Homelab Monitoring Stack

Overview

My homelab is actively evolving into a self-hosted project environment for portfolio infrastructure, AI workflow tools, small web apps, monitoring/security experiments, and repeatable deployment practice.

Problem

I wanted a hands-on environment to learn how infrastructure, monitoring, security visibility, DNS filtering, remote access, and alerting work together in real systems.

My Role

I designed, configured, tested, and documented the environment as a personal learning lab.

Tools Used

Process

• Build and organize virtualized services.
• Monitor uptime and service health.
• Add DNS filtering and remote access tooling.
• Experiment with security monitoring and alerting.
• Document how services relate to each other.
• Plan network and storage improvements.

Challenges

• Keeping services organized.
• Balancing convenience with security.
• Avoiding unnecessary exposure of internal services.
• Learning how monitoring and alerting tools overlap.
• Planning around real network hardware limitations.

Outcome

Multiple projects are being organized in Docker, remote access is improving with Tailscale, and Cloudflare Tunnel concepts are being used for safe exposure where appropriate. The environment now supports practical deployment, troubleshooting, monitoring, and documentation work.

What I Learned

• Monitoring is only useful when alerts are meaningful.
• Homelabs are best when they are documented clearly.
• Security tools require tuning and context.
• Network design decisions affect everything downstream.
• Self-hosting teaches troubleshooting across many layers.

Future Improvements

• Add a sanitized network diagram.
• Improve centralized logging.
• Add more structured alert documentation.
• Expand Wazuh and CrowdSec use cases.
• Add backup testing documentation.
• Create public-facing writeups for specific services.

Sanitized Screenshots / Artifacts