Enterprise Home Lab
Enterprise Home Lab is a two-node Proxmox VE 9.2 cluster
(proxmox-cluster) that hosts the services I rely on day to day and the Windows domain
topology I use for systems administration practice. Workloads are split across bare-metal Dell
PowerEdge hosts — one tuned for density and ZFS storage, the other for identity and lighter VMs —
linked over a bonded 10G backbone.
What’s Running
The cluster inventory below mirrors the live Proxmox tree: Linux containers for always-on app and data services, full VMs for the Active Directory lab and per-user Windows 11 desktops, plus kept-lean templates for fast clones.
Data Platform — LXC
| 102 | postgresql — primary relational database for lab apps |
| 116 | redis — shared cache / in-memory store |
| 107 | docker — nested container host for microservices |
| 114 | rclone — cloud sync & filesystem mounts |
Applications — LXC
| 103 | immich — self-hosted photo & video library |
| 108 | ghostfolio — open-source wealth / portfolio tracker |
| 109 | blocky — DNS proxy & network-wide ad blocking |
Windows Domain & Desktops — VM
| 100 | DC-00 — domain controller (server) |
| 104 | DC-01 — domain controller (host-01) |
| 112 | SVC — Windows VM for services, scripts & scheduled tasks |
| 113 | RDS — Remote Desktop Services test bench (not deployed for daily use) |
| 101 | PC-01 — in-use Windows 11 VM (one user per guest) |
| 111 | PC-02 — in-use Windows 11 VM (one user per guest) |
| 115 | PC-03 — in-use Windows 11 VM (one user per guest) |
Templates & Linux — VM
| 105 | Ubuntu — general-purpose Linux guest |
| 106 | WindowsServer2025 — template for cloning new Server VMs |
| 110 | Windows11 — template for cloning new Windows 11 VMs |
Why per-user PCs: Each Windows 11 desktop is a dedicated VM so household users don’t kick each other out — only one interactive session can be active on a given guest at a time. WindowsServer2025 and Windows11 stay as Proxmox templates to spin up new VMs quickly while keeping storage lean.
Placement: Application and data LXCs (postgresql, immich, docker, ghostfolio, blocky, rclone, redis) plus most Windows guests live on host-01. Identity starter VMs DC-00 and Ubuntu run on server, giving the cluster a second domain controller path and a lightweight Linux guest off the primary storage node.
Hypervisor Hosts
host-01 — Dell PowerEdge R740
| CPU | 2× Intel Xeon Gold 6242 @ 2.80GHz (64 threads) |
| RAM | 503.50 GiB DDR4 ECC |
| Storage | 3.00 TiB ZFS pool + local-lvm |
| OS | Proxmox VE 9.2.3 (Linux 7.0.12-1-pve) |
| Role | Primary compute — apps, data, most AD clients |
server — Dell PowerEdge R730
| CPU | 2× Intel Xeon E5-2637 v3 @ 3.50GHz (16 threads) |
| RAM | 62.79 GiB DDR4 ECC |
| Storage | 93.93 GiB boot + local-lvm |
| OS | Proxmox VE 9.2.3 (Linux 7.0.12-1-pve, EFI) |
| Role | Secondary node — DC-00 & Ubuntu |
Off-site storage: The rclone LXC mounts cloud backends into the lab filesystem — 5 TB Google Drive and 6 TB Microsoft 365 Business (1 TB per sub-account) — for resilient backups and media.
Network backbone: Both hosts share a high-speed 10 Gbps bonded interconnect (link aggregation up to 20 Gbps aggregate), with UniFi switching for lab VLANs and east-west VM traffic.
What It’s For
- Self-hosted services — Immich, Ghostfolio, Blocky DNS, and the PostgreSQL/Redis/Docker stack that backs them
- Active Directory practice — dual DCs, an SVC host for scripts/scheduled tasks, per-user Windows 11 desktops, and an RDS test bench
- Storage & backup drills — ZFS on
host-01plus rclone cloud mounts for off-site copies - Automation & IaC — a safe place to break and rebuild with Ansible, Terraform, and CI pipelines
Future Plans
I’m documenting the full lab as Infrastructure as Code. Once ready, provisioning scripts, network configs, and automation playbooks will ship as an open-source repository.