Introduction A major goal of Realm Labs is to document the journey of building and experimenting with technology. Rather than using a hosted blogging platform, I decided to run the website using the same principles as the rest of the home lab: self hosting, learning and having full control. This project documents the process of …
Introduction Once a home lab starts growing, simply knowing that everything is powered on is no longer enough. Multiple servers, containers, network devices and services are constantly running, and without visibility it becomes difficult to understand performance, identify problems or plan future upgrades. This led to the introduction of monitoring into Realm Labs. Why Monitor …
Introduction As a home lab grows, simply installing software directly onto physical machines quickly becomes difficult to manage. Applications need different environments, testing becomes risky, and hardware resources are often underused. The solution was to introduce virtualisation. Proxmox became the foundation that allows Realm Labs to run multiple isolated systems on shared hardware while keeping …
Introduction Every home lab needs a reliable place to store data. While compute resources such as virtual machines and containers get a lot of attention, storage is one of the most important parts of any infrastructure. For Realm Labs, Synology NAS systems provide the storage foundation that supports everything else running in the environment. From …
Introduction One of the biggest changes in Realm Labs was moving from installing applications directly onto individual machines to running services in containers. Docker completely changed the way I approach self-hosting. Instead of dedicating an entire computer or virtual machine to a single application, containers allow multiple services to run efficiently while remaining separated and …
Introduction As Realm Labs grew, managing individual computers and devices manually became more difficult. Installing applications, changing settings and keeping systems consistent across multiple machines quickly becomes repetitive. The solution was to introduce a proper domain environment using Active Directory. While Active Directory is usually associated with business environments, a home lab is the perfect …
Introduction A home lab is only as reliable as the network supporting it. As more devices, servers and automation systems were added, the network needed to evolve from a simple home setup into something capable of supporting self-hosted services, virtualisation and smart home technology. This article documents the network infrastructure behind Realm Labs and how …
Every project starts somewhere. For Realm Labs, it all began with a home lab. Why Build a Home Lab? Technology has always fascinated me, but I wanted more than just using software—I wanted to understand how it worked behind the scenes. A home lab gives me a place to experiment without fear of breaking production …
