Homelab Builds

Practical homelab builds for infrastructure engineers. This is where enterprise skills meet kit you can actually afford. Guides cover mini PC clusters, refurbished Dell and HPE servers, Proxmox hypervisor setups, network segmentation with VLANs, and the power and cooling tradeoffs that matter when you run 24/7 at home. Every build documented here has either sat in a production rack or a real spare bedroom. No theoretical gear lists, no affiliate filler. If you want to learn Kubernetes on a £120 refurbished OptiPlex or run a dozen self-hosted services on a Pi cluster, start here. The homelab is a professional development environment, and this is how we treat it.

Detailed view of blue ethernet cables connected to a network switch in a data center.

Linux Network Troubleshooting: ping, traceroute, netstat & ss (With Real Scenarios)

Homelab Builds, Linux Fundamentals /

Real terminal output, captured live – not a mock-up. “Is It the Network?” Every outage starts with this question. Database timeout? Is it the network? Website slow? Is it the network? Application won’t connect? Is it the network? Being able to quickly prove or eliminate network issues is what separates reactive helpdesk work from proactive […]

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Close-up view of a mouse cursor over digital security text on display.

Linux File Permissions: The Interview Question Everyone Gets Wrong

Homelab Builds, Linux Fundamentals /

Real terminal output, captured live – not a mock-up. The Question That Ends Interviews “What does 755 mean?” I’ve seen candidates with impressive CVs stumble on this. They know Linux, they’ve used chmod, but they can’t explain what the numbers actually mean. Interview over. File permissions are the foundation of Linux security. Every file, every

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Red backlit keyboard and code on laptop screen create a tech-focused ambiance.

apt Package Management on Ubuntu: Install, Update, Remove & Troubleshoot

Homelab Builds, Linux Fundamentals /

Real terminal output, captured live – not a mock-up. Linux Package Management Guide for Beginners The Gateway to Linux Administration Every piece of software on your Linux server got there somehow. In the Debian/Ubuntu world—which dominates enterprise Linux deployments—that somehow is apt. Installing packages seems simple until you’re maintaining a production server at 3 AM

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Close-up of a Linux penguin sticker placed on a blue ice cube tray with frozen cubes.

systemctl Commands: Start, Stop & Manage Linux Services (With Real Examples)

Linux Fundamentals /

Real terminal output, captured live – not a mock-up. Service Management for Junior Sysadmins The Command You’ll Use More Than Any Other In my first week as a junior sysadmin, I probably ran systemctl status about fifty times a day. Application not responding? Check the service. Website down? Check the service. Database timing out? You

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Close-up of colorful text on a computer screen, showcasing cybersecurity concepts.

30 Linux Commands That Get You Hired: The Interview Cheat Sheet

Homelab Builds, Linux Fundamentals /

Real terminal output, captured live – not a mock-up. Why This Matters for Your Career I’ve sat on both sides of the technical interview table. As a candidate, I’ve fumbled through command-line questions that should have been easy. As a hiring manager, I’ve watched promising candidates crash and burn because they couldn’t navigate a filesystem

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In-Place Upgrade to Proxmox Backup Server 4.0 (Homelab Edition)

Proxmox Projects /

If your homelab matters, your backups matter more. Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) 4.0 is out now on Debian 13 “Trixie”, with a Linux 6.14 kernel and ZFS 2.3.3. Headline upgrades include native S3-compatible object storage, live RAIDZ expansion, and automatic sync on mount for removable datastores. Below is a straightforward, no-subscription in-place upgrade from PBS

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