Overview
A continuously evolving home laboratory built around TrueNAS, Docker, and a carefully designed network. The lab hosts personal services, development environments, monitoring, and this portfolio website itself.
Goals
- Reliable self-hosted services
- Clean separation of concerns (storage, compute, networking, exposure)
- Observability and straightforward maintenance
- A platform that supports learning in systems engineering and infrastructure
Architecture Highlights
| Layer | Technology / Approach |
|---|---|
| Storage & VMs / Apps | TrueNAS |
| Containers | Docker / Compose |
| Networking | Segmented networks, reverse proxy |
| Public exposure | Pangolin tunnel infrastructure (external) |
| Monitoring | (as configured) |
The portfolio container is deliberately simple: it only serves static files on a local port. DNS, TLS, reverse proxy, and WAN exposure are handled outside this project.
Key Decisions
- Prefer static, rebuildable services where possible
- Keep application containers focused on a single responsibility
- Document topology and recovery procedures
- Treat infrastructure as a first-class engineering project
Lessons
Running real services at home quickly surfaces issues around backups, updates, observability, and failure modes. These lessons transfer directly to professional systems work.
Related Writing
See blog posts on TrueNAS setup and infrastructure notes.