip
VM and Os drives are bitlocker encrypted.

2x Intel PRO/1000 PT Quad Port cards
2x 500GB Micron M500s SSD
1x Mushkin 120GB Chronos SSD
4x Hitachi 2TB HDDs
1x Hitachi 1TB HDD
1x Western Digital RED 1TB HDD

Arrays consist of the following
2x 2TB Hitachi HDDs in RAID0 serve as the house file share
2x 2TB Hitachi HDDs in RAID0 serve as the PLEX media array
2x 500GB Micron SSDs in RAID0 serve as the VM host array
2x 1TB mixed drives in RAID0 serve as the video surveillance array.
1x Mushkin SSD is the Boot drive for the main OS

All arrays with the exception of the house File share are controlled by the onboard hardware RAID controller. The file share is a storage pool made with windows storage spaces and is formatted as ReFS.

This Host (Physical) server also acts as my PXE machine so I can do windows installs over ethernet.

Spoiler: TDE-Lab

TDE-Lab
On the right we have my Lab server. this machine doesn't stay the same for very long and is a very new addtion to my lab. This machine is currently being built up.

4GB Mushkin udimm (ECC)
Intel Xeon E3-1275Lv3
SuperMicro X10SLL-F

2x WD 500GB HDDs RAID0

This machine gets formatted frequently and while I wait for RAM no other modifications are being done ATM. The unit is running server 2016 DC and is generally used for teaching and guides.

NetGear ReadyNAS 102

2x 2TB WD Reds

This is an iSCSI target (network link) and used as the backup destination for TDE-CORE.

Virtual Servers

-TDE-Cams
Running Ubuntu 16.04 this virtual server runs the Ubiquiti software controller that runs my Ubiquiti G3 PoE cameras. This server is on my 2x 1TB Mixed drive array.

-TDE-FTP
This server is used to collect logs from software I write. It runs on server 2012 R2.

-TDE-Game
This server hosts my game servers for the public and friends. Currently I host a private Never Winter Nights 1 campaign and whatever tickles my fancy on steam. I use SteamCMD to control the steam servers I host.

-TDE-Minecraft
Soon to be a public server again running on a modified version of Ubuntu, the current server is currently running on Server 2012 R2 and is private. A players grandmother apparently utilized the server frequently and passed away. The player reached out and asked if I could archive the world so they could remember there grandmother. I happily obliged.

-TDE-PLEX
This Server 2012 R2 machine runs my plex server and the VM is attached to a 2x 2TB (4TB) Hitachi array it uses to store Video.

-TDE-TS
This server 2012 R2 server hosts a public 512 NFR seat Teamspeak server I have ran for around 7 years.

-TDE-UBNT
This Server runs Ubuntu 16.04 and hosts the Ubiquiti controller that controls my Ubiquiti Switch and Access point. This is the servers whos web-ui I interact with to make any network changes.

-TDE-WEBv2
This server runs FreeBSD (UNIX) and acts as my web server. The webserver runs on NGINX and currently hosts 4 seperate domains. SSL is provided by certificates generated on a scheduled task provided by Lets Encrypt. The domains are a slew of tech and personal and host a variety of things from image hosting to server status. I have used FreeBSD to host the site after struggles with windows and ubuntu servers and overall enjoy the unix experience far more. Right tool for the job as they say. My IP changes since I dont have a business line going to my house. In order to accommodate this so my sites dont go down. I have been using AFRIAD.ORG for several years. I log into my account via my router which support linking, everytime my IP changes my DNS records are updated and my sites are reachable by the world.


Fun-Facts
- All of the licensing from server to software is legal and paid for or given via acedemic or personal
- To manage this mess I paid for and LOVE RoyalTS/X
- Data backup and disk maintinence are scheduled tasks that run by day and by month via scheduled tasks.
- All virtual machine settings have been fine tuned from memory usage to core count and even start up staging.
- Services in some cases like minecraft or Teamspeak had to be custom made so the machine did not need to be logged into for them to start
- Physical equipment is set to auto power on in the event of power loss
- Each VM gets a dedicated port provided by the Intel NICs
- NICs and storage Arrays are dedicated to there corrisponding VM and are not managable from the host server, for security and performance.
- All networking is strung Cat6 cable via 40ft of 3" PVC conduit in the ceiling.
- PoE injectors (right), KVM switch (Left) and Multi outlet Power distrobution (Right) are all Velcor'd to the side of the rack for easy removal.
- All cables use Velcro ties (zip ties are bad for ethernet and you should feel bad for using them!)
- WAN connection is 150/150 Fiber.

Not Pictured
Ubiquiti AP-AC Pro
Ubiquiti UVC-G3 Cameras

Gone but not forgotten
APC 1500VA UPS shit itself last week. Got tired of buying batteries for it so looking for a rack mount solution ATM.

Thats it! I plan on making guides for various facets of home labbing from server config to monitoring software. I hope to gain a bit of a following with some of the other labbers and professionals on the forum so we can cut out a nice space to talk about things like this. If you have any questions though that might have a short answer ask away!

And please feel free to contribute! Big or small I would love to see what some of you run or are testing!

 

[Jetster]

Well lets start by saying I'm new to this server stuff.

Server
i3 with 16 Gb ram H81
Boot drive is a 16Gb USB flash running FreeNAS
LSI SAS 9211 8i
5 x 6Tb in a RAID6 (RAIDZ2) for 15.6 Tb
A couple of VM and a Plex server

Battery Back up
Cyber Power 1300 VA 810 W

Back up
Synology DS216Play
2 X 2 6Tb in a RAID0

Router
TP Link Archur C5400

Switch
Netgear ProSAFE GS108

HTPC 1
i5 H97 8Gb
240 Gb SSD
GTX 1050 Ti

HTPC 2
G3258 Z97 8Gb
240 Gb SSD
SFX PSU

Gaming rig is under my specs

 

[Solaris17]

Thats pretty sweet though! I think my next physical project is some huge data array! I do swear by LSI controllers too, between them and intel easy and very reliable.

 

[therealmeep]

Pics soon but in the meantime
Server:
4790k 32GB RAM Asus Z97-A 3.1
Esxi 6.5 or 7.0 (i forgot)
VMs:
SUSE tumbleweed
Greenbone Security Scanner
Server 08 R2
Mint 17.3
2x3TB Seagate NAS drives in raid 1

UPS: Cyberpower 1500
Linux box:
i7 920 6GB RAM EVGA X58 Classy 120GB ssd
Not so mini htpc:
i5 2400 16GB RAM Asus p8p67 pro 128GB 850 pro

Router(s): Asus AC5400, AC3200
Misc: about 20-25 RPIs and a lot more equipment i still need to inventory
Synology 916+: 8GB RAM 4x4TB ironwolf in Synology raid

 

[Solaris17]

Greenbone Security Scanner

How do you like this? this is from openvas right? I wanted to take a look at it.

 

[therealmeep]

It is so nice to use and yes, it uses openvas. You just set it up from the console (more of a gui than a console) make a new user, log into the web gui and your off to the races.

 

[phill]

A thread of interest I'll see if I can get some pics tomorrow (well later on as its after midnight!!) I need to really tidy up my PC room at the moment lol My daughter is down with me at the moment, so I'll try and get her to take some pics for me Not that you'd want to see me, but the hardware might be a little more interesting!

 

[Solaris17]

A thread of interest I'll see if I can get some pics tomorrow (well later on as its after midnight!!) I need to really tidy up my PC room at the moment lol My daughter is down with me at the moment, so I'll try and get her to take some pics for me Not that you'd want to see me, but the hardware might be a little more interesting!

Cant wait! dont forget to let us know what projects youve got going on!

 

[phill]

I'll do my best @Solaris17 At the moment, it's trying to hide hardware!!

 

[silentbogo]

Holy crap! We made it!

So, I'll do some reposting of my old stuff and add some new to the mix:
1) My office/danger den:

Spoiler

Left to right:
- My soldering desk w/ cheap(-est) rework station, bench PSU, bad-ass chinese multimeter and a bunch of garbage
- A little storage area with laptop parts and broken videocards.
- My computer desk. The left monitor was primarily for microscope view. Now I sold it and bought some parts to make a smaller, but high-res LVDS panel just for that.
- Spare storage with random stuff. A bit to the left (not captured), is a pile of broken PSUs and motherboards.
These are old pics and some toys are missing, but I'll do my best to update those over the week. Back in a day all of this crap was in my house!
I also have an upcoming "DIY lab microscope on a budget" project on the way (as soon as I get my lens and webcam).
Additionally, I am planning a complete toolset upgrade. That BAKU rework station is an absolute abomination and it has to go. I'm planning on getting a proper lead-free tools (inductive iron and more quiet hot air station), and maybe a decent infrared rework station (if I manage to save up some money between excessive spending on my new apartment and not getting behind on my bills).

2) My house

Spoiler

Left to right:
- My mandatory toolset (includes that box of paperclips on the bottom)
- My cursed OrangePi Win Plus. After failing at finding a working Android distro for over 2 years it simply became a general purpose Debian server (running SMB, Print-server, Apache, FTP and some other crap)
- My brand-new Ryzen rig (R5 1600 && GTX1060). Runs Win10 and Ubuntu 18.04.
- My old Skylake rig (i3-6100 && GTX1060). Runs Win10 and Ubuntu in HyperV(mostly for cross-compiling ARM stuff and testing some random shit)
- A pile of working hardware and spare parts. On the left is a famous Chieftec Dragon chassis(aka Antec sumpin'-sumpin' or Alienware blah-blah). After I fix up some cables for my 900W modular PSU it will become my new office rig with a power to run Quake Champions and some folding capabilities

 

[phill]

It's all looking great guys!! I'm still trying to make my way through the stuff in the PC room so, I'll try and post up pics as soon as I can see the wood from the trees so to speak!!

 

[PHaS3]

My "lab" - old Q6600 system running Sophos XG firewall on top, HP DL380 G4 server bottom, bought it for the equivalent of like $15 a couple years back, installed Ubuntu LTS on it and never booted it again lol. Forgotten projects are worst projects. These days I use HyperV on my daily PC for fiddling, and for Plex.

Edit - thought I'd include the switch and routers...

 

[Kursah]

Well I don't have any pictures ATM, but I suppose I can at least share some specs and info.

Router:

• Custom built PFSense box
  • Currently on 2.4.3_1.
  • Asus N3150-C (SoC quad core Celeron 3150)
  • 2x4GB G.Skill DDR3 1600
  • 120GB SSD
  • Intel Pro/1000 PT 2-Port PCI-e NIC
  • InWin BP65 Case + 300W SFX PSU
  • Snort, Squid (cache only), OpenVPN server, DynDNS management, and bandwidth monitoring enabled.

Switches:

• Backbone Switch:
  • HP ProCurve 1800-24G
  • No live VLAN's at the moment.

• My Office Switch:
  • TP-Link 8 port Layer-2 Unmanaged Switch

Access Points:

• Asus RT-AC66R w/Merlin Firmware for ground level, 2.4 and 5GHz.
  • At SE end of house.
  • Acts as switch for MagicJack Plus phone.

• Asus RT-AC68U w/Merlin Firmware for basement and 5GHz.
  • At NW end of house in network shelf area.

Servers:

• Spartan Server 2015
  • SPARTANCORE
  • 4790K @ Stock, de-lidded w/CLU
  • CM 212EVO + AC MX4 TIM
  • Asus Z87-Pro w/2103 EFI firmware
  • Onboard HD4600 GPU used when needed, otherwise runs headless.
  • 32GB DDR3 1600 non-ECC
  • Intel Pro/1000 PT 2-Port PCI-e NIC
  • 120GB Samsung 840 SSD for Server 2012R2 + Hyper-V role to act as VM host server.
  • Dell Perc 6i + BBU in RAID 10 with 6x2TB drives for data/VM hosting.
  • EVGA KR500 Bronze PSU
  • Lian Li Lancool PC-K7 w/Cougar fans

• Spartan Server 2018 (Work in Progress)
  • SPARTANCORE2
  • TBD on CPU and Platform (likely migrated from above server to this one)
  • Lenovo TS430 case, redundant PSU and HDD backplanes (both cages are 4x3.5").
  • Lenovo TS440 front panel + FP adapter for ATX motherboards
  • LSI 9270i + cache + capacitor + 6x3TB HGST Enterprise HDD's in RAID10 (still only 7.2k tho...budget style ).
  • 120GB SSD for OS duties (Server 2016)
  • This is a work-in-progress when I can muster up a few extra bucks on it...has been sloooow going though, but hoping June is the month it is live and I can migrate to it. Also thinking of maintaining the old server for Hyper-V replication purposes.

Virtual Machines:

• SpartanDC
  • 2012R2
  • Gen2VM
  • DC
  • DNS
  • DHCP

• SpartanFile
  • 2012R2
  • Gen2VM
  • File shares
  • Plex hosted as a service
  • TeamSpeak 3 server
  • Print server

• SpartanWSUS
  • 2012R2
  • Gen2VM
  • WSUS services
  • GPO deployed and enforced

• SpartanWEB
  • 2012R2
  • Gen2VM
  • Test IIS, RDGW, NLA server, not really in-use ATM.

• SpartanWDS
  • 2012R2
  • Gen2VM
  • WDS server for workstations and server OSes alike.
  • Use here and there...haven't used much in 2018 but maintain because when I need it, it's sure handy to have around!

• MineOS
  • MineOS Turnkey based on Debian "Jessie" and NodeJS WebGUI (meh).
  • Gen1VM
  • Hosts several Minecraft servers for my kids and their friends to play on.
  • Mix of vanilla and mod servers.
  • Bi-weekly backups and archives.

• Win7Test
  • Windows 7 Pro SP1
  • Gen1VM
  • Just a test VM I fire up to verify WSUS, patches, whatever really.

• Win8.1Test
  • Windows 8.1 Pro
  • Gen2VM
  • Same as above, just for Win8.1.

• Win10Test
  • Windows 10 Pro 1803
  • Gen2VM
  • Same as above, just for Win 10.

• LinuxTest
  • Ubuntu 18.04 for testing, so far best version of Ubuntu to run in Hyper-V yet!
  • Gen2VM

• PFSense VM 1
  • PFSense 2.4.3_1
  • Gen1VM
  • Testing and lab network management.

​

UPSes:

• APC Smart-UPS 1500
  • SPARTANCORE1
  • SPARTANCORE2
  • Any test systems I bench back there.
  • Current load is 10%.

• CyberPower 1000VA
  • Network hardware only.
  • Router
  • Switch(es)
  • Cable Modem
  • Asus RT-AC68U
  • Current load 54W.

• APC 1500VA UPS
  • Used for my gaming system (in system specs).

Network Rack:

• A big plastic shelf from Costco I picked up a couple months ago for about $20, has actually worked out well. Opted to go this way when my network rack and server budget was re-allocated to medical bills. I should've picked up 2 more because they're no longer available or found anywhere.

I'm sure I missed some details, but that's the gist of my current setup as-is. I have some other physical workstations and laptop(s) I was using for lab environment stuff, my NAS is offline ATM, the laptop is a kid PC now, the other PC's are just offline for cleaning which hasn't been done. Those parts aren't as pertinent to my lab setup as what I listed above though.

 

[phill]

I've finally grabbed some pics as I've finally sorted through the PC room.. I'll see if I can get them uploaded tomorrow at some point as I'll be busy with my daughter most of the day.. I hope they'll be worth waiting for

 

[Solaris17]

Those look sweet! Cant wait to hear more about them! Any of you guys used them to help get certs etc? stay relevant in the field?

MineOS Turnkey based on Debian "Jessie" and NodeJS WebGUI (meh).

How do you like this? I am literally about too (this week) retire my legacy MC server and switch over to this. My main issue is that keeping the server core files upto date so people with the client dont bitch was hard. Is this easier with this?

 

[therealmeep]

How do you like this? this is from openvas right? I wanted to take a look at it.

Here is a relatively new screen to me but helps get everything across pretty well, setting up tasks in gb is very easy, and takes about a minute through their nice wizard.
Hoping to get a hyper-V server set up so that I can get some experience with it under my belt, not to mention getting some log forwarding/auto patch rollouts going for these bazillion machines.

 

[Kursah]

How do you like this? I am literally about too (this week) retire my legacy MC server and switch over to this. My main issue is that keeping the server core files upto date so people with the client dont bitch was hard. Is this easier with this?

I like it quite a bit, its simple and easy to manage. I'm not sure you can auto update the version, but you can download and apply in the web GUI quickly and easily which makes things quite nice. As does the console page allowing for reviewing log entries and sending commands to any server.

I host 3 servers on it, two vanilla each a different version, and a mod server based on 1.7.10 forge with a handful of mods the kids wanted. All run great, but we rarely have more than 5-6 on any server at a given time. Pretty much what they wanted I was able to provide pretty easily which was nice.

MineOS is pretty lightweight, you can SSH in, and of course use SFTP. That's how I migrated from the old MineOS server from 2015 to the new one we currently use in 2016. No issues running virtual. The WebGUI has gotten much more stable, I run the commands to update it about once every month or two. Overall, I'm pretty happy as it keeps my level of maintenance down.

I run CRON jobs for backups and archives about twice a week, but have to manually clear them out...not a big deal really as I only have to do that about 2-3 times a year.

I know some folks say MineOS isn't that good, but for me it has been great and stable, especially this newest version...so so so much better than the old one. I believe you'll still have to manually open any port but 25565, 22 and 443. I run 25565-25570 open so that I can run all the servers at once if needed. I only try to run 3 ATM. It has 4 threads and 8GB RAM allocated and does a pretty good job overall. It would do better with more threads and maybe a little more RAM if any of the servers were more popular...but compared to running a server in Ubuntu Server, this is pretty nice to deal with. Turnkey uses very little resource-wise.

 

[remixedcat]

Mine:
My Network hardware in use at the moment: Cisco Meraki MX64 router, Ubiquiti Unifi AP-AC-LR, Ubiquiti Unifi AP-AC-Lite, 1 Cisco Meraki MR32 AP, Cisco Meraki MS220-8p Poe Switch. D-Link DGS-1210-10P PoE managed switch.Cloud Key for the UBNT stuff (PoE powered and connected to MS220 8P)

Total inventory:
Cisco Meraki MX64 Firewall
Cisco Meraki Z1 router
Cisco Meraki MS220-8P switch
Cisco Meraki MR32 AP
Cisco Meraki MR12 AP
Ubiquiti Unifi AP-AC-LR
Ubiquiti Unifi AP-AC-Lite
Ligowave NFT3AC
Ligowave NFT2AC
D-Link DGS1210-10P switch
Xclaim Xi3 AP
Valuepoint Networks 12P
Luxul XWR-1750 router
Luxul XAP-1500
Luxul XAP-1510
Luxul XAP-1410
Luxul XWC-1000
Netgear R7000
Airtight C75 AP
Netgear WNDR 4500v2 router
Amped R20000G router
Netgear WGR614

UPS:
APC Backups NS1080 for workstation/router/cable modem/main display
APC Backups ES550 for Meraki PoE switch and test stuff
APC Backups 425VA for HTPC/Dlink PoE switch

Server/Workstation specs: Intel i53570K/16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600 RAM/Nvidia Geforce 650Ti/Samsung 850 500GB SSD+1.5TB Seagate/Windows Server 2012 Standard/Realtek GBE NIC
Hyper-V: Server 2012/Server 2008R2/Vista SP2/Server 2003/2000/VMware ESXi (forgot my password for it )/Longhorn 4074/Tiny Core Linux

Media server: Dell Precision T3400 Intel Core2 Quad Q6600/RAM:3.9 GB/Quadro FX 1700/2TB of mixed capacity Jbod goodness (lol)/server 2012 R2

Network monitoring: PRTG currently using 85 sensors out of 100/Meraki systems manager for remote control and asset control/Mouse without borders to manage the fleet of laptops.

All software legit.

 

[phill]

Well since my little angel is fast asleep and I had a spare few moments, I thought I'd post up some pictures as I promised

This is my PC room with anything and everything thrown in it I can put a list together of all the hardware when my daughter has sadly gone back to her Mum's but will be able to do that no problems Everything has it's little use, which I like and more so, everything works as well! Well aside from one of the Gigabyte X58 boards

Still most of the systems in the photo's do run Windows but there's one or two that run Linux, mainly for crunching but they go on as and when

As there seems to be a limit to 10 pics, I'll put up another post

 

[therealmeep]

I don't believe that room gets touched on a daily basis, everything is way too clean and way too organized. Either way looks great and looks like you have plenty to play with and keep you busy!

 

[phill]

Here's the server side of things at the moment...

I'll see if I can add in some text in a few hours as my little monkey has woken up and she needs me attention If anyone has any requests of what they'd like to know, ask and I'll answer as best as I can when I reply

I don't believe that room gets touched on a daily basis, everything is way too clean and way too organized. Either way looks great and looks like you have plenty to play with and keep you busy!

That comes from cleaning it up for 3 days or more lol !! I've had a switch around so I had to put back as my OCD was killing me! lol

 

[therealmeep]

One of these days I need to clean up around all of my equipment, the snake's nest of cables probably has about enough hair to make a whole dog or 2, and there's enough cables that their finally getting in my way.

 

[remixedcat]

I'd take a pic but I got some beta hardware that would be too muh of a pain to hide or move even with PS lol

 

[qu4k3r]

...everything is way too clean and way too organized...

Extremely organized I'd say
I really like those pics with the motherboards, gpus, and cpus...
They look like a sort of antique shop or garage sale
Just need some price tags on the items

Inmaculated room, very nice... congrats.-

 

[Solaris17]

wow these are some great posts! Thanks for all the info. @remixedcat thats some sweet networking gear, you ever manage to also jump in on meraki webanars for the free stuffs?