Wanting to learn more about IT infrastructure, networking, and system administration... and also wanting to have an awesome home network and servers for myself, I designed and built my home server rack for projects and learning (homelab).
I aim to eventually acquire enterprise server hardware and run a different hypervisor on it. VMware ESXi is on one of my machines but I want to learn Proxmox as well.
Homelab
DNS Server
Using a Raspberry Pi 2b I set up a DNS Server with an IP blocklist to filter out ads, tracking, and other malicious sites on my network.
When a device on my network requests an IP address for a known malicious site or source it will not provide it. Therefore the ads will not populate.
Through the IP admin portal I can manage the DNS server, adding or removing blocklists, blacklist or whitelist IPs, and manage the system.
Jellyfin Media Server
Using a mini pc running Windows 10, I set up a Jellyfin Media Server to give myself 24/7 access to my media library. On my home network you can watch all content on the web, apple tv, or mobile.
Project Zomboid Game Server
Using a mini pc running Windows 10, I set up a Project Zomboid Dedicated Server. I host this server with custom settings and mods for my friends and myself. Utilizing Hamachi VPN my friends can join my network and join the server, giving us a private server to play on without a monthly cost for a VM service.
Admin is easy, I use remote desktop to remote in and manage the server, the mods, and the networking.