Proxmox Homelab

A 2-node Proxmox VE cluster for virtualization, containerization, and self-hosted services. Running K3s, various databases, and monitoring infrastructure.

Proxmox VEK3sDockerTerraformAnsibleGrafanaPrometheus

Overview

A personal homelab infrastructure built on two Dell OptiPlex nodes running Proxmox VE in a high-availability cluster configuration. This setup serves as a learning platform for enterprise virtualization, container orchestration, and infrastructure-as-code practices.

Architecture

Hardware

  • Node 1: Dell OptiPlex 7080 (i7-10700, 64GB RAM, 1TB NVMe)
  • Node 2: Dell OptiPlex 7090 (i7-11700, 64GB RAM, 1TB NVMe)
  • Network: Managed switch with VLANs for management, storage, and services

Virtualization Layer

The Proxmox cluster provides:

  • Live migration of VMs between nodes
  • Shared storage via Ceph (planned)
  • High availability for critical services
  • Snapshot and backup automation

Services

Container Orchestration

Running K3s lightweight Kubernetes for containerized workloads:

  • Personal applications and APIs
  • Development/staging environments
  • Database clusters (PostgreSQL, Redis)

Monitoring Stack

Full observability with:

  • Prometheus for metrics collection
  • Grafana dashboards
  • Loki for log aggregation
  • Alertmanager for notifications

Infrastructure as Code

All configurations managed through:

  • Terraform for VM provisioning
  • Ansible for configuration management
  • GitOps workflows with ArgoCD

Learning Outcomes

This project has provided hands-on experience with:

  • Enterprise virtualization concepts
  • Network segmentation and security
  • Backup strategies and disaster recovery
  • Container orchestration at scale
  • Infrastructure automation patterns

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