This is the foundation everything else on this blog runs on.
The layout
Internet
│
Router (home network)
├── Admin PC ── my normal workstation, sits in the home network
│
OPNsense (firewall + WireGuard)
│
Homelab network
├── Proxmox ── VMs for testing, clusters, etc.
├── Monitoring
└── everything else
The whole homelab sits behind OPNsense, separated from the normal home network. My admin PC lives in front of the firewall with the rest of the home devices — from there I manage everything behind it.
Remote access
OPNsense is also my WireGuard entry point. Laptop and phone connect through it, so I have full access to the lab from anywhere. No exposed services, no port forwarding to individual machines — one tunnel in, that’s it.
What it’s for
Proxmox is the playground. I can spin up VMs as much as I like to test setups, rebuild clusters, and try things that would be a bad idea anywhere else. This is where my Kubernetes cluster lived before I went back to plain Docker, and where most experiments on this blog start.
Status
Running 24/7, actively used. The setup changes when I learn something new — that’s kind of the point.