Entry · 2025

Proxmox Homelab Infrastructure

Self-hosted platform on Proxmox VE on an Intel N100 mini PC: 5 LXC containers + 1 VM, zero-trust public access via Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale VPN, ZFS storage and automated backups.

Proxmox node overview with containers and VM — fig. 01 - Proxmox node - 5 LXC + 1 VM on an Intel N100

Context

I needed a central self-hosted platform - media, home automation, ad-blocking DNS, workflow automation and deploy staging - without paying for cloud services and without exposing my home IP.

Outcome

An Intel N100 mini PC runs Proxmox VE with 5 LXC containers and 1 VM (Home Assistant), across three network planes: zero-trust public access via Cloudflare Tunnel (no port forwarding), private Tailscale VPN, and the local LAN. ZFS storage in two pools, with snapshots and checksums.

A systematic hardening audit brought the assessed security risk from 7.5 down to 3.0/10, and backups run with one click via macOS/iOS Shortcuts over Tailscale. Client project staging runs here too.

Pi-hole dashboard with DNS blocking — fig. 02 - Pi-hole - network-wide DNS ad blocking

Known limitations

11 GB of RAM limits concurrent services (3:1 CPU overcommit).
No automated offsite backup - backups download to the Mac over Tailscale.
Monitoring stack (Grafana/Prometheus) installed but not yet fully configured.