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The Problem My homelab has multiple VLANs, a Tailscale overlay network, and no ad blocking. DNS was handled entirely by the EdgeRouter X-SFP forwarding to Cloudflare. I wanted: Network-wide ad blocking without per-device configuration Conditional DNS forwarding so LAN clients can resolve Tailscale hostnames Non-Tailscale devices (Rokus, smart TVs) able to reach Tailscale services like Jellyfin Client names on the DNS dashboard instead of raw IPs The Architecture 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 LAN Clients (10.150.10.0/24) │ ├─ DNS ──→ dns01 (AdGuard Home, 10.150.60.11) │ ├─ Upstream: Cloudflare DoH, Google DoH │ ├─ Conditional: *.<tailnet>.ts.net → 100.100.100.100 │ └─ Reverse DNS: PTR queries → EdgeRouter (10.150.10.1) │ ├─ DHCP ──→ EdgeRouter X-SFP (dnsmasq) │ ├─ Primary DNS: 10.150.60.11 (AdGuard) │ ├─ Secondary DNS: 10.150.10.1 (router fallback) │ └─ Search domain: <tailnet>.ts.net │ └─ 100.x.x.x traffic ──→ static route → dns01 → MASQUERADE → tailscale0 dns01 is an LXC container on pve01 running AdGuard Home and acting as a Tailscale subnet router advertising all four LAN subnets. ...

The Problem My homelab had grown organically into a 9-node Proxmox 8 cluster on a flat 10.150.10.0/24 network. Six i5/i7 machines (pve001-006) with 16GB RAM each, plus three Ryzen 9 5900X machines (pve007-009) with 64-128GB RAM and dedicated GPUs. The old nodes were underpowered, the network was a mess, and managing it all was getting painful. It was time to consolidate. The Plan Rebuild the three Ryzen machines as a proper 3-node cluster with: ...

The Setup I have a 3-node Proxmox 9 cluster, each with a 4TB SSD and 2TB HDD dedicated to Ceph. The NVMe drives stay local for fast VM storage. The question was: how do I use the SSDs for performance-sensitive workloads and the HDDs for bulk storage? 1 2 3 4 Per Node: 2TB NVMe → nvme-local (LVM-thin, not Ceph) 4TB SSD → Ceph OSD (fast tier) 2TB HDD → Ceph OSD (bulk tier) CRUSH Rules: Telling Ceph Where to Put Data Ceph already knows which OSDs are SSDs and which are HDDs — it assigns device classes automatically. But by default, it’ll spread data across all OSDs regardless of type. CRUSH rules let you pin pools to specific device classes. ...

The Problem Job hunting is repetitive. Every application means re-reading your own resume, figuring out how to position your experience for this specific role, writing yet another cover letter, and hoping a recruiter connects the dots. Multiply that by dozens of applications and it gets exhausting fast. I wanted a system where I could drop in a job posting and get back an honest fit assessment, a tailored resume, and a cover letter without re-explaining my entire background every time. ...

I migrated Jellyfin from an AMD RX 570 to the Intel HD Graphics 630 integrated into the host CPU. The result: 4 simultaneous HEVC transcodes at ~10% CPU each, with a ~105-135W power reduction. Why Switch The AMD RX 570 was overkill for transcoding. It pulled 50-70W at idle and 120-150W under load — running 24/7 in a media server that mostly handles a few streams at a time. The Intel iGPU built into the i5-7500 has Quick Sync Video, which is purpose-built for exactly this workload. ...

The Problem My two boys each had their own gaming PC. Two towers, two sets of peripherals, two machines to maintain, update, and troubleshoot. When I started consolidating everything into a Proxmox homelab, it seemed wasteful to keep two standalone gaming rigs around. The plan: one host, two GPUs, two Windows VMs. Each boy gets a dedicated GPU, their own monitor, keyboard, and mouse. They can game simultaneously without knowing they’re on virtual machines. ...

Started with ‘why won’t Brave start?’ and ended with compressed RAM giving the equivalent of 16GB+ on hardware that can’t be upgraded.

One of those satisfying days where a pile of “almost working” became a fully operational CI/CD pipeline. The goal: get GitHub Actions runners to test Ansible playbooks against real infrastructure over Tailscale VPN. The Problem I had Ansible playbooks managing Proxmox hosts, but no automated testing. Every change was a manual ansible-playbook --check from my laptop. I wanted PRs to automatically lint and dry-run against the real cluster before merge. ...