1st: Virtualization

2nd: Firewalls and networking

3rd: Containers, Docker, (Podman) and LXC, (Incus)

4th: All the above leads onto Hypervisors

5th: Which leads you to Kubernetes

The first three require minimal hardware. Once you’ve got the hang of the them, it’s time to get serious with a dedicated machine with greater hardware resources to run a Hypervisor.

Kubernetes, all that built in redundancy makes it hungry beast. Enough to get you looking for one or more those big old servers that homelabers love.

set up dedicated game servers to share with friends. Especially on some hyperviso.

Running my own vmware server

Configuring guest network

Multiple vlans

Configuring tagging on switches for said vlans

Installing Linux on a VM and taking the plunge to learn it.

V

Trying to setup Nextcloud calling on docker 🥹

Setting up exchange server cluster with backups, OWA webmail behind reverse proxy doing IPS+SSO+ MFA, setting up DKIM, DMARC and SPF for this server / testdomain.

Windows PKI using offline and issuing CA. Using these certificates for 802.1x auth.

Hardening Windows Active Directory, setting up LAPS, enforcing TLS where possible, restricting service accounts etc.

Using Azure AD for SAML SSO to where possible. Using JIT or SCIM prorvisioning for accounts. Access roles from groups etc.

Setting up Intune managed workstations with device complience policies and using these policies in conditional access policies.

So yeah mostly Windows stuff.

Setup a Plex/Jellyfin server and then oversubscribe it to family and friends.

my video game bot farm gave me desire and the need to learn… 1.programming. 2.database administration, 100s of bots need a database. 3.advanced home server deployments and virtualization, 100s of bots need hardware. 4. logging, you cant observe 100s of bots you need to log their activity and establish and observe metrics. etc… I could keep going but after this I started my career as a mainframe programmer, because I had like 70ish percent of the skills I needed.

Setting up a full k8s cluster (vanilla k8s, not k3s etc.) and running most of my self-hosted apps in that cluster caused me a lot of headaches but also got me an immense amount of knowledge and experience.

Im a little “seasoned” at 45 rotations around the blue ball so YRMV lol

1 - Pirated Movies - XBMC -> Plex (2 bare metal servers with transition to Virtual in progress)

2 - Storage - Freenas -> Synology (300+TB across 6 units)

3 - Networking - Unmanaged -> Managed / Multi Vendor / LACP / WIFI

4 - Compute - ION Based NUC -> ThinCentre / ML360G6

5 - Virtual Envio - Single ESXI Host -> 5 Node Proxmox Cluster with Ceph on 10G

Basically for me it started with Saving private ryan on VCD / CDR back in the day, that led me down the IRC rabbit hole and i got into XBMC for playback. That meant NAS storage for more movies and then from XBMC i moved into Plex so needed more server based compute and such. All the while needed to learn networking to hook it all up and make it work correctly.

I also went from working at Terminix as a pest control operator to doing customer support via email for a .com in the early 2000’s to now leading technical deployments at a forture 10 pharma :)

All cause of Saving Private Ryan on Pirated VCD in CAMMED quality lol

Countless projects over the years, but two that stand out in my mind as most formative:

1.) Running a Minecraft server back in the day on CentOS and Ubuntu VPS taught me server administration.

2.) Running my own secret, private network in my college dorm for my friends and I (college provided WiFi sucked) with PFSense at its core taught me the basics of networking.

A Pfsense/opnsense VM taught me how networking works. Before I set it up, all I knew about was port forwarding. I learned about firewall rules, LAN and WAN, VLANs, VPNs, DNS, Dynamic DNS, reverse proxies, bufferbloat, DHCP, etc.

I’m also learning how to make my own CI/CD pipelines with self hosted GitHub Actions as well as dockerizing applications.

1. Build your own router, segment your network. I suggest OpenWRT. Openwrt is less stream lined, which means you learn more. You’ll learn trunking, VLANs, sub netting, DNS. Do it all through CLI.

2. Reverse proxy, internal and external. Use Traefik or caddy.

3. Encryption keys. Seems simple. But learn and master ssh keys. The Internet works by communicating from point A to point B. And keys help encrypt the traffic. You should be able to type “ssh hostname” to get into any server you want access to, without the need for a password. Bonus points for finding a secure way to set cronjobs to automatically cycle keys, for security practice.

4. Docker machine. Master docker. Learn docker compose. Everything CLI.

5. Proxmox. Put everything on a VM or container. Create a nas, for storage for your VMs. Bonus if it’s strong enough to run many VMs, you can use to host a instance of any software that you are trying to learn. I for I stance am loading windows server 2022 and multiple windows 10 and 11 instances that I can control.

Do everything through CLI. Take notes on what you did (you won’t remember, it’s ok, no one remembers). Practice documentation.

For me it isn’t the specific projects that help me understand IT, it is when things don’t work or break that I learn the most.

I work in IT support day job, Microsoft shop but home lab is all Linux so there isn’t much cross over in terms of specific apps, but the troubleshooting approach and techniques are transferable skills.

• Installing Server 2016 and learning to provision machines and set group policies in active directory.
• Running Wazuh and lerning how to remediate issues and errors across Windows, Mac, and my Linux machines…or at least learning what they are.
• Using Windows, Mac, and Linux.

I remember one interview where the subject of Home Assistant came up and one of the interviewers was having an issue with his set up and I told him how to fix it. I got an offer from that company.

So, in my experience, a general interest in technology and continuos learning…just because you genuinely like it, helps.