Infrastructure · Virtualization
Enterprise Homelab
A real enterprise-class Dell PowerEdge R620 used to explore virtualization, service hosting, storage planning, and troubleshooting.
Project overview
The Dell PowerEdge R620 is the main hardware platform for this homelab. Proxmox VE provides the virtualization environment, while Linux and Docker support a range of personal applications. Keeping these workloads on one platform creates opportunities to learn deployment, resource allocation, monitoring, and recovery procedures.
What this project covers
- Installing and administering a Proxmox VE host.
- Understanding local volumes, filesystem mounts, and capacity planning.
- Separating application data from operating system storage.
- Managing services and checking health through command-line diagnostics.
- Maintaining a reliable environment without exposing private management ports publicly.
Real troubleshooting example: storage pressure
One maintenance task involved investigating a full root filesystem. Directory-level checks helped identify large application and container storage areas. Large model files were copied to a dedicated media volume as part of a storage relocation workflow. This illustrates why disk usage, filesystem boundaries, and verification before deleting source data matter.
The operational lesson: measure first, move carefully, verify data and permissions, then clean up only when the application uses the new location successfully.
Lessons learned
A working service is only part of system administration. Backups, capacity monitoring, predictable storage paths, and safe change management are just as important.
Add curated screenshots or logs with identifiers and credentials removed, and document results from future experiments.