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On subdomains and homelabs

What's a subdomain between friends?

Subdomains are cool!

I came upon this post by Chris Coyier that got me thinking. I've been stuck in this thought process for multiple years that I just NEED a domain name for every project I think of. Indeed, some need their own domain, but most of them are just small projects that I use for myself and perhaps a few friends, so why on earth would I need a separate domain for them? I mean, OK, I will admit I have had issues with G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) in the past but still, sitting on tons of domains you hardly use and yet pay for on a yearly basis is hardly good practice is it?

So, I've decided to join this "movement" of sorts and start hosting my projects under subdomains on this domain, and others for the at matter, depending on where they are needed and are from.

This being said, I did just buy a new domain.. But this time it's for the homelab I'm setting up! I promise it's just one domain!

Homelab you say?

HP Z420 Workstation I was able to buy on eBay a used HP Z420 Workstation with a Xeon E5-2680 V2 CPU which is a 10 core, 20 thread 64bit CPU and the system has 64GB of ECC DDR RAM. On this machine my new homelab will be built.

I do have my Raspberry Pies and I will still be using them, but I need some more oomph for various things. So on this machine I will be running a few VMs and containers, of which I'm not sure yet what they will be, but I will be documenting it all here on this blog.

The basics

Of the things I know I will be running on this machine are the following:

  • PiHole - I've been using it for ages and will keep on doing so, I will be using it both as the adblocker it is as well as a local DNS server for the intranet here at home and in the homelab.
  • JellyFin - Almost everyone talks about Emby or Plex, but I've been using JellyFin for a while now and I'm quite happy with it.
  • Heimdall - A dashboard for all the things I will be running on this machine, I will be using it as a homepage for the homelab.
  • TrueNAS Scale - I plan to use it as the root of the mass storage for the homelab, I will be using it as a NAS and hopefully more in the future when I learn more about it.

I'm also going over the Awesome Selfhosted list to see what else I can find that I might need or want to run on this machine, there's always something new to learn and try out!