HomeLab Updates 02/24/2025

It’s been a minute friends, I have more updates for you. Life has been busy so not a lot has changed. I am still working on projects, but the family has to take priority of course.

Below are the updates and points from my last updates with additional comments/ updates where needed. Updates and new points are in blue.

• Reconfigure Network/Server closet
  • Currently in-progress. 4/5 mini pcs are mounted and functional on the network. Still finding a place for the other one that works for getting access to it.
    • I have mounted the 5th mini pc and confirmed that I can access all ports and other things that need access.
  • Still waiting on the time to move the racks and reconfigure the mounting of those. 2 racks are currently in there and I need to mount pcs and switches in them as well as PDUs.
    • This is still valid. I have my switches and things mounted, but I have not had a chance to clean out the closet enough to move things around.
  • Relocate power outlet and potentially have one more power outlet dropped for the inside of the cabinet.
    • The cost to add another circuit is too expensive at this point in time, but it is an option later one so I will keep this one as a goal.
  • I have switched internet providers from Spectrum Fiber 1000 to ATT Fiber 2.5G option for a lower cost. You should see less latency and better performance out of the cluster and public applications. I will also have more capacity to host more.
• Ethernet Drops
  • Still pending on my 4 ethernet drops. Temporary solutions are in place.
• Cooling
  • Server closet is getting a little warm for my comfort with me needing to turn on the heat in my house. CPU temps are hovering around 100 degrees C which is a bit too high.
    • This has been mostly fixed, I have decommissioned MCServer-02, my Old NAS, turned off my Proxmox-01 machine, and put MCServer-01 on standby. I no longer run a MC server at this time, nobody plays anymore so it’s there if I end up wanting it, but off at the moment since I don’t need it.
  • Options are: During the winter, relocate the racks to the Garage. During the summer, put them back in the closet.
    • More preferred option, create an individually cooled closet or rack in the garage that is cooled by a mini split or window AC in order to keep everything cool.
    • I still plan to do this at some point, just not as high on the priority list.
• New Services
  • Working on a few things at the moment that are stumping me pretty hard.
    • Authentik/keycloak
      • Working on figuring out which solution is best for what I need and how easy each are to setup for SSO
      • I have changed directions and gone to Microsoft Entra ID. It is free to use SSO options and I am on a free tenant as of now so no issues here. It syncs with my Active Directory.
    • LDAP
      • Microsoft AD cannot be used exclusively for this since I do need LDAP functionality for some of the services that lock Microsoft AD behind a paywall.
      • I have chosen to just go with Microsoft AD for this. There is an AD connector for LDAP so that is what I’m using at the moment. My LDAP services do work properly with AD.
  • Need a better solution for a dashboard
    • Found some new functionality with an updated version of Homarr so that’s what I will continue to use.
• Research
  • Researching a new tool for automating the Media Aggregation stack.
    • Having trouble with this since I do not use RAID or have enough disks to run RAID. The endgame solution I believe will work is to create a disk pool that uses SMB using TruNAS Scale or Unraid and then mounting said shares to the linux machine. The only problem is link speed to the switch and plex machine. For this to be viable, I would want a 10G connection between them so that It doesn’t take a year to move plex data.
  • I am researching a new option for mealie, I want better recipe sharing

The HomeLab might have taken a back seat, but it is still alive and working so you can keep that. I have also updated Gitlab and some of my other services. There are new services coming soon once I have a chance to work on them.