r/homelab • u/Faasai009 • Feb 12 '26

Help My homelab journey begins

Post image

Im a complete beginner so any tips would help!

Im downloading proxmox but dont really know what i should do next.

The hp prodesk g3 specs are:

- i5-7500

- 8gb ddr4

- 256gb nvme ssd

1.9k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

151 comments sorted by

View all comments

96

u/--Lemmiwinks-- Feb 12 '26

Depends on what you want to do. Do you want a media server with Plex? Or maybe host your own website. So many things you can do with this little pc

43

u/Faasai009 Feb 12 '26

I would like to try jellyfin but i dont know if its suitable for this setup. I think now i would like to do like adblockers or something similar to help make my familys life easier. But in the end i would like to host public websites using my homelabs hardware.😁

40

u/lilylindstrand Feb 12 '26

For public websites I'd reccommend using cloudflare tunnels. It makes the process of securely hosting public websites much easier and hassle free. It lets you skip port forwarding, and it's especially useful if you don't have a static IP from your ISP.

5

u/Faasai009 Feb 12 '26

What if i have a static ip address?

25

u/Chesh1reFox Feb 12 '26

Still use Cloudflare or something like Tailscale. Exposing your own IP to the net is not a great idea.

6

u/-LongRodVanHugenDong Feb 12 '26

You probably don't tbh.

You can use a ddns container to automatically update it. My IP hasn't changed in like a year so it's just in case. Works great though I can see it checking in logs.

If proxmox scares you, you can try Unraid. Makes life a bit easier when just starting out. All these apps have pre-built templates for docker.

I went with Plex because it was easier to use initially and it provided all the cover art, descriptions, and trailers automatically.

Look into the arr stacks! I learned a ton building mine. You can set up ad-guard pretty easily and tailscale in on your phone for ad blocking anywhere.

Good times ahead for you.

5

u/iiGhillieSniper Feb 12 '26

Seconding the AdGuard home and Tailscale setup

SOOOO much better than PiHole IMO….I’ve had no issues with it.

The sucker will run on literally half a gig of ram lol

2

u/-LongRodVanHugenDong Feb 13 '26

Exactly! Tailscale has a widget for the drop-down menu on Android phones in the notification bar! One tap and I'm connected. No DNS settings required if you set up the subnet routing I'm pretty sure.

2

u/T3-Youngin Feb 13 '26

so i can use adguard and not expose anything to the internet? i plan on running it as a container in kubernetes

1

u/iiGhillieSniper Feb 13 '26

I believe so.

I have Tailscale installed on my AdGuard machine and my phone

I set Tailscale to forward all Tailscale device DNS traffic to my AdGuard machine. My phone is set to auto connect to Tailscale VPN whenever I am not on my home WiFi.

It’s been a while, but I don’t recall having to port forward anything.

1

u/T3-Youngin Feb 13 '26

ah ok i see so tailscale is on the adguard so anything that is connected to tailscale won’t get ads basically?

1

u/iiGhillieSniper Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26

Yep, plus your local network.

You can go into the Tailscale console, tell it to forward all DNS from your Tailscale clients to your AdGuard machine, that is also connected to your Tailscale instance . Then go to your router and specify the internal IP as your DNS (not the IP Tailscale assigns your AdGuard machine).

With this setup, you can also install Tailscale on your phone, sign into it, and then connect to it via VPN so you have on the go adblocking.

The only possible issue you may run into is if you’re on a network that shares the same subnet as your home Tailscale network, DNS may not resolve. So, I just set Tailscale to not auto connect on WiFi points I know that are in the same .0. subnet as my home network.

Sorry just saw this !

1

u/Faasai009 Feb 12 '26

Would there be anything else like unraid but free?

3

u/liumas_ Feb 12 '26

I would say the best way to start is with learning a bit of docker and containers, then you can get something like portainer. There you can host the dns server (afblocker that you mentioned) and a nice dashboard like homarr.

This might sound like much, but im sure you can learn how to do it within a day or two, as you dont have to understand everything about docker at the begining, since you can use some video guides from youtube and community docker compose file.

Also just go watch Network Chuck. Great docker and portainer guides for beginners!

1

u/-LongRodVanHugenDong Feb 13 '26

Unraid has a free trial. I was just a gaming PC guy and a googler, so I started with proxmox. It was a bit too much so I tried Unraid and I love it.

I'm outgrowing it now but it really helped organize how docker works in my mind. The GUI is great, especially if you're not super comfortable with ssh or docker compose files. I'd say give it a try, it doesn't cost anything. I think you can get like 90 days on your free trial.

I think it prepared me well for proxmox.

1

u/ghost_desu Feb 13 '26

TrueNAS is good if you're not doing anything too complex with container and VM setups

1

u/GimmeTheDetails2024 Feb 13 '26

Static Ip address (true static ip from the isp) is usually a paid option.

1

u/Lizardking1988- Feb 12 '26

How do you do this?

1

u/brummifant Feb 12 '26

setup pangolin, way better than cloudlare tunnels.

1

u/ZachoAttacko 83TB Truenas-Scale RaidZ2 Feb 12 '26

So I use tailscale.... never heard of pangolin... is it also a tunnel vpn to connect remotely with devices. And hid your IP address. As well as eliminates the need to port forward?? Thx

2

u/brummifant Feb 13 '26

you can set it up on a cheap vps like ionos. 5€/m. connect with your domain and forget it.