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Home lab · 22U rack

Owen's home lab

I'm a network automation engineer, and this is my home lab. It's a 22U rack that runs my home network, self-hosted services and game servers for friends, plus the labs I use to study. Hover over any device to see what it is and what runs on it.

In the rack, top to bottom

    Owen's 22U home lab rack, lit blue: UniFi gateway, switch, patch panels, NVR and PDU at the top, three HP mini PCs and a NAS on a shelf, a 4U server and a CyberPower UPS at the bottom.

    About

    I spent about three and a half years at Cisco on the data center routing and switching TAC team. Currently I am a Network Automation Engineer at Labcorp on the Data Center Networking Team.

    Outside of work, my home lab is where I practice and try out new technologies. I run the usual self-hosted services, like DNS, SSO, monitoring, VPN, etc. Lately I've been using it to learn Kubernetes and to study for my Arista L7 Expert exam, building multiple VXLAN fabrics connected over an MPLS WAN in Containerlab.

    Network

    The primary WAN connection is a multi-gig fiber ISP, with a UniFi 5G Max mounted outside as cellular failover. The network is split into six VLANs, so the lab, cameras, IoT devices, guests and my work laptop each stay on their own segment.

      WAN 1WAN 2 · failovertrunk · all VLANsVLAN BVLAN C · PoEPoEPoEVLAN A · DVLAN A · EWi-FiWi-FiMulti-gig fiberPrimary WANUniFi 5G MaxOutdoor · cellular backupDream Machine Pro MaxGateway · firewall · 6 VLANsPro Max 16 PoECore switch · in the rackHome labIn the rackProxmox cluster ×3B4U Proxmox nodeBUGREEN NASBCamerasPowered by PoEUniFi NVRCG6 Bullet ×2CG6 TurretCG6 InstantCG6 Entry doorbellCU7 ProAccess pointU6 MeshAccess pointWi-Fi clientsAcross both access pointsPersonal devicesAWiZ bulbsDGuest Wi-FiFSwitch Lite 8 PoELiving roomSwitch Flex 2.5GOfficeAqara Hub M3VLAN DApple TV & TVsVLAN AGaming PCVLAN AWork laptopVLAN E
      All six VLANs are trunked from the gateway to the core switch, then split out by where each device plugs in. Select a VLAN above, or a device in the map, to highlight its path. Scroll sideways to see the whole map.

      Stack

      Projects

      Source not public yet

      Minecraft Discord bot

      I host several Minecraft servers for friends, and they often needed something done when I wasn't around: a crashed server restarted, a new player whitelisted, a backup after a big session, or a fresh server spun up. So I built a Discord bot that lets them handle it themselves. They run a command in Discord, and the bot handles the rest on the backend.

      A few of the commands

      /build-server
      Builds a new modded (CurseForge) or vanilla (PaperMC) server.
      /request-access
      Asks to be whitelisted. Once it gets approved with one click, the bot sends them the server address.
      /backup
      Backs up a server to the NAS. Servers can also be put on an automatic backup schedule.
      /restart
      Brings a crashed or stuck server back up.
      /servers
      Shows every server and whether it's online.

      Commands are split by role. Anyone can check status or request access, and trusted users can also restart, back up and build new servers.

      Python · runs on the 4U Proxmox node

      Contact