Self-Hosted Diaries (2025.1): My Personal Homelab Stack and Journey
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# Self-Hosted Diaries (2025.1): My Personal Homelab Stack and Journey
**Meta Description**: Explore my complete 2025 self-hosting stack — from Proxmox and Traefik to Nextcloud, Vaultwarden, and self-hosted LLMs. Insights, tools, and lessons learned.
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Self-hosting isn’t just a tech hobby anymore — it’s how I’ve taken back control over my data, my apps, and even my budget. Here’s the full rundown of my current 2025 stack: what I run, how it’s configured, and why each piece earns its place in my homelab.
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## 🧱 Core Infrastructure
– **Server**: Intel NUC (i7, 64GB RAM, 1TB NVMe)
– **Hypervisor**: Proxmox VE 8.2
– **Networking**: Unifi Dream Router, VLANs for IoT/guests
– **Backups**: BorgBackup + Rclone to Wasabi S3
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## 🌐 Reverse Proxy & Auth
– **Reverse Proxy**: Traefik v2 with Docker provider
– **SSL**: Let’s Encrypt + DNS challenge (Cloudflare API)
– **SSO**: Authelia (paired with Traefik)
**Tip**: Offload auth to Authelia early — simplifies service security massively.
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## 🧠 Core Services
| Service | Purpose | Notes |
|—————-|——————-|————————————-|
| Portainer | Docker GUI | Easy container management |
| Watchtower | Auto-updates | Monitors and updates containers |
| Uptime Kuma | Monitoring | Self-hosted Statuspage & alerts |
| Homer Dashboard | Landing Page | Quick access for all services |
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## 💾 File & Sync
– **Nextcloud Hub 7**: File sync, calendar, contacts
– **Syncthing**: Peer-to-peer file sync (laptops ↔ server)
> **Optimization**: Offload preview generation in Nextcloud with `previewgenerator` cron job.
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## 🔐 Security Tools
– **Vaultwarden**: Password manager
– **Gitea**: Git server (private repos)
– **Dozzle**: Real-time Docker logs
– **CrowdSec**: Logs + ban IPs via Traefik bouncer
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## 📬 Mail Stack
– **Mailserver**: Mailu (Postfix, Dovecot, Rspamd)
– **Webmail**: Snappymail (fast, beautiful)
– **MX / DNS**: Hosted externally with Mailu’s DNS templates
> **Pro tip**: SPF/DKIM/DMARC tuning is critical. Use tools like mail-tester.com to verify.
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## 📺 Media & Extras
– **Plex**: For streaming backed by local RAID
– **Mealie**: Recipe manager for the household
– **FreshRSS**: RSS reader
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## 🧠 Self-Hosted LLMs
– **Ollama**: Local models like Mistral 7B
– **Frontend**: OpenWebUI
> This combo gives me a local ChatGPT-style interface — fast, no API limits.
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## 🔁 CI/CD & Automation
– **Woodpecker CI**: Lightweight CI for personal repos
– **Webhooks**: Trigger redeploys, alerts
– **Cronicle**: UI cron job manager
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## 🔐 VPN & Remote
– **Tailscale**: Remote access + subnet routing
– **Pi-hole**: Ad-blocking DNS (via split-tunnel)
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## Lessons from 2024
– **Don’t over-engineer**: Simplicity scales better.
– **Automation wins**: Every webhook or cron job you configure saves hours later.
– **Monitoring > troubleshooting**: Setup alerts _before_ things break.
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## 📸 ALT text suggestions
– Screenshot of Homer dashboard: `Self-hosted dashboard with service shortcuts`
– Diagram of network layout: `Proxmox homelab architecture with VLANs and Traefik proxy`
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> 🧠 Ready to start your self-hosted setup?
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> I personally use [this server provider](https://www.kqzyfj.com/click-101302612-15022370) to host my stack — fast, affordable, and reliable for self-hosting projects.
> 👉 If you’d like to support this blog, feel free to sign up through [this affiliate link](https://www.kqzyfj.com/click-101302612-15022370) — it helps me keep the lights on!
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Want a deep dive on any tool above? Just let me know!