About My Home Network

I believe this is one of the most interesting projects in my portfolio. So let's get straight to the facts and current status:

• Network name: wglc.at (WGLC stands for "Wagner Local")
• Gigabyte R281-N40 (Computing)
• Dell PowerEdge R720 (Backup / NAS)
• MIKROTIK CRS354
• MIKROTIK CRS326-24S-2Q+RM
• MIKROTIK CRS326-24G-2S+RM
• Server cabinets: 1x 19" with 47U and 1x 19" with 22U
• Entire network redundantly wired with fiber-optic cables (10Gbit/s)
• Secured with UPSs

Future Projects

• Dynamic electricity pricing (price recalculated every hour) - (In Planning :D)
• Central battery rack for my entire infrastructure (with fuses and relays) to save money. (In Planning :D)
• Hardware firewall
• General network redundancy
• An additional computing node (Gigabyte R281-N40)
• An additional NAS node (Dell PowerEdge R720 - for offsite backups)
• WGLC Dashboard (Dashboard for stats, monitoring, and more)
• WGLC Security System (Own AI system fed with cameras and sensors)

Story

For those who might be curious, here’s how I got into this:

At 15, I was interested in the topic of "servers" and wanted to learn more about how I could host a website I created without buying a VPS from a provider.

Without much knowledge, I went on eBay and searched for "servers." I found a device that caught my eye: an HP ProLiant DL160 G6.

Just a note—I had absolutely no idea what I was doing at that time. I didn't even know if I’d get an electric shock when turning on the server (I really had no clue, haha).

After finally daring to power it up and listening to three minutes of pure noise (my neighbors probably thought I had a Boeing 747 in my room), I finally saw an image on the monitor and was very happy.

In short, I then prepared a USB stick and installed Debian. Without much networking knowledge, I got an IP from my then router and tried connecting via SSH. That worked after I became acquainted with SSH configurations.

At that time, I was a fan of Apache. I installed it on the server and moved my website, which I previously only had on a VPS, to my home server.

That was the first time I really got in touch with servers.

-- A bunch of failures, successes, calls with friends, and high costs later --

At this point, thanks to my friends who always supported me.

Today we’re here, at a point where I manage my own network with multiple servers. I have engaged with technologies like Docker, Kubernetes, as well as software like Proxmox, Grafana, InfluxDB, Prometheus, Traefik, and Nginx intensively.

Over this period, my knowledge about servers has grown tremendously. I’m very comfortable with Linux now. Where I used to struggle to host a website, I can do it with a few clicks today. Thanks to great tools, I can set up a domain with an SSL certificate and all the bells and whistles in minutes.

But Why?

Sure, I've poured a lot of money into all of this. So why didn't I just buy a car with all that money? Simple: for the experience. Had I not taken these steps earlier, I wouldn't be as far along as I am now.

And that's exactly what I plan to continue doing. I aim to continuously expand and improve my network to further enhance my skills and knowledge. The same goes for my applications and programming skills.

Pictures