this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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Hello, how do you document your home lab? Whether it's a small server or a big one with firewall and more nodes. I have a small pc with Proxmox and there I have a VM with OpnSense. After I've entered my VPN as a interface in OpenSense, I noticed that I slowly lose the overview with the different rules that I have built in my firewall. And I know that my setup is relatively easy in comparison to others here in this community. I want to have a quick Overview at the various VMs, like the Lxc container, Docker containers that I have in this and the IP addresses that I have assigned to them. I search for a simple an intuitiv way for beginners.

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[–] [email protected] 125 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Jokes aside, I do keep some harder to remember stuff written down in a README.md in my repo, but mainly most things are undocumented

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

My wife was mentioning the other day that if something happened to me she'd have absolutely no idea how to work any of this shit and that convinced me to actually start documenting it LMAO

Good time to start doing it too. Aside from setting up a NAS this weekend and figuring out an audiobook solution (not something I've ever dabbled with but I really should start reading some communist theory), I've got this project right where I want it for a long while.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

I operate on the philosophy that it is better for me to relearn things than lean on old documentation that may no longer be accurate/relevant.

The best way to implement a safe connection to my home lab today might not be the safest way tomorrow.

Old dog, new tricks, etc.

Also! Your documentation is an attackers wet dream.

NB: this philosophy doesn't scale.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

while security might be compromised if an attacker found your documentation, it could equally be compromised by having zero documentation

the easier it is for you to get things back up and running in the event of a data loss / corrupted hard drive / new machine / etc, the less likely you are to forget any crucial steps (eg setting up iptables or ufw)

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

What I don't know, no phisher can get out of me!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

I'm gonna try this neat trick at work

[–] Unforeseen 2 points 3 days ago

I do this continually for work as well, I approach every new project assuming best practice or approach options have changed. It doesn't matter how experienced I am in what I'm doing, I still loop back and check.

It's such an automatic thing I don't even think about it, but honestly not sure if it's because of interest or because of fear of being called out for doing something wrong lol

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

"Shit, i hope i remeber the key words i searched for"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Guilty too. There are names on router- and switch interfaces. Servers get fixed IP from dhcp so is in the note field there too. That's about it