news
Valnet Articles Regarding Proxmox, Homelabs, and "Don't Try Self-hosting on Windows"
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XDA ☛ 4 ways I use multiple Proxmox nodes without making a cluster
Running multiple Proxmox nodes doesn't require clustering them together. While clusters offer high availability and live migration, they come with strict requirements. Corosync needs a latency under five milliseconds, making cross-site deployments nearly impossible. There are always split-brain scenarios that can corrupt data, and Quorum loss can render your infrastructure read-only.
After managing Proxmox across multiple locations, I've found that independent nodes often work better than forced clustering. The trick is replacing cluster features with better alternatives. There are multiple ways to use multiple standalone Proxmox nodes effectively while avoiding the headaches that come with traditional clustering.
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HowTo Geek ☛ Most of my homelab problems trace back to these 3 early decisions
When I first started out in my homelab, I just let my router hand out whatever IP address it wanted. This made things difficult for two reasons: the IP address might change in the future, and I would never know what IP address it was going to hand out.
When letting DHCP hand out an IP, there’s not always a rhyme or reason for what IP is given to a device at any particular time. It’s rarely done in order, and then whatever order was there is thrown off as devices join and leave your network.
Now, I have my network set up specifically to help avoid this. My network is set up with the 192.168.0.x subnet. I have the DHCP pool range set to 192.168.0.100-192.168.0.255. This leave everything below 192.168.0.100 outside the pool, and it leaves 192.168.0.256 excluded as well.
Why do I have my network set up like this? I set all of my static IPs below .100. I’ve even grouped certain devices. My storage servers are below .10, my VMs are .10-.20, and so on. This makes it easy for me to remember what devices are in what block, and also ensures my DHCP server will never hand an IP address out below .100.
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HowTo Geek ☛ These 5 homelab mistakes almost ruined my self-hosting dreams
Self-hosting today is easier than it ever has been, and I'd recommend that everyone at least tries it. However, with so many options out there, and so much information, it is easy to make some mistakes that create such a bad experience that you stop entirely. These are some of my early mistakes that almost ended my interest in self-hosting.
Don't try self-hosting on Windows
I first started self-hosting more than 15 years ago, I was dead-set on self-hosting as much as possible using a spare Windows PC that I had lying around.
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HowTo Geek ☛ The one tool that makes every homelab easier to manage
Have you heard people talking about Docker but have no idea what it is or if you need it? Docker is a fantastic tool that I think belongs in every homelab—here’s what Docker is, and why it is the one tool that makes my homelab easy to manage.