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Hosting Services on your Home Lab

· 5 min read

Setting up a home lab is a great way to experiment with different technologies, host personal services, and build a better understanding of system administration. Once your home server is up and running, the next step is deciding which services you want to host.

In this post, we’ll explore different methods of hosting services on your home lab and provide examples of useful services you can run, categorized by their use case.

Methods of Hosting Services​

There are several methods to host services on your home lab. Here are a few of the most common ones:

1. Bare-Metal Hosting​

  • What it is: Running a service directly on your server without virtualization or containers.
  • Best for: Services that require the full resources of the server.
  • Example: Hosting a file server like Nextcloud on a dedicated machine.

2. Virtualization​

  • What it is: Using a hypervisor (like Proxmox or VMware ESXi) to create virtual machines (VMs) on your server, allowing you to run multiple different operating systems or services.
  • Best for: Isolating services, running different OS environments, or testing configurations.
  • Example: Running a VM for a web server and another for a database server.

3. Containerization​

  • What it is: Running services in isolated containers using platforms like Docker or Podman.
  • Best for: Lightweight, efficient hosting, especially when scaling multiple services.
  • Example: Hosting Jellyfin for media streaming in a Docker container.

4. Cloud Virtual Private Server (VPS)​

  • What it is: Using cloud services (like AWS, DigitalOcean, or Linode) to host services in a virtual environment that you control.
  • Best for: Services that need high availability or need to be accessed from anywhere.
  • Example: Hosting a public-facing website or a VPN server.

Categories of Useful Services to Host on Your Home Lab​

Now that you know how to host services, let’s dive into some categories of useful services you can set up in your home lab. These categories cover a wide range of personal and home automation needs.

1. File & Data Storage​

Nextcloud: A self-hosted cloud storage service, perfect for syncing files, calendars, contacts, and more across devices.

Syncthing: A decentralized file synchronization tool, ideal for syncing files between devices without using a central server.

2. Media Streaming​

Plex: A media server that organizes and streams your personal movie, TV, and music collections to any device.

Jellyfin: An open-source alternative to Plex, perfect for streaming your media library.

Emby: Similar to Plex, Emby is another media server solution for organizing and streaming your personal content.

3. Home Automation​

Home Assistant: An open-source platform for home automation that allows you to control smart devices and create automation routines (lights, thermostats, security systems).

OpenHAB: Another home automation platform that integrates with many smart devices and provides a unified control interface.

4. Web Hosting​

WordPress: A popular content management system (CMS) for creating blogs, websites, and eCommerce sites. You can self-host it on your server to have full control over your site.

Ghost: A simpler, more modern alternative to WordPress, focused on publishing content.

5. Email Hosting​

Mailcow: A full-featured email server suite for hosting your own email system, including mailboxes, spam filtering, and security features.

iRedMail: Another open-source email server solution that can be used to host personal or business emails on your home lab.

6. Developer Tools​

GitLab: A version control system and CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) platform. You can host your own Git repository for personal or team projects.

Jenkins: A widely used tool for automating software builds and deployments. Self-hosting Jenkins allows you to create continuous integration pipelines in your lab.

7. Networking & VPN​

Pi-hole: A network-wide ad blocker that filters ads and trackers across all devices on your network, improving privacy and reducing bandwidth usage.

OpenVPN: A VPN solution for securely accessing your home network from anywhere in the world.

WireGuard: A faster, simpler VPN solution with modern cryptography that’s easier to set up than OpenVPN.

8. Security & Monitoring​

Grafana & Prometheus: For monitoring your home lab and other systems, these two open-source tools work together to collect and visualize data such as CPU usage, network traffic, and more.

Fail2Ban: A security tool that helps protect your server from brute-force attacks by blocking IP addresses after a certain number of failed login attempts.

Conclusion​

Hosting different services on your home lab gives you the flexibility to experiment, learn, and manage your own infrastructure. Whether you want to set up file storage, media streaming, home automation, or development tools, there are countless options for what you can host.

By choosing the right methods (bare-metal, virtualization, or containerization) and services for your needs, you can create a powerful and cost-effective home server setup. The best part? You have full control over everything!

If you're ready to start hosting your own services, check out my documentation for more detailed, step-by-step guides.