Here’s my beautiful unemployed-for-too-long-have-no-money-dont-care-about-looks lab :)
Hey it’s more than good enough to run all this ¯_(ツ)_/¯
people put too much “lab” and not enough “home” in homelab. we need more dust, more cables, more jank. love this.
Dust and jank you say? Behold, my old basement homelab when I rented just outside Boston with a very permissive landlord who agreed to let me have Comcast gig pro fiber pulled into the basement, running off an outlet I installed without asking on a free slot in our breaker box. The dust was terrible, the rack was a hodge podge, I had to put up that sign because maintenance guys kept plugging their power tools into the UPS when I wasn’t around and tripping it. But Comcast fucked up the billing and the 2gig + 1gig symmetric internet is still active to this day for free, which I left behind minimally working for the next tenants after parting out the rack. The tower by the side was a friend who wanted to colocate on my fiber, and I had some fun stuff like a slide out vga console. I also pulled Ethernet into every room, most of them installed with nice wall plates all bundled down to the rack, so with a house full of gamers, you could have multiple people pulling a gig on a game download without anyone stepping on anyone else’s toes.
Dang that’s the dream. Never move out :D
Very nice. You guys with all the toys. I bet she’s fun tho.
more dust
Believe it or not I cleaned before taking the pic lol
I had a dusty laptop running a homelab for you, and figured I should show something nice on the screen. Then, I typed in my password like an idiot. Not gonna put that online. :(
This is the best thread so far. Really enjoying seeing peoples setups! Thanks @northernlights@lemmy.today !
That desk is about a million times cleaner than mine.
When did people start using the term ‘lab’ for this sort of thing, and why?
I think because it lets them see themselves as scientists or so
This guy home labs 😂
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A little late to the party, but here’s mine.
What are the specs on that pepsi box? How’s it handle the load???
It’s only the mini Pepsi cans iirc, so they aren’t as load bearing as I’d like. God willing, I’ll upgrade to fanta boxes one day.
Oh yeah, now that’s a HOMElab
Love it.
the hardrive just out in the wild, living life like it was meant to be lived.
What are its natural predators?
gravity
beverages
drunk sysadmins
Spill your beer on it and get all three in one go!
Cats and very young humans
Keys, paperclips and coins… they kinda work their way towards the PCB and short out crtitical things
So clean, I’m jealous
Man, GTFO with that hot mess… I’m jealous really. I’m getting a chub just thinking about it.
Is this the “before” shot? There’s 190 spare ports. I’m all for leaving room to expand, but that’s a lot
Unpowered free 48 port switches are cheaper than block off plates.
Can’t argue with that!
Oi thats too clean for this thread. Get out of here! /s Nice setup.
Business in front…
I remember looking at Sysracks racks a while back when I was trying to find sound-absorbent enclosed racks (which they do make, though I didn’t get one; wasn’t willing to pay for it, as they come at a very large premium). They were one of the very few companies making them. I don’t think that those particular ones are the sound-absorbent models, but their name stuck in my head.
I got this because it’s almost fully enclosed. Most of the noise comes from an open rear door which this doesn’t have, and an open front door which this sort of has. It’s not very loud when the hvac is set to a reasonable level, even though it’s pulling air through 4 fans on the top.
I have additional sound deadening material if I need to apply it but I’m not there yet.
I’m eyeing 3-5 more 1U servers though so maybe I’ll need to do it.
I have additional sound deadening material if I need to apply it but I’m not there yet.
That’s probably a pretty good idea in terms of cost. I checked earlier when I made the comment to see what the price difference these days was, and IIRC a non-isolated 18U is ~$800 and an isolated 18U is ~$1800. They aren’t putting anything like $1k of sound-absorbing material into the rack.
Projects that im running:
General Web server out of junk
Old system 76 machine from a while back. Its what is running a majority of my services for self hosting. Only one screw keeps the case together, since I get into the insides quite often.
Solar powered web server on a phone
Solar powered web server. Its going to be repurposed into a meshtastic node soon.
Ebook reader on a heltek v3
Somewhat jank setup of a heltek which is also an ebook reader. It runs a webserver to upload the book in txt format, then I can take it on the go. I still have to do some work on the text.
That ebook reader is wild! Does the text stay in place while you read, or does it scroll past like a stock ticker?
If the latter doesn’t exist, I guess I should go push a PR to make that happen on meshcore firmware haha
Stays in place. It was a weekend project so I still need to do some work on the text in particular. Im not sure if ill go any farther, but the code is here if you want to take a look.
Now that’s a crafty homelab, love it
The best homelab is the one you already have.
The second best is the one you want to buy :D
Is that a PI in your setup?
Yeah it’s just haproxy + uptime kuma
nice!
You need to make a ‘I’ve been busy’ post.
Old system 76 machine from a while back. Its what is running a majority of my services for self hosting. Only one screw keeps the case together, since I get into the insides quite often.
If you get bored and adventurous:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_case_screws
Computer case screws are the hardware used to secure parts of a PC to the case. Although there are numerous manufacturers of computer cases, they have generally used three thread sizes.
The #6-32 UNC screws are often found on 3.5" hard disk drives and the case’s body to secure the covers. The M3 threaded holes are often found on 5.25" optical disc drives, 3.5" floppy drives, and 2.5" drives. Motherboards and other circuit boards often use a #6-32 UNC standoff. #4-40 UNC thumb screws are often found on the ends of DVI, VGA, serial and parallel connectors.
You might be able to get a box of thumbscrews in the appropriate diameter and go toolless. I’ve had a number of computer cases that ship with those (my current desktop case just uses magnets, doesn’t even have the thumbscrews). I have had a lot of less-than-ideal toolless things in the past, including poorly-designed toolless hard drive mounting stuff that wound up being a lot more work than the traditional tool-requiring stuff, but for the screws that keep the case closed, going toolless has always been a big win for me.
Thats good to know! Although if I am honest, ill probably just repurpose my current desktop that I am using for this conversation and get a new one if I end up re-doing my homeservers again.
Last thing I want to do is more work at home. So these are just “for fun” projects. If im not having fun, I start removing things from the setup.
BEHOLD! THE MOTHERBOARD!
“Beware of the leopard.”
Wow!
When I’m rich I will also get a NAS/multiple drive enclosure (and fill it, hence the “rich” condition).
✅ Rackmounted
❌ Professional
What front end are using for your apps? Looks nice.
heimdall
they posted further down that it’s heimdall
Hey it’s my desktop! Love that case. Horizontal motherboards make more sense with how big graphics cards have gotten.
heimdall
Love this thread, here’s my contribution
Just a pi4B and some external drives for Linux ISOs
edit : they resting on a piece of foam to reduce vibrations
Bonus pic of the zigbee dongle for Home Assistant
I bought a 16U rack this year to organize stuff a bit. Zigbee dongle is still installed exactly like this. I’m not convinced there’s a better solution.
Honestly, I doubt there is. You’re suspending it away from metal and wood, seems like the best solution other than replacing the antenna with something expensive and “mounting” that separately.
It is the way
this is the way :)
That’s how my ZigBee dongle is mounted, except it’s resting on a shelf
It must hang for its sins (of not working when too close to the pi)
You may get better signal by not folding the antenna.
Oh! So you mean pointing it downward? Would you mind explain how that works? I’m clueless when it comes to these things
Some context, the house is on two levels and this is level 0. The ceiling above is level 1. Also we’re on the edge of the house not the center, the tip of the antenna is pointing towards the center
Just letting it be straight, as if it didn’t have that joint that allows it to bend 90º, but test and see.
Nice cooler on the pi
Yea really happy with it. It only struggled some summers when I used to live in a small apartment in a large city.
Did someone ask for jank, dust, and cables?
Hey, shock-absorbing floor, stable structure to put the servers on, and a UPS. I bet that’s much better than the vast majority of us (1st thing I buy when I get a job is a UPS).
This looks like an after-work special. Nice setup. That APC is awesome. I need to get a new one.
I have that ups! apc br1500g?
a bunch of ebay specials with more ebay parts scavenged over time + some 3d printing.
The centre tower has a miniitx mb and PSU behind those panels to run the NAS, and the drive bays are in the bottom.
The right is a failover cluster that isn’t finished yet.
Slick for ebay parts. The 3d printed extras are sharp.
Wow, that looks really good! I like the labels on each server! Are the 3d printed parts custom or did you find them online?
Custom printed.
The front rack grills, keystone panels and thinkcentre mounts are from a website but all the other printed parts are custom.
Only two of the minis are in use. The other two i am just messing with different things. Still have three more not in use and unsure what I am going to do with them. Two extreme AP not being used and probably never will.
3 more not in use you say? Willing to part with any of your unused tech?
The outdated books are a nice touch 🤌 :)
Oh also since you literally have more hp elite desks than you can use, please send me one :)
What kinda monitor arm is that? I have one for a lil monitor I have but it uses a clamp on the top and bottom of the screen instead of screwing in. I’m looking for one that doesn’t stress the screen with so much pressure!
I honestly don’t remember but I got it at Walmart for like $20 for a double monitor. The monitor is have is 27" and never had any issues with it.
Thank you! I’ll do some digging. The dang thing has mounting holes but they’re NOT VESA. But 40USD for an IPS 1080p panel that can be powered AND video’d through one USB-C cable I can’t complain about!
The white leds are a nice touch :p (i’m totally not jelly)
Kinda in a lull with homelabbing ATM, but here I’ve got my router in a custom 3d printed mini rack with 3d printed patch panel, and a couple of old NUCs. Only thing I really use day-to-day is a NUC connected to an amp so I can use the amp as a Spotify connect client
Oh now that is clean. Works really well with the overall display of vinyls.
This is a great thread. I had to join too!
I have my “network closet” which is like a hole in the wall where my ISP comes in:
And then my “server room” which is literally a closet. There’s a big ass old enterprise server and a 3 node laptop cluster:
Using the closet rod for that extra cable management
Perfection.
Eh, you know at work there’s one closet like that per floor :)
Also late, but here is mine.
From the bottom up:
- An old pc I built forever ago for live streaming when I used to run my youtube channel. It’s an i7 something or other with 32gb ram and a 32 tb raid (4x8).
- m1 Mac mini
- HP elitedesk 800 G3 mini
- two HP elitedesk 800 G3 sff
- Deku
- dumb network switch
- rpi 4 8gb
And here’s what’s running:
- Bottom pc is the nas
- Mac running jellyfin
- the hps running:
- navidrome
- aonsuku (pretty navidrome frontend)
- audiobookshelf
- qbittorrent
- gluetun
- vikunja
- radicale
- Joplin
- matrix
- local backup for critical data
- some other things I’m forgetting
- The rpi is my wireguard tunnel to ssh in on the rare occasion I need remote ssh access.
Neat, very nice! I just got some new machines, I need to learn how to get one of my VPNs set up with gluetun and qbittorrent so I can stop doing on my windows machine and leave it going all the time…
Thanks!!
I found it to be pretty easy to get gluetun & qbittorrent set up. I’m running it all in docker, be happy to share my compose files if you’d like.
That would be very helpful for me, thank you so much! I am VERY new to docker, but managed to get something difficult up and running with it (a modded game server) with a lotttt of trial and error. I imagine it’ll be a lot easier to get something much less specific going!
You’re welcome! I’m out rn, I’ll share the files when I get home.
No worries, no rush! It’s gonna be a weekend project, I think. I’ve got a cluster of separate RPis all doing different stuff, an unused Pi 5 8GB, and some new Lenovos… I think I can condense everything to one machine hahaha.
Right now I’m running Pi-Hole on a headless Pi and OMV on a second headless Pi, the OMV is just sharing a couple HDDs. If I wanted everything on one lil Lenovo through Docker, would you have any advice for a distro? Should I just pop Mint on it and set it all up that way?
(Very new and learning, currently have a Pop! desktop that’s been a champion for game stuff while I try to find a new SSD to switch my main game desktops to Linux)
That’s actually pretty neat!
