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🚀 Building My Homelab: Lessons, Wins & Chaos

🚀 Building My Homelab: Lessons, Wins & Chaos

It started simple enough—I wanted to self-host a few things. Maybe a Git repo, maybe a blog. Fast-forward a few weeks and I’ve got containers humming, two machines syncing data across Tailscale, and more Docker Compose files than I care to admit.

🛠️ The Setup

I’m running a two-node homelab setup:

  • GPU Workstation (my beast): Ryzen 7 5700X, RTX 3060 Ti, 32GB RAM
  • Mini PC (my workhorse): Intel N95, 16GB RAM, external 10TB storage
    Both run Ubuntu with custom LVM partitions and kernel 6.8.

Everything’s connected via a mix of powerline adapters, VLAN-ready smart switches, and Tailscale as the VPN overlay. Storage and database directories are mounted under /mnt/db on the GPU PC and synced from there.

🧩 The Stack

  • Dockerized apps: Ghost, Gitea, Nextcloud, MySQL/MariaDB, and a few experiments.
  • Backups: Rsync & scripts syncing between both nodes.
  • Network storage: Mini PC acts as the central NFS share.

I moved most heavy lifting to the GPU PC, isolating the Mini as storage + backup. Everything talks over Tailscale with static IPs.

🤯 Challenges

  • Debugging MariaDB in containers when you can’t tell if it’s permissions or volume issues.
  • Email SMTP configs that refuse to cooperate with custom domains.
  • Ghost templates giving me flashbacks to early WordPress days (but prettier).

💡 Wins

  • I control my data. Fully.
  • It’s fast. Even with containers.
  • No monthly hosting fees.
  • I’m learning more than ever—on my terms.

🎯 What’s Next?

  • Probably build some kind of indie SaaS, just because I can.
  • Tinker with AI to vibe-check code, maybe build a tool that can actually tell if something's clean, sketchy, or just plain cursed.
  • Keep pushing the boundaries of what I can self-host.
  • Write more about the wins, the breakdowns, and the weird stuff in between.

This blog is part of that journey.
I’ll be sharing wins, fails, configs, and lessons learned along the way. If you’re into self-hosting, Linux, or just breaking and fixing stuff like I do—stick around.I’ll be sharing wins, fails, configs, and lessons learned along the way. If you’re into self-hosting, Linux, or just breaking and fixing stuff like I do—stick around.

⚠️ Heads up: Sometimes the blog might go offline—I'm still fine-tuning the uptime game. Working on it. Promise.