Proxmox VEFirewallaLinuxDockerDocker ComposeRaspberry PiTailscaleSSHGitGitHubBashTCP/IPDNSDHCPVirtualizationContainerization
Network Security & Remote Administration
My home lab is a continuously evolving infrastructure environment that I built to gain practical experience with networking, virtualization, Linux administration, security, and remote systems management. It gives me a controlled space to apply technical concepts outside of a classroom, test new technologies, troubleshoot failures, and better understand how different systems work together.
The environment is built around a Firewalla security gateway, managed network infrastructure, Proxmox virtualization hosts, Linux and Windows virtual machines, Docker-based services, Raspberry Pi systems, and secure remote access through Tailscale. Together, these components allow me to practice many of the same responsibilities found in network operations, systems administration, cloud support, and DevOps environments.
I use the lab to deploy operating systems, allocate virtual resources, configure network connectivity, manage services, monitor system health, troubleshoot outages, and test changes without affecting production systems. Working across multiple Linux distributions has also helped me strengthen my knowledge of package management, system services, permissions, logging, networking, and command-line administration.
The diagram above provides a high-level view of how the environment is organized. It shows the relationship between the internet connection, Firewalla firewall and router, managed switch, physical endpoints, Proxmox infrastructure, virtual machines, containerized services, and remote administration tools.
This project is not intended to remain static. I continue to expand it as I study Linux, networking, cloud infrastructure, and automation. Future improvements include deeper network segmentation, centralized monitoring, configuration management with Ansible, infrastructure automation with Terraform, cloud integration, and container orchestration.
The home lab has helped me move beyond simply understanding technical concepts and toward learning how to design, operate, secure, document, and improve complete infrastructure environments.