Homelab

Your NAS, your Docker containers, your VMs: none of it needs to touch the internet. Ever. That’s the first reason to run a WireGuard tunnel back into your house. Not privacy, just never opening a port publicly in the first place. WireGuard is the one door in, and once you’re through it, everything behaves like you’re on the LAN, because you are. The second reason is the one people actually think of when they hear “VPN”: tunneling home while you’re on somebody else’s network, hotel wifi, a coffee shop, your phone’s hotspot. Commercial VPNs solve that by routing you through their own servers, meaning you trust their business model instead of your own network. Point WireGuard at home instead and your traffic exits from your house. Looks like you’re at home, because you basically are. ...

Note: These are notes from my own setup, not a definitive reference. I wrote them down as I went so I’d have something to follow if I ever have to rebuild this from scratch, not as verified documentation. Kopia’s flags and behavior may have moved on since I wrote this. If something doesn’t match what you see, check Kopia’s own docs for the current version. Kopia is an open-source, encrypted, deduplicating backup tool, the kind of thing you run instead of paying for Backblaze’s app or piecing together rsync and a prayer. It has a client-server mode: a repository server holds the actual backup data, and KopiaUI runs on your desktop as a client that connects to it. ...

The Aruba AP-325 (Model: APIN0325) is an enterprise-grade 802.11ac Wave 2 access point that routinely appears on the secondary market after corporate Wi-Fi refreshes. The hardware is excellent — fast radios, strong range, rock-solid stability — but there’s a catch. Most surplus AP-325 units are “Campus APs”, meaning they require an Aruba Mobility Controller to function. Without one, they’re effectively useless. The good news: the AP-325 (and other similar Aruba models) can be converted to Instant (IAP) mode, allowing it to run standalone or form a controller-less cluster with other Instant APs. Once converted, it behaves exactly like a native Instant AP — no licenses, no subscriptions, no controller. ...

Most home networks are still running 1 Gigabit Ethernet (1GbE), which caps out at a theoretical 125 MB/s. That’s a real bottleneck when you’re working with high-resolution video, large game libraries, or a home lab with a NAS. The good news: you don’t need an enterprise budget to fix it. This guide shows how to get a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) network running for under $300 using a few key pieces of affordable hardware. ...

Note: This build is from 2016. The i5-6500, GTX 970, and every price below are long obsolete. Same as the 2014 version of this guide, the budgeting logic still holds, just not this parts list. The goal of this guide is to build the best gaming PC possible for a $1,000 budget. Not only will this system handle modern games, it’ll also hold its own for streaming, video editing, and graphics work. ...

Note: This guide is from 2014. VPS pricing has moved since, and the linked Transmission installer script may no longer be maintained, review it before running it (as the guide already tells you to) or look for a current alternative. The general approach, a small VPS running Transmission behind a web UI, still works fine. In this guide we’ll set up a seedbox (a BitTorrent client running on a remote server) on a Linux VPS in four steps. Once it’s running, you can queue downloads from any browser and pull completed files down to your local machine when ready. ...

Note: This build is from 2014. The i5-4670, GTX 760, and every price below are long obsolete. The budget-allocation logic (spend on the GPU, don’t overpay for the motherboard) still applies to building a PC today, but don’t go looking for these exact parts. The goal of this guide is to build the best gaming PC possible for a $1,000 budget. Not only will this system handle modern games at this price point, it’ll also hold its own for everyday tasks. ...

Note: This build is from 2011. The parts, prices, and retailer links below are long gone, and the goal itself (a cheap box for 1080p streaming) is basically solved by any current mini PC. The general shopping logic (spend on CPU/GPU, keep it small and quiet) still holds if you’re building something similar today, just not this exact parts list. So you want an HTPC (Home Theater PC / Media Center) but you’re not Mr. Money Bags? That’s fine — you can still build a great one. ...