Personal self‑hosted infrastructure for media streaming, automation, development, AI experimentation and network services.
This homelab is designed to:
• Host a large self‑managed media streaming platform
• Provide private cloud services and data storage
• Run containerised applications for automation and monitoring
• Experiment with AI and local large language models
• Serve as a learning platform for networking, DevOps and systems engineering
• Act as a practical portfolio demonstrating real‑world infrastructure management
All sensitive data, such as public IPs, domains, credentials and exact storage paths are intentionally redacted for privacy.
• Multi‑core desktop server CPU
• Dedicated GPU acceleration for media transcoding and AI workloads
• High‑capacity RAM for virtualisation and container workloads
• NVMe SSD for operating system and container runtime
• High‑speed SSD for metadata and cache
• Multiple enterprise HDDs for mass media storage
• Automated library organisation and media indexing
• High‑speed home broadband connection
• Multi‑router architecture
• Secure remote access via encrypted VPN tunnel
• Reverse proxy for secure external service routing
• Internal DNS‑level filtering and ad blocking
• VLAN segmentation for service isolation
All services are deployed using containerisation for portability, reliability and simplified updates.
• Jellyfin — self‑hosted media streaming server • Jellyseerr — media request management • Sonarr — TV automation and indexing • Radarr — film automation and indexing • Lidarr — music automation and indexing • Bazarr — subtitle management • Prowlarr — indexer aggregation manager • Jackett — torrent indexer proxy • qBittorrent — download client • FlareSolverr — anti‑bot bypass service • Komga — manga and comics server • Kaizoku — manga downloader • Navidrome — music streaming server
• Nextcloud — private cloud storage platform • Vaultwarden — secure password manager • File browser — web‑based file management
• Local LLM runtime environment • Web UI for local model interaction • GPU‑accelerated inference services • Text‑to‑speech services • Image generation services
• Grafana — visual monitoring dashboards • Prometheus — metrics collection • Uptime monitoring service • Playback reporting and usage statistics • System resource monitoring
• Reverse proxy server with HTTPS encryption • Authentication and identity management • VPN server for secure remote access • Ad and tracker blocking DNS server • Intrusion prevention and rate‑limiting service • Container isolation policies
• Dynamic DNS updater • Wake‑on‑LAN remote power management • Container management dashboard • Remote desktop access service • Game server management panel • Offline knowledge library server
The media platform includes extensive UI and feature customisation:
• Custom themes and interface redesign
• Metadata enhancement plugins
• Intro and credits detection
• Advanced playback statistics
• Custom user profiles and access controls
• Kids‑restricted media libraries
• GPU hardware transcoding
• Direct‑play optimisation for supported devices
• Docker Compose stack orchestration • Automatic container restart policies • Scheduled maintenance and backups • Centralised configuration management
• Metadata stored on high‑speed cache drives • Media stored on large‑capacity arrays • Automated backups of critical configurations • Redundant storage for important data
• GPU hardware acceleration • Metadata caching • Filesystem optimisation • Network throughput tuning • Container resource allocation
This homelab is used to develop practical experience in:
• Linux server administration • Container orchestration • Network architecture design • Secure remote infrastructure management • Reverse proxy configuration • VPN tunnelling and encryption • Storage planning and optimisation • GPU workload acceleration • Monitoring and observability tooling • Self‑hosting best practices
• AI‑assisted media tagging and metadata enrichment • Automated media format optimisation • Advanced caching strategies • Network segmentation improvements • Container security hardening • Scalable storage expansion planning
• Container image updates • System performance monitoring • Storage health checks • Backup verification • Security patching
- Test changes in isolated containers
- Validate performance and stability
- Deploy to production stack
- Monitor metrics and logs
• Maintain a fully self‑hosted digital ecosystem • Reduce reliance on third‑party cloud services • Achieve high‑availability media streaming • Provide secure remote access to services • Build a scalable infrastructure platform • Continuously expand technical expertise
This documentation intentionally omits or redacts:
• Public IP addresses • Domain names • Authentication credentials • API keys • Exact storage paths • Personal identifying information
This project documentation is shared for educational and portfolio purposes only.