Project Homelab - User contributions [en]

Proxmox VE

2025-12-12T14:25:19Z

Travis: Created page with "Proxmox VE is a hypervisor that is based on Debian. Category:Software Category:Hypervisors"

Proxmox VE is a hypervisor that is based on Debian.
[[Category:Software]]
[[Category:Hypervisors]]

Homelab Security

2025-11-08T13:40:01Z

Travis:

[[Category:Homelab Design]][[Category:Security]]
== Introduction ==
[[File:SecurityMeme.png|border|200px|right]]This section of the site deals with the multitude of options you have available to you regarding homelab security and remote access!

The following is an index of completed articles under the banner of Homelab Security:

First and foremost, despite what you read online or tutorials you follow on YouTube, '''stop opening your network to the public Internet.''' Use a remote access method to setup secure remote access. If you do open anything up for public consumption, you need to put proper firewall rules in place to ensure that bad stuff can't get to the rest of your network.

== Remote Access ==
* [[Remote Access]]
** [[Remote Access|VPN]]
** [[RDP Web Access]]
** [[Guacamole]]

== Firewalls, Antivirus, Antimalware and UTMs ==
* [[Homelab Antivirus|Homelab Antivirus & UTMs]]
* Virtual [[firewalls|firewalls]]
* Physical [[firewalls|firewalls]]

== Certificates ==
* [[Certificates]]

ZeroTier

2025-11-08T13:35:59Z

Travis:

{{StubNotice}}

ZeroTier is a "it just works" method of an overlay network that can be used for accessing remote devices. You can think of ZeroTier as an alternative to Wireguard, OpenVPN, and IPSEC VPNs.

== Limitations ==
It's important to note that over the years, ZeroTier has slowly become "enshittified". You used to have 100 devices, then it was reduced to 50, now it's 10. There are ways around this, such as hosting your own ZeroTier controller.

ZeroTier

2025-11-08T13:33:55Z

Travis: Created page with "ZeroTier is a "it just works" method of an overlay network that can be used for accessing remote devices. You can think of ZeroTier as an alternative to Wireguard, OpenVPN, and IPSEC VPNs. == Limitations == It's important to note that over the years, ZeroTier has slowly become "enshittified". You used to have 100 devices, then it was reduced to 50, now it's 10. There are ways around this, such as hosting your own ZeroTier controller."

ZeroTier is a "it just works" method of an overlay network that can be used for accessing remote devices. You can think of ZeroTier as an alternative to Wireguard, OpenVPN, and IPSEC VPNs.

== Limitations ==
It's important to note that over the years, ZeroTier has slowly become "enshittified". You used to have 100 devices, then it was reduced to 50, now it's 10. There are ways around this, such as hosting your own ZeroTier controller.

Homelab Antivirus

2025-10-31T12:27:13Z

Travis: /* Commercial Solutions (Trial) */

[[Category:Software]][[Category:Security]]
{{Wikimedia-stub}}
== Introduction ==
Although the title of this article suggests you need some antivirus for your homelab, in reality you need something more robust if you plan to allow your homelab to do anything on the internet other than connect to your favourite vendor sites. You need a threat management / threat protection solution.

== Solutions ==
The following are a number of free commercial-grade threat management solutions from Enterprise vendors which have been tested by the community, listed by category:

{| class="wikitable"
|+Free Security Software and Appliances
|-
! scope="col"| Category
! scope="col"| Vendor
! scope="col"| Product & Link
! scope="col"| Notes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|UTM|| [[Sophos]] || [https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-utm-home-edition.aspx# UTM Home Edition] || Free for up to 50 IPs on your network. Can run as a VM appliance or native physical.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Client AV|| [[Sophos]] || [https://www.sophos.com/en-us/lp/sophos-home.aspx Sophos Home Edition (Win/OSX)] || Free for PCs and Macs
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Client AV|| [[Sophos]] || [https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-linux.aspx Sophos for Linux] || Free for Linux
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Firewall|| [[Sophos]] || [https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-xg-firewall-home-edition.aspx Sophos XG Firewall Home Edition] || Includes anti-malware, web security and URL filtering, application control, IPS, traffic shaping, VPN, reporting and monitoring!
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Firewall|| [[pfsense]] || [https://www.pfsense.org/ pfsense Firewall] || Lightweight, free and open source firewall based on FreeBSD with a host of plugins and great community support. Runs well as a virtual appliance, or on low end hardware
|}

== Commercial Solutions (Trial) ==
{| class="wikitable"
|+Commercial Solutions offered as a trial basis
|-
! scope="col"| Category
! scope="col"| Vendor
! scope="col"| Product & Link
! scope="col"| Notes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Various|| [[Trelix|McAfee]]|| [https://www.trellix.com/products/epo/ McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator]|| Commercial enterprise software, available as a trial
|}

Free Learning Resources

2025-10-29T13:13:11Z

Travis:

[[Category:Education]][[Category:Training]][[Category:Cloud Labs]]
You don't always have to have a lab in your home! There are plenty of other ways of consuming knowledge, which may be lab based, video based, blogs, help sites or other.

Some tried and tested free learning sites are listed below:

== Free Online Labs and Learning ==
*[http://labs.hol.vmware.com/HOL/catalogs/ VMware Hands On Labs]
*[https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/ Microsoft Learn]
*[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ Microsoft TechNet Evaluation Center] - evaluation software

== Training Trials ==
*[http://app.pluralsight.com/signup Pluralsight free 10 day trial]
*[https://www.cbtnuggets.com/signup CBT Nuggets free 7 day trial]

== Free eBooks ==
* Packt publishing
They do a free Ebook everyday. It's mainly around development but they often do a few vSphere, or Microsoft subjects.
To get your free book everyday you need an account and to visit:
https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning

== Free Video Training ==
*[http://professionalvmware.com/2014/02/vbrownbag-follow-up-home-lab-builds-with-mark-gabryjelski-markgabbs/ vBrownBag session, Home Lab: Nested with vlans] - vBrownBag has several VMware videos, but this one applies to this site
*[https://www.cybrary.it/ Cybrary] - Cybrary is an open-source cyber security and IT learning and certification preparation platform.
*[https://www.lynda.com/ Lynda] - Lynda is not free, however many public libraries have partnerships where you can sign in with your library card number and get free access to Lynda.com courses
*[https://www.youtube.com/user/elithecomputerguy Eli The Computer Guy] - Eli produces great content to YouTube, he took a hiatus where he was pushing content to a paywalled site, but is back now.
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLE726R7YUJTePGvo0Zga2juUBxxFTH4Bk&v=agieD5uiwYY Comprehensive Guide to pfSense 2.3 (13 Epidsodes)] - Mark Furneaux goes into great depth on pfSense

== Free Podcast Training ==
* [http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=19367 TalkShoe VMware Communities Roundtable] - 400 downloaded recordings and counting about how to set up VMware systems
* [https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm Security Now] - Though not specifically "HomeLab" training, there's lots to be learned from Security Now.

== Community ==
* [https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/ r/homelab]

Brainstorming

2025-05-19T15:32:32Z

Travis:

[[Category:Open Homelab Project]]
== Intro ==
This section is simply a list of all of the ideas we have for sections. After each section title feel free to update your name against the line item in ''italics'' (double apostrophe on either side of your name) if you would like to complete the initial build out of the content for that individual page. Once you have completed it to a satisfactory level, please mark it off with a checkmark (✔) to enable us to track our progress against the list.

== Project Homelab ==
* [[About|About the Project]] - ✔

== Building the Homelab ==
=== Setting the Scene ===
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 95%"
|+Setting the Scene
|-
! Types of Homelab !! Common Requirements !! Other
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* [[Single Host Virtualisation]] - ''jonythunder''
* [[vInception]] / [[vTARDIS]] ✔
* Physical cluster
** Array of Inexpensive PCs (AIPCs)
* [[Cloud Homelabs|Cloud]]
* Hybrid
* Gathering requirements - ''Alex'' ✔
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* Use cases ✔
** Study ✔
** Media ✔
** CCTV ✔
** Pics ✔
** Blogs ✔
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* [[Wife Acceptance Factor]] - ''Alex''
* Budget
** Capex vs Opex
|}

=== Hypervisors, Power, Cooling, Noise and Compute ===
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 95%"
|+Hardware Basics
|-
! [[Hypervisors]] & Ecosystems !! [[Power]], [[Cooling]] & [[Noise]]!! Compute !! Cream Boxes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 25%;" |
* [[VMware vSphere]] - ''Bryan''
* [[Microsoft Hyper-V]]
* [[KVM]] ''-Sketch''
* [[XenServer]]
* Nesting hypervisors ✔
* vInception ✔
* vTARDIS ✔
* [[OpenStack]]
* [[bhyve]]
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 25%;" |
* [[Power]]
** [[UPS]]
** Locating your lab with your employer
** Choosing low power components ''- Alec''
*** Intel CPU Differences
*** Networking power
*** Storage COnsiderations
** DPM
*** Use more power hungry machines?
*** Turn off when not in use
*** Scripts to power on/off
* [[Cooling]] and [[Noise]]
** Comparing CPUs and heat
** Chassis size is inversely proportional
*** heat exchange
*** noise
** Summer vs winter
** Tips for cooling
** Airbricks!
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 25%;" |
* I3 vs i5 vs i7 vs Xeon
* Clock speeds
* Hyperthreading
* More, cheaper vs fewer, faster
* AzureStack RAM requirements
** Config file change for 32GB
* Loadsa RAM
* Optimum ratio of cores to RAM
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 25%;" |
* Whitebox or vendor?
* [[Racks]]
** [[Racks#Small Racks|Small Racks]]
** [[Racks#Silent Racks|Silent Racks]]
** [[Lack Rack]]s
* Tower or Rackmount
** Chassis
*** [http://openhomelab.org/index.php?title=Corsair_Obsidian_900D Corsair Obsidian Series 900D E-ATX Super Tower] - ''Ather'' ✔
*** [http://openhomelab.org/index.php?title=Corsair_Carbide_400R Corsair Carbide Series 400R ATX Mid-Tower] - ''Ather'' ✔
** [[Intel NUC|Intel NUCs]] - ''Alex'' ✔
** [[HP ML110]] - ''Dave''
** [[HP ML115]] - ''Dave''
** [[HP ML305]] - ''Mike''
** [[Apple Mac Mini]]s
** [[Gigabyte BRIX]]
** [[HP MicroServer|MicroServers]]
** Supermicro microtower with Xeon-D - "Joep"
** BLADES!
*** Dell M1000e
|}

=== Networking, Storage, Cloud Labs and Other ===
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 95%"
|+Hardware Basics
|-
! [[Networking]] !! [[Storage]] !! [[Cloud Labs]] !! Other
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 25%;" |
* Ports
* Multi-NIC configs
* [[VMware NSX]]
* Standard vs Distributed Switches
* Other uses (e.g. CCNA study)
* [[Cisco SG300]] - ''Dave''
* [[10Gbps Homelab Networking|10Gbps]] - ''Erik''
* [[Infiniband]] - ''Erik''
* [[Cable Management]]
* [[Managed Switches For Home Use]] - ''Alec''
* Multiple switches and using port channels
* Tips when [[Flood Cabling]] your house
* Tips when [[Retrofitting Cabling]] to your house
* [[Powerline]] adapters - ''Alex''
* [[Home Wi-Fi]]
** [[Cisco Meraki]]
** [[Open-Mesh]]
** [[Ubiquiti]] - ''Alec'' ' ✔
* [[ZeroTier]]
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 25%;" |
* Home array types / NAS boxes - ''Alex'' ✔
** Synology
*** [[Synology DS 1513+/1515+]] - ''Alec''
*** Synology DS713+ - ''Pietro''
*** [[Synology DX 213 Expansion]] - ''Alec''
*** [[Synology DX1513 Expansion]] - ''Alec''
* Reclaiming storage from machines
* Best way to lay out iSCSI drives
* VAAI
* Flash vs spindle ✔
* Flash
** NVMe
** PCI Cards
** SSDs
* Mixing lab data and home data ✔
* Local drives (vInception) ✔
* Storage Software ✔
** [http://www.freenas.org/ FreeNAS]
** [https://www.openfiler.com/ Openfiler] - ''Keiran S''
** [https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san-free Starwind]
** [http://community.netapp.com/t5/Developer-Network-Articles-and-Resources/Data-ONTAP-Simulator-Introduction-and-Download-Information/ta-p/85285 NetApp Data ONTAP simulator]
** [http://www.emc.com/products-solutions/trial-software-download/scaleio.htm EMC ScaleIO]
** [http://www.emc.com/products-solutions/trial-software-download/vvnx.htm?PID=SWD_vvnx_trialsoftware EMC vVNX] or [http://www.emc.com/products-solutions/trial-software-download/vvols.htm with VVol support]
** [http://www.emc.com/products-solutions/trial-software-download/isilonsd-edge.htm EMC IsilonSD Edge]? Not sure if standalone
** [http://www.emc.com/products-solutions/trial-software-download/isilon.htm?PID=SWD_isilon_trialsoftware EMC Isilon Simulator]
** [http://www.emc.com/cloud/vipr/try.htm?PID=SWD_vipr_trialsoftware EMC ViPR]
** [http://www.emc.com/products-solutions/trial-software-download/data-domain-virtual-edition.htm EMC Data Domain VE] - 0.5TB or replication
** [http://www.emc.com/products-solutions/trial-software-download/ecs.htm?PID=SWD_ecs_trialsoftware EMC ECS Object storage]
* Enterprise storage
** Uses more power than you would think! :o ✔
* [[Hyper-convergence]] ✔
** [[VMware VSAN]] - ''Frank B''
** [[Nutanix CE]]
** Atlantis?
* Local caching
** [[PernixData]] ''- Gareth :) or anyone else can help''
** [http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/software/intel-cache-acceleration-software-performance.html Intel CAS]
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 25%;" |
* Intro to [[Cloud Homelabs]] - ''Alex'' ✔
* How much time monthly spent in the homelab? ✔
* Amazon [[AWS]] Free Tier - ''Alex''
* [[Azure]]
* GCP?
* [[Ravello]]
* Bare Metal Cloud – baremetalcloud.com
* Free labs ✔
** VMware HoL
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 25%;" |
* Containers
** [[Docker]]
** Rkt
** [[VMware Photon]]
** [[Kubernetes]]
** [[Mesosphere]]

* Licensing
** [[VMware Licensing]]
** [[Microsoft Licensing]] - ''Chris B''

|}

== Managing your Homelab ==
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 95%"
|+Managing Your Homelab
|-
! Directory Services !! [[Backups]] !! Configuration Management !! DNS & IP Management !! Automation & Code
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
* [[Active Directory]]
* Univention
* OpenLDAP
* vCenter SSO
* Other LDAPs etc
||
* Backup to the cloud?
* Free backup products, e.g.
** [[Veeam]] NFR licenses ([[Veeam#Veeam Backup & Replication|Veeam Backup & Replication]])
** [[Nakivo]] NFR licenses
** etc
||
* [[Puppet]]
* [[Chef]]
* [[Ansible]]
||
* DNS Tools
** AD Integrated
*IPAM Tools
** MS IPAM
||
* [[AutoLab]]
* [[Ravello]]
* VMware Templates
* vRealize Operations
* vRealize Automation
* SCOM
* Puppet Razer
* GIT
* [[Jenkins in the Homelab|Jenkins]]
|}

{| class="wikitable" style="width: 95%"
|+Managing Your Homelab
|-
! Patching !! [[Monitoring]] !! [[Logging]] !! Load Balancing !! Email !! Other
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
* [[WSUS]]
* [[Spacewalk]]
||
* SCOM
* Spiceworks
* Veeam One
* Sensu
* Observium
* PRTG
* MRTG
||
* VMware LogInsight
* Splunk
* ELK
* Syslog Basics
||
* NetScaler
* [[KEMP]] - ''Gareth''
||
* SMTP
* Exchange
||
* Should I run a separate management cluster or server?
* VCSA vs Windows vCenter?
* [[Managing without vCenter]] (tips and tricks if you're not a vExpert/VMUG Advantage) - ''[[User:Chris|Chris B]]''
* [[Managing via Xbox]]! - ''[[User:Chris|Chris B]]''
* [[Managing your Homelab from a Mobile Device]] - ''k.i.n.g''
* [[Managing your VMware vSphere Homelab from Mac OSX]] [http://frankdenneman.nl/2016/04/21/managing-your-virtual-datacenter-and-home-lab-with-a-mac/ Franks Original Article] - ''Frank D''
* Best practices and recommendations for running a homelab
** [[Keep It Simple Stupid|KISS]]
|}

== Securing your Homelab ==
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 95%"
|+Securing your Homelab
|-
! Security & remote access !! [[Firewalls]] !! Other
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* [[Remote Access|Remote Access and VPNs]] - ''Alex G''
** VPN
*** OpenVPN Appliance with free SSL Certs from startSSL.com - ''Phil Morris''
** [[RDP Web Access]] - ''Gareth''
** [[Headless Access]] - ''Alex G''
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* Virtual Firewalls
* Physical Firewalls including Whitebox
** [[PC Engines ALIX]] - ''Pietro''
* [[VMware NSX]]
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* [[Certificates]] - ''Gareth''
* [[Homelab Antivirus|Antivirus / anti-spam]]
** [[Sophos]] - ''James K''
* [[Child Proofing your Homelab]]!
|}

== Decision Trees ==

This will be the tricky part - perhaps we have a few different ones based on different elements of the lab? I would love to do one all-encompasing d-tree but I don’t think it will be possible

The section index is here:
* [[Homelab_Decision_Trees|Homelab Decision Trees]]

== Homelab HCL ==

Reviews / Discussion on specific hardware in the context of homelabs?
Could also have lists of tested hardware for things like HBAs which work with VSAN, etc?

The section index is here:
* [[The_Unofficial_Homelab_HCL|The Unofficial Homelab HCL]]

== Other Stuff ==

* Running a mainframe!
** [[zSeries|IBM zSeries]] (z/OS, z/VM, Linux on System z)
** IBM iSeries (AS/400)
** [[Unisys]] (Clearpath MCP?)

== Cool Homelab Blog Posts / Blog Series ==

* Maybe a bunch of links - Chris Wahl has a list we could use to start with - with permission of course! http://wahlnetwork.com/my-home-lab/resources/

Remote Access

2025-02-21T13:55:20Z

Travis:

[[Category:Management]][[Category:Security]]
{{Wikimedia-stub}}
There are two main scenarios which could be referred to as remote access; access from a remote external location into your network, and headless access to your homelab servers (e.g. if they're in the loft). For information on headless access see the [[Headless Access]] article.
== Introduction ==
For many people, remote access is not important as you predominantly use the lab from home in your free time, but for others remote access is critical. Some example use cases for remote access are described below.
== Use Cases ==
The use cases for remote access to your homelab include:
* You use your homelab as a gateway to provide remote access to your home network
* The homelab as a cheap dev/test environment, because your employer is too mean to pay for a proper one! Many people use their homelabs for testing out work solutions and issues prior to implementing them on live systems.
* Your homelab is actually hosted in a location other than your home, for example if your employer provides you with rack space, or you use a colocation environment
== Solutions ==
Solutions include, but are not limited to the following:
{| class="wikitable"
|+Remote Access Solutions
|-
! scope="col"| Category
! scope="col"| Product
! scope="col"| Link
! scope="col"| Notes
|-
|Software
|Windows RDS
|[[RDP Web Access]]
|Built into Windows! Extra flexibility and security can be provided through RD Web Access.
|-
|Software
|OpenVPN
|https://openvpn.net/
|Comes available as a standard installable download for Linux, or a ready-to-use OVA licensed for two concurrent users!
|-
|Software
|[[WireGuard]]
|https://www.wireguard.com
|A very lightweight, yet powerful and fast, open source VPN. Clients available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and many other systems. Can be a bit tricky to initially setup.
|-
|HW Router
|Draytek
|https://www.draytek.com/
|If you want to do it in hardware, the Draytek home routers are the defacto standard for awesome routers which have built in VPN capabilities. Recommended models include Draytek Vigor 2925 (all variants),Y,Z
|-
|HW Router
|Netgear
|https://www.Netgear.com/
|Alternative hardware, the Netgear home routers are good routers which have built in VPN capabilities. A particular good one is the D6400 due to universal usage across ADSL/VDSL/Cable or any Ethernet service) Although, to note, a lot of the Netgear router use OpenVPN for the VPN Feature - it is limited to TAP type and not TUN - so Android and iOS support not supported. *This might change with new firmwares
|}

=== OpenVPN ===
OpenVPN is a popular remote access solution that is built into many firewalls, both commercial and free/open source. For example, a popular deployment option of OpenVPN is through the OPNsense firewall. By deploying OpenVPN through your network firewall directly, you get better control over network routing, network security, and it's generally easier to configure and manage. Most firewall providers will provide an automated way of downloading a package with the OpenVPN client and/or the profile.

=== WireGuard ===
Another VPN option built into most modern firewalls is WireGuard. The firewalls will help generate the necessary keys and creating peers.

News

2025-02-21T13:37:03Z

Travis: Protected "News" ([Edit=Allow only administrators] (indefinite) [Move=Allow only administrators] (indefinite))

[[Category:Open Homelab Project]]
__TOC__

The news that was here has been removed as it didn't pertain to Project Homelab. All project related news will be posted directly in the forum: https://forums.projecthomelab.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=2

News

2025-02-21T13:36:46Z

Travis:

Open Homelab Bug Tracker

2025-02-21T13:31:55Z

Travis:

[[Category:Open Homelab Project]]
All issues related to Project Homelab can be reported at the tracker: https://issues.projecthomelab.org/

HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9

2025-02-20T16:52:44Z

Travis: Created page with "The HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9 is a 1U server from HPE that comes in LFF or SFF options. thumb Category:Servers"

The HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9 is a 1U server from HPE that comes in LFF or SFF options.
[[File:Hp-proliant-dl360-gen9-server-no-hdd-755258-b21-43.png|thumb]]
[[Category:Servers]]

File:Hp-proliant-dl360-gen9-server-no-hdd-755258-b21-43.png

2025-02-20T16:51:40Z

Travis:

HPE DL360 Gen9

Ticketing Systems

2025-02-10T02:49:36Z

Travis: /* Use Cases */

[[Category:Software]][[Category:Help Desk]]
== Introduction ==
A help desk system is a way to organize different tasks into "tickets". If you're new to IT, you might not know why it's called a ticket. Back in the early days, if you had an issue and needed support, you'd write your request down on a slip of paper. Someone at the help desk would take this slip and put it into a queue for the techs. That slip of paper was a ticket and the terminology has stuck around into modern times.

If you have not worked in IT or worked in a small organization, you might not have used a ticket system before. Having one in your home lab is a great way to get practice with ticketing systems. You can log issues with your homelab, fix them, and then document them. If you feel real adventurous, make your family submit tickets to fix their tech ;)

== Costs ==
Some ticketing systems are designed for enterprise use and can be very expensive. Others are free, free & open source, or low cost.

== Use Cases ==
Ticketing systems in a homelab environment can get you used to how tickets work and the importance of documentation. Historical tickets can be a trove of information.

== Solutions ==

{| class="wikitable"
|+Help Desk Solutions
|-
! scope="col"| Vendor/Link
! scope="col"| Cost/License
! scope="col"| Notes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.spiceworks.com Spiceworks]||FREE / Proprietary||Available in cloud only. Old version of on-prem is insecure and no longer developed.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.osticket.com osTicket]||FREE / GNU/GPL||Self-hosted, PHP/MySQL, if you know or learn PHP it's easy to customize. Has AD/LDAP plugin for authentication.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/ ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus]||Free/Paid / Proprietary||Standard version is free for up to 5 techs. Installs as a free trial of Enterprise
|-
|[https://www.supportpal.com SupportPal]
|$249.95 annual / Proprietary
|Self-hosted, PHP/MySQL. Source code is encoded with Ioncube. Extending this system requires use of the API.
|}

Template:Infobox

2025-02-10T02:19:20Z

Travis: Reverted edits by Travis (talk) to last revision by openhomelab>Gareth

{{#invoke:Infobox|infobox}}<noinclude>

{{documentation}}

</noinclude>

Template:Infobox

2025-02-10T02:14:53Z

Travis:

{{#invoke:Infobox|infobox}}<includeonly>{{template other|{{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|Infobox||{{#ifeq:{{str left|{{SUBPAGENAME}}|7}}|Infobox|[[Category:Infobox templates|{{remove first word|{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}]]}}}}|}}</includeonly><noinclude>
{{documentation}}

</noinclude>

Building a Homelab

2025-01-31T16:13:06Z

Travis:

[[Category:Homelab Design]]
== Introduction ==
This section of the site deals with the multitude of options you have available to you when you come to design, procure and build your homelab.

Once you have [[Requirements Gathering|gathered your requirements]], the next step wil most likely to be decide on [[Homelab_Categories|which category of homelab suits you best]], and subsequently you can follow the links below to find out information about your different infrastructure options.

== Compute ==
Assuming you don't go for a [[Cloud Labs|Cloud Lab]], then for your compute layer, you have two very simple options; build or buy.

Much like when procuring a PC, if you choose to buy from a known (or unknown!) vendor, you may be able to get a decent price for the overall solution, though the level of flexibility after you have unwrapped it may be limited. The biggest advantage to building your own is that you can choose every single component which goes into your hosts, individually. This can of course be a pain if you want to make sure you have every component fully supported by your favourite hypervisor and version, but then again with great power comes great complexity! :)

=== Vendor Style ===
Here you have three very simple options. Rack mount, Tower, or Small form factor. There is one other bonus option which is Laptop/Notebook, and if you need this, you will most definitely know it (for example SEs and Road Warriors love to carry a demo lab with them at all times!
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 95%"
|+Popular / Recommended Vendor Servers
|-
! Small Form Factor & Barebones PCs !! Vendor Towers !! Vendor Rack Servers
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* [[Intel NUC]]
** [[Intel NUC6I7KYK]]
* [[Gigabyte BRIX]]
* [[Shuttle XH61V]]
* [[Shuttle XPC SZ170 R8 V2]]
* [[ASRock C2750D4I]]
* [[Supermicro Xeon D-1500]]
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* [[HP MicroServer]]
* [[HP ML110]]
* [[HP ML305]]
* [[HP ML310]]
* [[Dell PowerEdge]]
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* [[HPE ProLiant DL20]]
* [[HPE DL380]]
* [[Dell PowerEdge]]
* [[SuperMicro SuperServer]]
|}

=== Whitebox Servers ===
AKA Roll your own!
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 95%"
|+Popular / Recommended Cases
|-
! Whitebox Desktop/Tower Cases !! Small Form Factor Servers !! Whitebox Rack Cases
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* [[Corsair Obsidian 900D]]
* [[Corsair Carbide 400R]]
* [[Fractal Design Define]] R3 / R4 / R5
* [[Phanteks Enthoo Primo]] Black
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* [[SilverStone SG10]]
* [[Antec ISK-600m]]
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 33.3%;" |
* Supermicro SC505-203B
|}

Lastly, once you know what case size you like, you need to decide what kind of motherboard will fit into it! Here are a few examples which have been tried and tested by the community:

A full list of tested [[Whitebox Homelab Motherboards]] is available here:
*[[Whitebox Homelab Motherboards]]

== Processors ==

When choosing a processor, the use case for your homelab will determine if the processor is a good fit. Make a list of functional requirements and choose the processor that handles these. Since memory will be the most likely bottleneck when running multiple virtual machines, don't get to carried away finding the most powerful processor.

General rules of thumb
Newer processors are build using a smaller etching method. This means the processor will use less power.
Newer processors contain newer instruction sets. AES, memory table virtualization and h264 video processing are a clear example of instructions that speed up some of the workloads. Since using an instruction set requires the right drivers and software, your mileage may vary. If your workload benefits from an instruction set, you'll see both power savings and increased performance.

For convenience sake, we'll split up processors into three groups:
* Small - maximum of ~16GB RAM
* Medium - Maximum of 32GB or 64GB RAM
* Large - everything over 64GB RAM

===Small processors===
Are usually designed for low-power devices such as NAS appliances, TVs and mini-notebooks. Newer versions of these kinds of processors (such as the Intel Braswell and AMD AM1 Kabini) are quite capable, but no speed devils. If you're going to build a machine that will be on 24/7 and perform relatively easy tasks (router, NAS, containers, home automation and/or home security) these are the best fit for the job. The power usage of the small processors group is pint-sized. The cheapest versions of these will be soldered to the motherboard and generally do not support more than two memory slots with a limited amount of memory.

===Medium processors===
Contain your average desktop PC processors and derivatives. Great performance when you just want to build a fast homelab to test or use a moderate amount of workloads. Think Intel socket 1150 and AMD socket AM3+. A general maximum for these kind of processors is four to six cores and 32GB or 64GB RAM. They come with the most up-to-date instruction sets and can have high core clock speeds (up to 4GHz). Motherboards for this type have one socket to place your processor and two to four memory slots. While these are perfectly capable and, with some care during your build, reasonably power efficient, they have an upper limit to the amount of workloads that they can handle simultaneously.

===Large processors===
These usually fall into the enthusiast, workstation or server grade processors. Think Intel socket 2011-3 and AMD Opteron. While these processors don't use a lot of power in idle mode, the amount of cores and addressable memory can handle much more workloads than the medium processors and can draw a significant amount of power out of a wall socket. Most of the processors in this category can be placed onto a multi-socket motherboard. This type of motherboard houses two or four processors. While all this raw processing power is awesome, don't forget your functional requirements. Burning lots of Watts might not be such a good idea when the money could buy you faster/bigger storage, more networking or more memory.

== [[Storage]] ==
The main [[storage]] category can be found [[Storage|here]]. Articles include:
* [[Storage|Homelab Storage Introduction, Types and Options]]
* [[Hyper-converged Infrastructure]]
* [[Homelab Storage Software]]

== Networking ==
* [[10Gbps Homelab Networking]] - ''Stub''
* [[Homelab Wi-fi]] - ''Stub''
* [[Infiniband for 10Gbps to 100Gbps Networking]]

== Power, Cooling and Noise ==
* [[Power]] - ''Stub''
* [[Cooling]] - ''Stub''
* [[Noise]]

== [[Hypervisors]] ==
* [[Homelab Hypervisor Choices]]
* [[VInception|Virtual Machine vInception / vTARDIS (including Type 1 vs Type 2 Hypervisors)]]

== Licensing ==
* [[Microsoft Licensing]]
* [[VMware Licensing]]
* [[Citrix Licensing]]

== The Cloud ==
* [[Cloud Homelabs]]

MediaWiki:Sitenotice

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Travis:

'''Welcome to Project Homelab!'''

Your contributions help make homelabbing better!

Ticketing Systems

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Travis:

[[Category:Software]][[Category:Help Desk]]
== Introduction ==
A help desk system is a way to organize different tasks into "tickets". If you're new to IT, you might not know why it's called a ticket. Back in the early days, if you had an issue and needed support, you'd write your request down on a slip of paper. Someone at the help desk would take this slip and put it into a queue for the techs. That slip of paper was a ticket and the terminology has stuck around into modern times.

If you have not worked in IT or worked in a small organization, you might not have used a ticket system before. Having one in your home lab is a great way to get practice with ticketing systems. You can log issues with your homelab, fix them, and then document them. If you feel real adventurous, make your family submit tickets to fix their tech ;)

== Costs ==
Some ticketing systems are designed for enterprise use and can be very expensive. Others are free, free & open source, or low cost.

== Use Cases ==
The use cases for this type of technology are blah blah

== Solutions ==

{| class="wikitable"
|+Help Desk Solutions
|-
! scope="col"| Vendor/Link
! scope="col"| Cost/License
! scope="col"| Notes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.spiceworks.com Spiceworks]||FREE / Proprietary||Available in cloud only. Old version of on-prem is insecure and no longer developed.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.osticket.com osTicket]||FREE / GNU/GPL||Self-hosted, PHP/MySQL, if you know or learn PHP it's easy to customize. Has AD/LDAP plugin for authentication.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/ ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus]||Free/Paid / Proprietary||Standard version is free for up to 5 techs. Installs as a free trial of Enterprise
|-
|[https://www.supportpal.com SupportPal]
|$249.95 annual / Proprietary
|Self-hosted, PHP/MySQL. Source code is encoded with Ioncube. Extending this system requires use of the API.
|}

Spacewalk

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Travis:

{{StubNotice}}[[Category:Software]]
== Introduction ==
Spacewalk is a great open source project which delivers a Linux systems management solution. According to the [https://fedorahosted.org/spacewalk/ project's wiki page], here's what Spacewalk allows you to do:

* Inventory your systems (hardware and software information)
* Install and update software on your systems
* Collect and distribute your custom software packages into manageable groups
* Provision (Kickstart) your systems
* Manage and deploy configuration files to your systems
* Provision virtual guests
* Start/stop/configure virtual guests

As you it can be seen from the above list, patch management is only a small subset of features available in Spacewalk and it trully is a very versatile tool.

As our homelab grows, manual patch management can become a bit of a nightmare. This is where Spacewalk really comes in handy, making it possible to patch your entire environment in a matter of minutes, at the same time ensuring that all operating systems are patched to the same baseline.

== Requirements ==

== Installation ==

This installation guide assumes that we use Centos 7 to install our Spacewalk server.

First of all, we will need to install the spacewalk-repo package

<pre>rpm -Uvh http://yum.spacewalkproject.org/2.5/RHEL/7/x86_64/spacewalk-repo-2.5-3.el7.noarch.rpm</pre>
== How to manage your systems with Spacewalk ==
TBC

== External Links ==
Here's some links related to Spacewalk

{| class="wikitable"
|+External Links
|-
! scope="col"| Title
! scope="col"| Description
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://fedorahosted.org/spacewalk/wiki Spacewalk Wiki]||Good place to start - Spacewalk Wiki
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[http://link.to/something Homelab blogpost Title B]||This is a great article about Microservers
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[http://link.to/something Homelab blogpost Title C]||This article shows you step by step how to blah
|}

MediaWiki:Sidebar

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* navigation
** mainpage|mainpage-description
** about|About the Project
** Get_Involved|Get Involved!
** brainstorming|Brainstorming
** Beginners_Guide_to_Wiki_Editing|Wiki HOWTO
** Article_Template|Article Template
** Project_Homelab:General_disclaimer|Disclaimer
** recentchanges-url|recentchanges
** randompage-url|randompage
** helppage|help
* Content
** Requirements_Gathering|Requirements
** Homelab_Categories|Homelab Categories
** Building_a_Homelab|Building a Homelab
** Managing_a_Homelab|Managing a Homelab
** Homelab_Security|Securing a Homelab
** Keep_It_Simple_Stupid|Keep It Simple Stupid
** HOWTO_Articles|HOWTO Articles
** Homelab_Decision_Trees|Decision Trees
** The_Unofficial_Homelab_HCL|The Unofficial HCL
** Jargon_Buster|Jargon Buster
** Homelab_Horror_Stories|Homelab Horror Stories
** Free_Learning_Resources|Free Learning Resources
* Project Homelab
** [https://forums.projecthomelab.org Forums]
** [https://issues.projecthomelab.org Traq (Issue Tracker)]
* SEARCH
* TOOLBOX
* LANGUAGES

Template:StubNotice

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MediaWiki:Common.css

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Travis: Created page with "<noinclude> == Usage == Simply add <pre><nowiki>{{StubNotice}}</nowiki></pre> in the begginning of the article to add this notice: Category:Article notice templates </noinclude>  <div class="cat-mw-box"> <div class="cat-mw-box-header"> <span style="margin-right:8px;">❗</span>'''Article Status Notice: This Article is a stub ''' </div> <div class="cat-mw-box-body"> <div style="font-size..."

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<div style="font-size:1.75em; font-weight: 500;padding-top:0.2em;padding-bottom:0.2em"> Notice: This Article Requires Additional Expansion </div>
----

This article is underdeveloped, and needs additional work to meet the wiki's [[Moderator Guidelines|Content Guidelines]] and be in line with our [[Mission statement|Mission Statement]] for comprehensive coverage of consumer protection issues. Issues may include:

* This article needs to be expanded to provide meaningful information
* This article requires additional verifiable evidence to demonstrate systemic impact
* More documentation is needed to establish how this reflects broader consumer protection concerns
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* The article is simply too short, and lacks sufficient content

'''How You Can Help:'''

* Add documented examples with verifiable sources
* Provide evidence of similar incidents affecting other consumers
* Include relevant company policies or communications that demonstrate systemic practices
* Link to credible reporting that covers these issues
* Flesh out the article with relevant information

''This notice will be removed once the article is sufficiently developed. Once you believe the article is ready to have its notice removed, visit the Discord ([https://discord.gg/8w5rSNAXRf join here]) and post to the <code>[https://discord.com/channels/1324835844812443810/1326356503065526303 #appeals]</code> channel, or mention its status on the article's talk page.''
<includeonly>
[[Category:Articles in need of additional work]]
[[Category:Articles requiring expansion]]
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Get Involved

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Travis:

[[Category:Open Homelab Project]]
[[File:Teamwork.png|300px|border|right]]The project is an ever evolving content repository, maintained by its members. Without contribution from everyone in the community it will not be a successful, so if you would like to help out with the Open Homelab project, we would love you to do so!

== Getting Started ==
# First things first, you need to [[Special:UserLogin|register or login here]] before you can create or edit any content.
#* This is purely to reduce the likelihood of spam from the site. Your email will not be used for anything other than registering and admin comms from the site!
#* Once your account is created, you can optionally fill in a wee bio about yourself.
# If you have never [[Beginners Guide to Wiki Editing|edited]] any Wiki content before, it is really VERY simple. You can find a handy introduction guide to all the basics here:
#* [[Beginners Guide to Wiki Editing]]
# Then choose a topic or two from the [[brainstorming]] section, mark your name against them and start creating content
#* This is only until we have a decent quantity of site content created, after which we will be removing this page
#* If someone already has their name against a topic and you have some great ideas for content in the pre-alpha and alpha period, then don't be afraid to ping them a message and suggest you collaborate on a page! Once we go to beta stage, things are likely to become more of a free-for-all.
#* If you have an idea for something which isnt listed, then great! Add it to the list and get writing, or even just add it to the list for someone to do later. We want to capture as many ideas as possible!
# Even better, simply do a [https://www.projecthomelab.org/index.php?search=stub&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go search for article stubs] (i.e. articles which either don't exist or are only partially complete), and start adding entirely new content to broaden the scope of the site!

== Spreading the Word ==
Please spread the word to people who you think would be keen to get involved in getting the site up and running, writing content, etc.

== Formatting, Layout and Content of Articles ==
The aim of the project is for most of the articles to follow the same format. This is still to be confirmed, but once we have a few done, we can start to pick out the best layout / template and rationalise the look and feel of the articles. The initial version of this can be found here:
* [[Article_Template|Article Template]]

When you have completed writing an article, please make sure you add it to the relevant index page, such as [[Building_a_Homelab|Building a Homelab]] or [[Homelab_Decision_Trees|Homelab Decision Trees]], which will make it easier for users and crawlers to find your awesome content! :)

It is perfectly acceptable to link to external content such as blog posts, wikipedia articles, etc, as long as that content is relevant, reasonably up to date, and is not purely for generating backlinks / SEO to your own site! Any spam will be removed at our earliest convenience.

If you work for a vendor you may be the best person to write or edit content or advice on your product (and that's great!), but please remember ''THIS IS A COMMUNITY SITE'', not an advertising platform! You ''should not even consider'' editing any content relating to any competitor of yours! Anything which looks like bias, advertising or spam will be immediately removed and you will be in danger of having your account disabled, so play nice! :)

Lastly, remember this is a community site, not a stuffy wikipedia site with ultra-strict editors / mods, so if you want to include humour, images, memes, etc in your articles, then that is perfectly acceptable! We care about decent content, not precisely how it is published! Of course also bear in mind that it is a wiki, so don't take offence if someone edits your post for layout, format, spelling, grammar, etc, as this is simply to try to keep the look and feel of the site consistent where possible. Hopefully we can collaborate to create an awesome source of information for the homelab community! :)

== Legal - IMPORTANT! ==
Please note that we are aware that while most people in the industry use legitimate licenses, license keys, and software, there are other methods to achieve a "licensed" solution.

This site is not to be used for detailing any such methods, and only legally licensed software and methods should be included. To do anything else risks the long term future of the site.

Many thanks for your understanding! :)

The site Disclaimer is available [[Project Homelab:General disclaimer|here]].

MediaWiki:Sitenotice

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⚠️ '''Spam Cleanup in Action!'''

Please be aware we are cleaning up spam users from this site along with any spam articles. If you find some spam, report it on the [https://forums.projecthomelab.org/ forum].

MediaWiki:Sitenotice

2025-01-30T15:25:15Z

Travis:

⚠️ ''Spam Cleanup in Action!''

Please be aware we are cleaning up spam users from this site along with any spam articles. If you find some spam, report it on the [https://forums.projecthomelab.org/ forum].

MediaWiki:Sitenotice

2025-01-30T15:23:58Z

Travis: Created page with "⚠ ''Spam Cleanup in Action!'' Please be aware we are cleaning up spam users from this site along with any spam articles. If you find some spam, report it on the [https://forums.projecthomelab.org/ forum]."

⚠ ''Spam Cleanup in Action!''

Please be aware we are cleaning up spam users from this site along with any spam articles. If you find some spam, report it on the [https://forums.projecthomelab.org/ forum].

About

2024-09-26T01:12:45Z

Travis: Protected "About": High traffic page ([Edit=Allow only administrators] (indefinite) [Move=Allow only administrators] (indefinite))

[[Category:Open Homelab Project]]

[[File:Ohpmedlogo.png|border|right]]

Project Homelab was forked from the defunct Open Homelab Project in July of 2020. We wanted to expand on Open Homelab and update it since it was falling into disarray. Homelabbing is important to us and so we wanted to keep it going. The original Open Homelab project started as a nugget of an idea for a [http://tekhead.it/blog/2016/04/preview-open-homelab-project-at-lonvmug-14th-april-2016/ roundtable discussion session] at the [https://www.vmug.com/p/cm/ld/fid=13887 London VMUG in April 2016].

This site is sponsored by [https://www.nodespace.com NodeSpace Hosting], which is a hosting provider that believes in homelabbing and providing services to homelabbers to extend their home network to the Internet in a safe, and secure manner.

[[File:Nodespace-selfhosted-234x60-1.png]]

== Why? ==

Homelab presentations are some of the most popular at technical user groups. The challenge is that unless they are recorded, the contents of these sessions is always lost at the end of the day, and only the attendees could consume the information and utilise it. What is needed is a method for crowdsourcing and capturing the collective homelab knowledge and experiences of the community, to provide people with a single source of information and advice which will help them make decisions on the best homelab solution for them, based on their individual requirements.

Although the site was started from a VMware user group, we believe that a homelab is a homelab! As such, we are keen for people across the IT community to contribute with their knowledge and tips across operating systems, hypervisors, tools and applications.

Technology agnosticism FTW!

== Get Involved ==

There are no restrictions on who can create and edit content on the site, the only thing we ask is that you create an account to help us avoid spammers!

If you love sharing information about how to create the ultimate homelab, found the site useful to you and want to give back to the community, or have simply found an error with some of the content, we would love to have you involved! All you need to do is '''[[Get Involved|create an account]]''' and start writing! :)

[[Get Involved|Start getting involved by clicking here!]] :)

== Founders ==

The founding team for the site are all listed here:

* [[Founders]]

About

2024-09-26T01:12:09Z

Travis:

About

2024-09-26T01:11:20Z

Travis: Reverted edit by Karry26004865 (talk) to last revision by KatherinGustafso

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Main Page

2024-06-02T18:51:22Z

Travis:

__NOTOC__
=== Welcome to Project Homelab! ===

We are here to help you spend less time deciding, and more time labbing and learning! To find out more about the project, please visit our '''[[About|About page]]'''.
{| class="wikitable"
|'''Site Links & Features'''
|-
|
* [https://forums.projecthomelab.org Discussion Forums]
* [https://issues.projecthomelab.org Bug Tracker]
|}

== [[Get Involved]]! ==
*''The site was founded on the concept of crowdsourcing, so help us populate site content! If you want to [[Get Involved|get involved]], find out how easy it is to do so, look here: '''[[Get Involved]]!'''''

== Project Sponsor ==
[[File:Nodespace-selfhosted-234x60-1.png|alt=Powered By NodeSpace Hosting|link=https://www.nodespace.com]]

== Brainstorming and Content Tracking ==
{| style="width: 100%;"
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 50%; border: 0px solid darkgray;padding: 5px;padding-left: 2em;" | A few key pages on the alpha site are:
* While the site is still under initial Alpha / under construction, the main brainstorming tracker page can be found here: '''[[Brainstorming]]'''
* We can work on updating the main article template here: '''[[Article_Template|Article Template]]'''
* Some basics on getting started with editing Wiki content are here: '''[[Beginners Guide to Wiki Editing]]'''
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 50%; border: 0px solid darkgray;padding: 5px; padding-left: 2em;" |
Some example articles for inspiration and ideas are here:

{|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 50%;padding-left: 2em;" |
* [[Requirements Gathering]]
* [[Storage]]
* [[Intel NUC]]s
* [[Cloud Homelabs]]
* [[Supermicro Xeon D-1500]]
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 50%;padding-left: 2em;" |
* [[Microsoft Licensing]]
* [[Corsair Obsidian 900D]]
* [[RDP Web Access]]
* [[Free Learning Resources]]
|}
|}
== First Time on the Site? ==
So there's all this amazing community content, but where do you start?! We suggest you start by:
* [[Requirements Gathering|Thinking about your '''requirements''']]
* [[Homelab Categories|Deciding what '''category''' of homelab most suits you]]
* [[Building a Homelab|'''Building''' your homelab from compute, network, storage, etc]]
* [[Managing a Homelab|Installing and configuring some '''management tools''']]
* [[Homelab Security|Not forgetting to '''secure''' it!]]
Once you have done all that, don't be afraid to '''[[Get Involved]]''' and write about your experiences and recommendations!

Ticketing Systems

2024-04-30T02:31:07Z

Travis:

[[Category:Software]][[Category:Help Desk]]
== Introduction ==
A help desk system is a way to organize different tasks into "tickets". If you're new to IT, you might not know why it's called a ticket. Back in the early days, if you had an issue and needed support, you'd write your request down on a slip of paper. Someone at the help desk would take this slip and put it into a queue for the techs. That slip of paper was a ticket and the terminology has stuck around into modern times.

If you have not worked in IT or worked in a small organization, you might not have used a ticket system before. Having one in your home lab is a great way to get practice with ticketing systems. You can log issues with your homelab, fix them, and then document them. If you feel real adventurous, make your family submit tickets to fix their tech ;)

== Costs ==
Some ticketing systems are designed for enterprise use and can be very expensive. Others are free, free & open source, or low cost.

== Use Cases ==
The use cases for this type of technology are blah blah

== Solutions ==

{| class="wikitable"
|+Help Desk Solutions
|-
! scope="col"| Vendor/Link
! scope="col"| Cost/License
! scope="col"| Notes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.spiceworks.com Spiceworks]||FREE / Proprietary||Available in cloud only. Old version of on-prem is insecure and no longer developed.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.osticket.com osTicket]||FREE / GNU/GPL||Self-hosted, PHP/MySQL, if you know or learn PHP it's easy to customize. Has AD/LDAP plugin for authentication.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/ ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus]||Free/Paid / Proprietary||Standard version is free for up to 5 techs. Installs as a free trial of Enterprise
|-
|[https://www.supportpal.com SupportPal]
|$249.95 annual / Proprietart
|Self-hosted, PHP/MySQL. Source code is encoded with Ioncube. Extending this system requires use of the API.
|}

Ticketing Systems

2024-04-30T02:30:10Z

Travis: /* Solutions */

[[Category:Software]][[Category:Help Desk]]
== Introduction ==
A help desk system is a way to organize different tasks into "tickets". If you're new to IT, you might not know why it's called a ticket. Back in the early days, if you had an issue and needed support, you'd write your request down on a slip of paper. Someone at the help desk would take this slip and put it into a queue for the techs. That slip of paper was a ticket and the terminology has stuck around into modern times.

If you have not worked in IT or worked in a small organization, you might not have used a ticket system before. Having one in your home lab is a great way to get practice with ticketing systems. You can log issues with your homelab, fix them, and then document them. If you feel real adventurous, make your family submit tickets to fix their tech ;)

== Costs ==
Some ticketing systems are designed for enterprise use and can be very expensive. Others are free, free & open source, or low cost.

== Use Cases ==
The use cases for this type of technology are blah blah

== Solutions ==

{| class="wikitable"
|+Help Desk Solutions
|-
! scope="col"| Vendor/Link
! scope="col"| Cost/License
! scope="col"| Notes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.spiceworks.com Spiceworks]||FREE / Proprietary||Available in both an on-prem and cloud
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.osticket.com osTicket]||FREE / GNU/GPL||Self-hosted, PHP/MySQL, if you know or learn PHP it's easy to customize. Has AD/LDAP plugin for authentication.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/ ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus]||Free/Paid / Proprietary||Standard version is free for up to 5 techs. Installs as a free trial of Enterprise
|-
|[https://www.supportpal.com SupportPal]
|$249.95 annual / Proprietart
|Self-hosted, PHP/MySQL. Source code is encoded with Ioncube. Extending this system requires use of the API.
|}

About

2023-06-26T01:31:22Z

Travis:

[[Category:Open Homelab Project]]
[[File:Ohpmedlogo.png|border|right]]
Project Homelab was forked from the defunct Open Homelab Project in July of 2020. We wanted to expand on Open Homelab and update it since it was falling into disarray. Homelabbing is important to us and so we wanted to keep it going. The original Open Homelab project started as a nugget of an idea for a [http://tekhead.it/blog/2016/04/preview-open-homelab-project-at-lonvmug-14th-april-2016/ roundtable discussion session] at the [https://www.vmug.com/p/cm/ld/fid=13887 London VMUG in April 2016].

This site is sponsored by [https://www.nodespace.com NodeSpace Hosting], which is a hosting provider that believes in homelabbing and providing services to homelabbers to extend their home network to the Internet in a safe, and secure manner.

[[File:Nodespace-selfhosted-234x60-1.png]]
== Why? ==
Homelab presentations are some of the most popular at technical user groups. The challenge is that unless they are recorded, the contents of these sessions is always lost at the end of the day, and only the attendees could consume the information and utilise it. What is needed is a method for crowdsourcing and capturing the collective homelab knowledge and experiences of the community, to provide people with a single source of information and advice which will help them make decisions on the best homelab solution for them, based on their individual requirements.

Although the site was started from a VMware user group, we believe that a homelab is a homelab! As such, we are keen for people across the IT community to contribute with their knowledge and tips across operating systems, hypervisors, tools and applications.

Technology agnosticism FTW!

== Get Involved ==
There are no restrictions on who can create and edit content on the site, the only thing we ask is that you create an account to help us avoid spammers!

If you love sharing information about how to create the ultimate homelab, found the site useful to you and want to give back to the community, or have simply found an error with some of the content, we would love to have you involved! All you need to do is '''[[Get Involved|create an account]]''' and start writing! :)

[[Get Involved|Start getting involved by clicking here!]] :)

== Founders ==
The founding team for the site are all listed here:
* [[Founders]]

Main Page

2023-06-26T01:24:25Z

Travis: /* Latest News */

__NOTOC__
=== Welcome to Project Homelab! ===

We are here to help you spend less time deciding, and more time labbing and learning! To find out more about the project, please visit our '''[[About|About page]]'''.

== [[Get Involved]]! ==
*''The site was founded on the concept of crowdsourcing, so help us populate site content! If you want to [[Get Involved|get involved]], find out how easy it is to do so, look here: '''[[Get Involved]]!'''''

== [[News|Latest News]] ==

== Project Sponsor ==
[[File:Nodespace-selfhosted-234x60-1.png|alt=Powered By NodeSpace Hosting|link=https://www.nodespace.com]]

== Brainstorming and Content Tracking ==
{| style="width: 100%;"
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 50%; border: 0px solid darkgray;padding: 5px;padding-left: 2em;" | A few key pages on the alpha site are:
* While the site is still under initial Alpha / under construction, the main brainstorming tracker page can be found here: '''[[Brainstorming]]'''
* We can work on updating the main article template here: '''[[Article_Template|Article Template]]'''
* Some basics on getting started with editing Wiki content are here: '''[[Beginners Guide to Wiki Editing]]'''
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 50%; border: 0px solid darkgray;padding: 5px; padding-left: 2em;" |
Some example articles for inspiration and ideas are here:

{|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 50%;padding-left: 2em;" |
* [[Requirements Gathering]]
* [[Storage]]
* [[Intel NUC]]s
* [[Cloud Homelabs]]
* [[Supermicro Xeon D-1500]]
| style="vertical-align:top; width: 50%;padding-left: 2em;" |
* [[Microsoft Licensing]]
* [[Corsair Obsidian 900D]]
* [[RDP Web Access]]
* [[Free Learning Resources]]
|}
|}
== First Time on the Site? ==
So there's all this amazing community content, but where do you start?! We suggest you start by:
* [[Requirements Gathering|Thinking about your '''requirements''']]
* [[Homelab Categories|Deciding what '''category''' of homelab most suits you]]
* [[Building a Homelab|'''Building''' your homelab from compute, network, storage, etc]]
* [[Managing a Homelab|Installing and configuring some '''management tools''']]
* [[Homelab Security|Not forgetting to '''secure''' it!]]
Once you have done all that, don't be afraid to '''[[Get Involved]]''' and write about your experiences and recommendations!!!

Newest Articles
{{Special:Newestpages/-/10}}

File:Nodespace-selfhosted-234x60-1.png

2023-06-26T01:20:16Z

Travis:

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-06-26T01:19:58Z

Travis:

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-06-26T00:51:44Z

Travis:

Sidebar

2023-06-26T00:47:28Z

Travis:

<includeonly>{{#invoke:Sidebar|sidebar}}</includeonly><noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude>

Sidebar

2023-06-26T00:46:19Z

Travis:

<includeonly>{{#invoke:Sidebar|sidebar}}</includeonly><noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude>

* SPONSOR

Sidebar

2023-06-26T00:45:51Z

Travis:

<includeonly>{{#invoke:Sidebar|sidebar}}</includeonly><noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude>* SPONSOR

File:Guac-tricolor.png

2022-10-07T15:49:25Z

Travis: Travis uploaded File:Guac-tricolor.png

File uploaded with MsUpload
[[Category:Logos]]

WireGuard

2021-07-16T17:11:32Z

Travis: Created page with "WireGuard is a great, lightweight, VPN. It works simply by exchanging public keys (much like SSH). From the WireGuard website:<blockquote>WireGuard aims to be as easy to confi..."

WireGuard is a great, lightweight, VPN. It works simply by exchanging public keys (much like SSH). From the WireGuard website:<blockquote>WireGuard aims to be as easy to configure and deploy as SSH. A VPN connection is made simply by exchanging very simple public keys – exactly like exchanging SSH keys – and all the rest is transparently handled by WireGuard. It is even capable of roaming between IP addresses, just like Mosh. There is no need to manage connections, be concerned about state, manage daemons, or worry about what's under the hood. WireGuard presents an extremely basic yet powerful interface.</blockquote>A benefit to WireGuard is the built in IP roaming. For example, if you have a WireGuard "server" on a static IP, the "clients" can freely roam without any additional configuration.

Remote Access

2021-07-16T04:16:30Z

Travis:

Remote Access

2021-07-16T04:06:01Z

Travis:

[[Category:Management]][[Category:Security]]
{{Wikimedia-stub}}
There are two main scenarios which could be referred to as remote access; access from a remote external location into your network, and headless access to your homelab servers (e.g. if they're in the loft). For information on headless access see the [[Headless Access]] article.
== Introduction ==
For many people, remote access is not important as you predominantly use the lab from home in your free time, but for others remote access is critical. Some example use cases for remote access are described below.
== Use Cases ==
The use cases for remote access to your homelab include:
* You use your homelab as a gateway to provide remote access to your home network
* The homelab as a cheap dev/test environment, because your employer is too mean to pay for a proper one! Many people use their homelabs for testing out work solutions and issues prior to implementing them on live systems.
* Your homelab is actually hosted in a location other than your home, for example if your employer provides you with rack space, or you use a colocation environment
== Solutions ==
Solutions include, but are not limited to the following:
{| class="wikitable"
|+Remote Access Solutions
|-
! scope="col"| Category
! scope="col"| Product
! scope="col"| Link
! scope="col"| Notes
|-
|Software
|Windows RDS
|[[RDP Web Access]]
|Built into Windows! Extra flexibility and security can be provided through RD Web Access.
|-
|Software
|OpenVPN
|https://openvpn.net/
|Comes available as a standard installable download for Linux, or a ready-to-use OVA licensed for two concurrent users!
|-
|Software
|WireGuard
|https://www.wireguard.com
|A very lightweight, yet powerful and fast, open source VPN. Clients available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and many other systems. Can be a bit tricky to initially setup.
|-
|HW Router
|Draytek
|https://www.draytek.com/
|If you want to do it in hardware, the Draytek home routers are the defacto standard for awesome routers which have built in VPN capabilities. Recommended models include Draytek Vigor 2925 (all variants),Y,Z
|-
|HW Router
|Netgear
|https://www.Netgear.com/
|Alternative hardware, the Netgear home routers are good routers which have built in VPN capabilities. A particular good one is the D6400 due to universal usage across ADSL/VDSL/Cable or any Ethernet service) Although, to note, a lot of the Netgear router use OpenVPN for the VPN Feature - it is limited to TAP type and not TUN - so Android and iOS support not supported. *This might change with new firmwares
|}

Jargon Buster

2021-07-15T02:47:24Z

Travis: /* Storage */

[[Category:Open Homelab Project]]
This page is a glossary of all of the crazy terms we come up with in IT. Even veterans sometimes come up against terms we don't recognise, especially if they're outside of our tech silo!

{{Wikimedia-stub}}
== Compute ==
*[[Nanolab]] - See [[Nanolab]]
* TDP - Thermal Design Power
== Networking ==
* BMC - Baseboard Management Controller
* IPMI - IP Management Interface
* iLO - Integrated Lights Out (HP Specific IPMI)
* iDRAC - Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (Dell Specific IPMI)
* DAC - Direct Attached Cable
* NIC - Network Interface Controller
* SFP - Small Form-factor Pluggable, max 4.25Gbps
* SFP+ - Small Form-factor Pluggable+, max 10Gbps
* PoE - Power Over Ethernet, 802.3af max 15.4 watts
* PoE+ - Power Over Ethernet+, 802.3at max 25.5 watts
== Storage ==
* DWPD - Drive Writes Per Day
* HDD - Hard Disk Drive
* IOPS -Input/Output Operations per Second
* NAS - Network Attached Storage
* NTFS - NT File System
* PATA - Parallel ATA
* RAID - Redundant Array of Independent Disks
* SAN - Storage Area Network
* SAS - Serial Attached SCSI
* SATA - Serial ATA
* SMART - Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology
* SSD - Solid State Drive
* TBW - Terabytes Written
*BTRFS - B-Tree File System
*ZFS - Zettabyte File System
== Design ==
* MTBF - Mean Time Between Failures
* MTTR - Mean Time To Recover
* RPO - Recovery Point Objective
* RTO - Recovery Time Objective

Cloud Homelabs

2021-07-15T02:42:05Z

Travis: /* Solutions */

[[Category:Cloud]]
[[File:charge.jpg|250px|border|right]]
{{Wikimedia-stub}}
== Introduction ==
There are many reasons as to why you would want to run a local "on premises" homelab, but equally there are plenty of reasons why you might also want to consider simply running your lab in a cloud service provider's platform. Here we discuss some of the options available to move to the cloud and get that noisy spinning rust out of your living room / office!
== Pros and Cons ==
The key benefits to moving to using a cloud homelab are:
* Massive [[WAF]] as the cloud homelab makes no noise, takes up no space and is completely invisible to your partner!
* No big capex investments required for you at home to buy physical kit (such as compute hosts, network switches, NAS arrays, etc. Instead the cost of your homelab is spread across its lifetime
* If you do not need to run some or all of your homelab running 24/7, then the cloud homelab is ideal, as you only pay for it when it's running! If you are a very infrequent labber who doesn't need to do much at the actual hypervisor level, it could indeed be an ideal solution, or at least good enough!
* Taking that a step further, if you don't use your cloud homelab for a few weeks or months, it doesn't cost you a penny!
[[File:GoodEnough.png|200px|border|right]]
* Flexibility and scalability of the cloud means you can spin up very large environments for testing, then blow them away. In your homelab your homelab is limited to your maximum resource capacity.
* The number of features and technologies available in the cloud
* Licensing is both a pro and a con in the cloud. Certain software you may wish to use may not be compatible with running n multi-tenant compute, but using the licensing built into the cloud platforms mean your licensing is covered automatically (taking Amazon RDS or Azure SQL as perfect examples - SQL licensing is included!). You can even rent some software solutions on an hourly basis, meaning you can fully test some software for as long as you need and only pay a matter of a few pennies to pounds!
Key negatives to using a cloud homelab:
* You have to be very careful to configure the appropriate security and alerting safeguards, to ensure you don't either have your account compromised, or indeed accidentally leave machines running and end up with a huge bill. Setting things like billing alerts can help to mitigate this. Also keeping tight control of your account passwords and keys!
* You don't have that warm fuzzy feeling of doing a local manual install on real tin, and all the potential fiddling and tweaking it sometimes requires (YMMV)
* With the typical internet connection for most folk being asynchronous DSL 2+ (FTTC if you're lucky), upload speeds can make things a bit painful when transferring data and machine images from your home machines.
* Not ideal if you want something which runs multiple machines 24/7 as the costs can spiral.
* Security in general is something you will need to spend a bit more time thinking about if you want to run your homelab in the cloud.
== Use Cases ==
The main use cases for cloud homelabs are:
* You have no space for a homelab
* You have no budget to buy the kit for a homelab up front
* You don't need to run your homelab 24/7, and may even only require it irregularly
* You aren't that interested in doing bare metal installation, and are more keen about testing the hypervisors themselves, or software and services on top
== Solutions ==
The following is a list of potential cloud computing providers for your Cloud Homelab:
{| class="wikitable"
|+Cloud Homelab Vendors
|-
! scope="col"| Vendor
! scope="col"| Free / Trial Link*
! scope="col"| Pricing Link
! scope="col"| Pricing Calculator
! scope="col"| Notes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[[Amazon AWS]]||[https://aws.amazon.com/free/ 12 Months Free Tier]||[https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/services/ Pricing]|| [https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html Calculator]||The AWS free tier extends beyond 12 months for some services. You can gain $credit by being signing up to all trials and betas.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[[Bare Metal Cloud]]|| None? || [https://www.baremetalcloud.com/signUp/ Pricing] || None || If you want a true bare metal install experience, why not just pay by the hour?
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[[Google Cloud Platform]]|| [https://console.cloud.google.com/freetrial $300 / 60 days] || [https://cloud.google.com/pricing/ Pricing] || [https://cloud.google.com/products/calculator/ Calculator] ||
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[[Microsoft Azure]]|| [https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/free-trial/ $200 / 30 days] || [https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/ Pricing] || [https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/calculator/ Calculator] ||
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[[Ravello]]|| [https://www.ravellosystems.com/free-trial-description 6 VMs / 14 days] || [https://www.ravellosystems.com/pricing Pricing] || [https://www.ravellosystems.com/pricing Calculator] || Very simple pricing. Currently [https://www.ravellosystems.com/go/vexpert free to vExperts]!
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|[[VMware vCloud Air]]|| [http://vcloud.vmware.com/service-offering/vcloudair-ondemand-campaign $300 / 30 days] || [http://vcloud.vmware.com/uk/service-offering/pricing-guide Pricing] || [http://vcloud.vmware.com/uk/service-offering/pricing-calculator/on-demand Calculator] || Very expensive for public IPs.
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| colspan="5" |*Free/Trial: Keep in mind these offers are subject to change at any time and the terms of the offer may change. If you know the new free credit or trial limit, please feel free to update!
|}
== Costs ==
Costs will vary depending on which cloud provider you use, and whether you are a member of any particular vendor advocacy programmes.

The good thing is that all of the major cloud vendors are completely transparent in their pricing. The bad thing is that although all of the major cloud vendors are completely transparent in their pricing, it's usually ridiculously complex!

The key thing here is that the more you use your lab, and the more VMs you want to run 24/7, the more it will cost you. If you simply need to spin up a few VMs for a few hours per month, then a cloud homelab will be by far the cheapest option!
== Vendor Overviews ==
=== Amazon AWS ===
Amazon provide one of the most generous "free tier" options of all vendors. 12 months of free (limited) access to a load of their services, including the ability to run one Linux VM, one Windows VM and one RDS (database) instance 24/7/365! Actually this breaks down for the EC2 instances as 750 hours per month, which you can use however you like. For example you could run 10 instances for 3 days!
[[File:security-keys-meme.jpg|250px|border|right]]This is a truly excellent service from the world's biggest biggest cloud vendor, and can potentially leave you with a bill of pennies to a couple of dollars at the end of the month, even with pretty heavy use! Just make sure you turn off your instances at the end of each session and look after your keys, and you wont pay anything for them except their storage (which is a pittance anyway)!
A couple of key links for setting up your AWS account are below:
* [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/free-tier-alarms.html Creating a Billing Alarm]
* [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/best-practices.html IAM Best Practices]
* [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/root-vs-iam.html Root Account Credentials vs. IAM User Credentials]
For more information and advice on using Amazon AWS as your homelab, see our dedicated page on [[Amazon AWS]] homelabs.
=== Bare Metal Cloud ===
Bare Metal Cloud are a really interesting "physical cloud" solution! As per their own [http://baremetalcloud.com website]:

''We provide bare-metal dedicated servers which are unrestricted and not shared. You have full access down to the to the bare-metal of the hardware. All servers come with an OS of your choice but you have full permissions to reinstall or change anything you wish.''

So here's the cool bit! You can spin up your own hypervisors or whatever you want on their tin, and simply pay by the hour! When you combine Bare Metal Cloud with [[AutoLab]], you can have your lab up and running in a very short time, and be labbing on physical tin in somebody else's data centre!

If you want to see an example of this working, [https://twitter.com/Mike_Laverick Mike Laverick] did a great article on his blog here:
*[http://www.mikelaverick.com/2013/03/not-ready-bare-metal-cloud-for-your-auto-lab/ Bare Metal Cloud for your Auto-Lab]
For more information and advice on using Bare Metal Cloud as your homelab, see our dedicated page on [[Bare Metal Cloud]] homelabs.
=== Google Cloud Platform ===
In comparison to most vendors (except AWS), GCP provide a pretty decent length 60 day free trial, with a set amount of credit.

For more information and advice on using Google Cloud Platform as your homelab, see our dedicated page on [[Google Cloud Platform]] homelabs.
=== Microsoft Azure ===
For more information and advice on using [[Microsoft Azure]] as your homelab, see our dedicated page on [[Microsoft Azure]] homelabs.
=== Ravello ===
Ravello is a really interesting product which impressed so much, [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/23/oracle_acquires_ravello_will_bake_it_into_big_red_cloud/ Oracle acquired them recently for ~$500m]!

Their key concept is that they are effectively a cloud hypervisor which can run on top of any public cloud, allowing you then to nest your chosen hypervisor and VMs inside of it! Yes, indeed this is taking [[vInception]] to a whole new level; [[Cloud vInception]]!!! You use a very easy to use visio-style SaaS interface to design your lab, and once you are ready to deploy it, they then choose whatever is the most cost effective cloud to run it on at that time. You are then simply charged by the hour for resources consumed. Simples!

In a very gracious move, Ravello is free for vExperts! Despite their recent acquisition, they have stated that the free access will continue for now. If you are a vExpert, go here to apply:
* [https://www.ravellosystems.com/go/vexpert Ravello vExpert Free Access]
[https://twitter.com/jaslanger Jason Langer] did an excellent writeup comparing the cost of running a homelab vs using Ravello, and the results were pretty impressive based on the use case of 12 hours per week (pretty heavy use!):
* [http://www.virtuallanger.com/2015/07/09/can-you-replace-your-home-lab-with-ravello-systems/ Can You Replace Your Home Lab with Ravello Systems?]
For more information and advice on using [[Ravello]] as your homelab, see our dedicated page on [[Ravello]] homelabs.
=== VMware vCloud Air ===
For more information and advice on using VMware vCloud Air as your homelab, see our dedicated page on [[VMware vCloud Air]] homelabs.
== Cloud Storage ==
== Thoughts on Free Trials ==
[[File:free.jpg|250px|border|right]]We at the Open Homelab project do not condone in any way abusing trials. We would however suggest that if you have had a trial, and your partner, mother, father, neighbour etc wanted to have a trial too, and give you access to play with their account, that might be a great way of sharing the knowledge and gaining more lab time.
That said, with something like Amazon AWS, many of the services are free well beyond the 12 month trial period, and you can gain access to free credit by simply taking part in trials of new services, many of which pay out up to $25 each, which should be more than enough to keep your account going for some time!
== Free Cloud Homelabs ==
A question you may want to ask yourself, is what is the reason you want to run the lab itself? If the main reason is just to play with specific vendor software, then why not just use their free labs? Many of them are effectively just run on a sandbox basis, where you can choose to follow their pre-scripted instructions, or you could just go off piste and mess about with whatever you like (as long as permissions allow!).

This obviously wont apply to every vendor, but many of the most common, such as VMware and Microsoft, do.

Visit the '''[[Free Learning Resources]]''' page for a list of [[Free Learning Resources|free online labs]] and training!

Founders

2021-07-15T02:34:07Z

Travis:

=== Original Open Homelab Founders ===
[[Category:Open Homelab Project]]
Many of the team who created the initial version of the Open Homelab Project were largely part of the [http://tekhead.it/blog/2016/04/preview-open-homelab-project-at-lonvmug-14th-april-2016/ original discussion group] at the [https://www.vmug.com/p/cm/ld/fid=13887 London VMUG in April 2016] and kindly volunteered their time to help get this project started, along with some other great folk from the community. They include:
* [[User:AlexGalbraith|Alex Galbraith]]
* [[User:Gareth|Gareth Edwards]]
* [[User:Dantre|Dan Treloar]]
* [[User:Chris|Chris Bradshaw]]
* Michael Cade
* Erik Bussink
* [[User:Ppiutti|Pietro Piutti]]
* [[User:The_vmonkey|Phil Morris]]
* [[User:Virtualhobbit|Mark Brookfield]]
* [[User:Simoneady|Simon Eady]]
* [[User:Thecloudxpert|Christopher Lewis]]
* Jane Rimmer
* Frank Denneman
* [[User:Ather_Beg|Ather Beg]]
* Frank Büchsel
* [[User:DemitasseNZ|Alastair Cooke]]
* [[User:Dave|Dave Simpson]]
* [[User:M_laverick|Mike Laverick]]
* [[User:Jameskilbynet|James Kilby]]

=== Project Homelab Founder ===

* Travis Newton

Beginners Guide to Wiki Editing

2021-07-15T02:32:03Z

Travis:

[[Category:Project Homelab]][[Category:HOWTO]]
== Introduction ==
The wiki markdown language is actually very simple to pick up and use, and you can be editing articles in a matter of minutes, then build in your wiki skills over time! Here are some of the absolute basics.

'''Note: In the latest version of MediaWiki, the wiki software that runs this site, there is now a visual WYSIWYG editor. This editor will allow you to format wiki pages without any code. If you still prefer to edit via source, click on the "Edit source" link.'''
== Basic Editing ==
The basic rules of editing in WikiMedia are:
* Try to split your content into easily consumable sections using [[#Section Headers|headers]]
* Look at other peoples pages for examples and feel free to copy them! :)
* It's generally best to preview your content prior to saving it, to reduce cumulative edits.
* You need a full blank line between lines of text to actually create an end of paragraph / new line.
* You can use a subset of html, for example <code><</code><code>br</code><code>></code> for a new line

== Simple Highlighting ==
Some simple highlighting includes:
* To make ''My Italic Text'', just add two apostrophes <code>'</code><code>'</code> on either side of your text:
<pre>''My Italic Text''</pre>
* To make '''My Bold Text''', just add three apostrophes <code>'</code><code>'</code><code>'</code> on either side of your text:
<pre>'''My Bold Text'''</pre>

== Section Headers ==
Headers are not only directly linkable, but they separate your content into easy to consume chunks. You can go several layers deep, and all you have to do is add more <code>=</code> symbols on either side of your text.
* A tier 1 header is:
<pre>== Tier 1 Header ==</pre>
* A tier 2 header is:
<pre>=== Tier 2 Header ===</pre>
* A tier 3 header is:
<pre>==== Tier 3 Header ====</pre>

== Wiki Hyperlinks ==
Links to other pages on the same site are created one of two ways.
* For a link to an article using its exact title, simply put square brackets around the title, for example to link to an article called [[Storage]] you just use:
<pre>[[Storage]]</pre>
* If you would like to use custom text, then simply put those at the start of of the link, followed by a pipe <code>|</code>. For example [[Storage|this is a custom link to the storage article]]:
<pre>[[Storage|this is a custom link to the storage article]]</pre>
* You can take this a step further and link to a specific header within an article. For example to link to the [[Storage#Local Storage|Local Storage]] section of the main [[Storage]] article you follow the same custom method:
<pre>[[Storage#Local Storage|Local Storage]]</pre>
* This is even easier if you want to link to something in the same article. For example to link to the [[#External Hyperlinks|external hyperlinks]] section of this article you just use the header name with a hash <code>#</code> symbold in front:
<pre>[[#External Hyperlinks|external hyperlinks]]</pre>

== External Hyperlinks ==
* External links are VERY simple, and follow the same pattern as custom internal links, replacing the pipe with a space, in the format <code>[</code><code>External URL</code><code>Custom Description</code><code>]</code> For example a [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Link link to the Media Wiki Links Help Page] looks like this:
<pre> [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Link link to the Media Wiki Links Help Page]</pre>

== Using Images ==
[[File:VSANLegoRack.png|border|right|200px|A VSAN Rack]]
The first thing you need to do when adding images is upload them. You do this by either uploading a file using the '''[[Special:Upload]]''' link, or by dragging and dropping files onto the grey bar at the top of the edit window.

Once the file has uploaded, you can then insert a link to the image using the following format:
{|
|+
|-
|
<pre>
[[FileName.jpg|border (optional)|alignment(left or right)|# of pixels for longest side|ALT text (optional)]]
</pre>
|}
For example:
{|
|+
|-
|
<pre>
[[File:VSANLegoRack.png|border|right|200px|A VSAN Rack]]
</pre>
|}
This produces something which looks like the item on the right!
== Creating Lists ==
Lists are a very simple and effective way of breaking down and formatting information. They can either be unordered, ordered or a combination of both (nested). Here are a couple of examples:
* An unordered list simply starts each line with one or more asterisk <code>*</code> symbols:
{| class="wikitable"
|+
|-
! Code Snippet !! Example Output
|-
| style="width: 50%;" |
<pre>
* First list Item
** Sub Item
*** Third tier item
* Second List Item
</pre>
| style="width: 50%;" |
* First list Item
** Sub Item
*** Third tier item
* Second List Item
|}
* An ordered list simply starts each line with one or more hash <code>#</code> symbols:
{| class="wikitable"
|+
|-
! Code Snippet !! Example Output
|-
| style="width: 50%;" |
<pre>
# First list Item
## Sub Item
# Second List Item
</pre>
| style="width: 50%;" |
# First list Item
## Sub Item
# Second List Item
|}
* An mixed nested list (ordered, with unordered sub items) simply starts each line with one or more hash <code>#</code> symbols, combined with asterisks <code>*</code> for sub items:
{| class="wikitable"
|+
|-
! Code Snippet !! Example Output
|-
| style="width: 50%;" |
<pre>
# First list Item
#* Sub Item 1
#* Sub Item 2
# Second List Item
</pre>
| style="width: 50%;" |
# First list Item
#* Sub Item 1
#* Sub Item 2
# Second List Item
|}
NOTE: make sure you leave no blank lines in any ''ordered list'' otherwise your list numbering starts at 1 again!

== Code Snippets ==
Code snippets are pretty easy to do and depend if you want something inline or in a block.
* An inline code snippet uses <code><</code><code>code</code><code>></code> to open the code, and <code></</code><code>code</code><code>></code> to close it, however if you use some actual WikiMedia markup in there, it will be processed, so will not appear properly.
* If you want to do a block of code and ensure it appears properly, for example source code or indeed many lines in this article itself, use <code><</code><code>pre</code><code>></code> to open the the block, and <code></</code><code>pre</code><code>></code> to close it. For example:
<pre>
<pre>
Here is my block of code
Multiple lines will work in this instance without leaving double spaces
</pre>
</pre>

== Creating Tables ==
The easiest way to create a table is simply to copy the code from the [[Article Template]] or any other page, then edit it. Here is an example:
{| class="wikitable"
|+Put your table title here
|-
! scope="col"| Header 1
! scope="col"| Header 2
! scope="col"| Header 3
! scope="col"| Header 4
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Orange||Apple||Pear||Grapes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Bread||Pie||Pita||Cake
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Butter||Ice cream||Milk||Yogurt
|}
The code for this, looks something like the following:
<pre>
{| class="wikitable"
|+Put your table title here
|-
! scope="col"| Header 1
! scope="col"| Header 2
! scope="col"| Header 3
! scope="col"| Header 4
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Orange||Apple||Pear||Grapes
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Bread||Pie||Pita||Cake
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|Butter||Ice cream||Milk||Yogurt
|}
</pre>
== Redirecting Pages ==
You may want to redirect a page for many reasons, either you moved the original article or you want to point multiple article titles to one article. An example of redirection from [[Homelab Storage]] to [[Storage]] would be to add the following code to the [[Homelab Storage]] page:
<pre>#REDIRECT [[Storage]]</pre>
NOTE: Although it is possible to nest redirects, the auto-redirection will stop on the second redirect, so it is better not to do this. All redirects should go to a single source page.

== Stubs ==
* If you haven't actually finished writing an article, or would like someone to write an article, you can create a stub using the standard tub template:
<pre>{{Wikimedia-stub}}</pre>

== Starting a New Page ==
There are a number of ways to make a new page.
=== New WIki Link ===
By far the simplest is to use the standard [[Beginners_Guide_to_Wiki_Editing#Wiki_Hyperlinks|Wiki hyperlinks]] (maybe even from the [[Brainstorming]] page, for example:
<pre>My new link goes in square brackets: [[New Page Title]]</pre>
Then simply click on the link, and start writing!
=== Type in a URL ===
Alternatively you can just type in the new URL of your article, making sure you replace any spaces with underscores:
<pre>My new page has a URL: http://openhomelab.org/index.php?title=New_Page_Title</pre>
== Categories ==
Each page can be added to one or more categories to aid navigation. Adding a page to a category is easy, just add the markup
<pre>[[Category:my category name]]</pre>
to a point on the page (preferably the top or the bottom). The page will then be automatically added to the Category index, and a link inserted at the bottom of the page itself.

If a Category doesn't yet exist, then the index page will be automatically generated. You can add content to a category page itself, and categories can be nested. See [[:Category:Hypervisors]] as an example.

The top level of the category hierarchy is [[:Category:Contents]] so all categories should be accessible by drilling down from there.

Categories can also be applied to uploaded files by adding the appropriate <tt>Category</tt> tag to the description. The top-level category for image files in this wiki is the appropriately titled "[[:Category:Image Files]]".
== Further Reading ==
The main WikiMedia help site can be found here:
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents WikiMedia Help Site]
A list of the most important articles is as follows:
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting Formatting]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Links Links]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Lists Lists]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images Images]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables Tables]
* [https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Categories Categories]
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]