My homelab network is designed to provide a secure, efficient, and self-hosted environment for various automation, development, and personal infrastructure needs. This setup prioritizes network segmentation, security, and performance optimization, while being flexible enough to scale or adapt for experimentation.
Problem & Solution
Problem: I needed a reliable and secure environment for automation, CI/CD testing, Git hosting, and local infrastructure— without relying on cloud platforms or exposing services to the internet.
Additionally, the solution had to run on low-powered, repurposed hardware with minimal overhead and support remote access, internal DNS resolution, and segmented security domains.
Solution: I architected a network centered around an OpenWRT-based router with VLAN segmentation, isolated zones for each function, and layered services:
- Tailscale provides secure access to internal services, even when offsite.
- Cloudflare Tunnel allows for secure access to internal services from the internet.
- AdGuard Home filters DNS-based ads and trackers at the router level.
- TinyDNS + BIND handle authoritative DNS within the homelab.
- Traefik serves as the reverse proxy using a wildcard cert via DNS verification.
- Prometheus + Grafana provide observability for all infrastructure nodes.
- A D-Link 3782 router is used as a wireless bridge to isolate the IoT network.
The OpenWRT router also provides wireless access to mobile and personal devices, which are segmented into their own VLAN. These include laptops, phones, and tablets used for managing or testing infrastructure services.
For mobile devices, Syncthing is used to selectively back up content to the NAS. While backups are not fully automated, this gives more control over what is stored. I am considering adding a backup option to Dropbox for external redundancy.
The entire infrastructure is provisioned via Ansible playbooks, which manage deployment and configuration across the environment. These playbooks live on an internal Git server and may be shared publicly in the future.
The system emphasizes modularity, resilience, and observability, ensuring that each component is isolated but observable.
Full Network Topology (Combined)
flowchart TD
%% ingress egress
Internet --> Router
Router -->|VPN: Site2Site| VPNCloudflare
Router -->|VPN: host| VPNTailscale
%% DNS
Router -.-> AdGuard
AdGuard -.-> BIND
BIND -.-> TinyDNS
%% Traefik --> Router
%% Traefik --> IoT_Bridge
%% Prometheus --> NAS
%% Prometheus --> Server1
%% Prometheus --> CIService
%% Prometheus --> Router
%% Grafana --> Prometheus
Router ==>|VLAN: NAS| NAS
Router ==>|VLAN: Dev| Server1
Router ==>|VLAN: CI| Zeus
Router ==>|VLAN: IoT| IoT_Bridge
Router ==>|VLAN: WiFi| Wireless_Clients
IoT_Bridge -->|Wireless| IoT_Devices
%%subgraph rproxy [reverse proxy]
%% Traefik --> GitServer
%% Traefik --> CIService
%% Traefik --> Grafana
%% Traefik --> Syncthing
%% Traefik --> Portainer
%% Traefik --> Prometheus
%% Traefik --> NASUI
%% Traefik --> binrepo
%% end
%% description
VPNCloudflare((VPN fa:fa-lock
cloudflared
tunnel))
VPNTailscale((VPN fa:fa-lock
tailscale
server
))
Router{{Router}}
IoT_Bridge{{IoT Bridge}}
Internet(((Internet
fa:fa-cloud)))
%% NASUI([homepage fab:fa-docker])
%% GitServer([git fab:fa-docker])
%% CIService([CIService fab:fa-docker])
%% Grafana([grafana fab:fa-docker])
%% Portainer([Portainer fab:fa-docker])
%% Traefik([traefik fab:fa-docker])
%% Syncthing([Syncthing fab:fa-docker])
%% Prometheus([Prometheus fab:fa-docker])
%% binrepo([Binary Repo fab:fa-docker])
Server1[Raspberry Pi]
%% styles
classDef default fill:#f9f,stroke:#333,stroke-width:1px;
classDef net fill:#fff;
classDef hardware fill:#f96;
classDef dns fill:#AFF;
classDef container fill:#EF0;
classDef vpn fill:#EF0;
classDef network fill:#CCCCCC;
Internet:::net
VPNCloudflare:::vpn
VPNTailscale:::vpn
AdGuard:::dns
BIND:::dns
TinyDNS:::dns
Router:::network
IoT_Bridge:::network
NAS:::hardware
Server1:::hardware
Zeus:::hardware
Wireless_Clients:::hardware
IoT_Devices:::hardware
%% NASUI:::container
%% GitServer:::container
%% CIService:::container
%% binrepo:::container
%% Grafana:::container
%% Portainer:::container
%% Traefik:::container
%% Syncthing:::container
%% Prometheus:::container
This shows how DNS resolution, secure access, proxy routing, and monitoring interconnect.
Layered Views (Progressive Breakdown)
DNS Resolution Flow
flowchart TD
Client --> AdGuard
AdGuard --> BIND
BIND -.-> I
BIND -.-> L
BIND --> TinyDNS
BIND -.-> LXC
L((Local network))
I((Internet))
LXC((LXC_Containers))
Traefik Reverse Proxy Flow
flowchart TD
Internet -->|DNS Challenge| Traefik
Traefik --> GitServer
Traefik --> Grafana
Traefik --> CIService
Traefik --> binRepo
Traefik --> Syncthing
Traefik --> Portainer
Traefik --> RouterUI
Traefik --> NASUI
Traefik --> IoT_Bridge
Prometheus Monitoring Flow
flowchart TD
Prometheus --> NAS
Prometheus --> Server1
Prometheus --> CIService
Prometheus --> Router
Prometheus --> IoT_Bridge
Grafana --> Prometheus
Each layer can be inspected individually or in combination via Grafana dashboards and log collectors. This layered view mirrors how the infrastructure is designed, monitored, and interacted with.
