Homelab

I’ve written about the home lab at a high level already. The firewall got glossed over in a paragraph and that’s never quite sat right with me, because OPNsense is doing most of the work that stops the home lab from becoming somebody else’s problem. This post walks through the config as it currently runs. Not a tutorial. Not a clean-slate build guide. Just what’s actually on the box, what each piece is doing, and which of the “this looks clever” choices turned out to be worth it. ...

I finally got around to putting a honeypot on the public side of my home connection. I wasn’t trying to catch APTs. I wanted to see what hits a random residential IP when nothing is hiding it. This is a notes post about standing it up, how it’s contained, and what actually showed up in the logs after a month. Why bother Most threat intelligence I read describes the internet as a battlefield. Every unpatched device is five minutes from compromise. Every IP gets 30,000 probes a day. The numbers are usually correct. They aren’t useful unless you can map them to what your environment looks like. ...

I’ve started digging into RF, meaning anything noisy in the air that my SDR can see. This is a quick log of the first sessions using an RTL-SDR (cheap, RX-only) and a HackRF One (wider bandwidth, TX-capable, which stays off outside a legal setup). This isn’t a decoding write-up. The goal for now is observation: watch the spectrum, log activity, and build something useful. The kit RTL-SDR (RTL2832U + R820T): cheap receive, wide community support, good for learning. HackRF One: wider tuning range, bigger bandwidth, better lab potential. Antennas matter more than most people want to admit. A random wire will pick something up, but it’ll also mislead you. ...

Home Lab Overview: Alecto and Friends I’ve always enjoyed tinkering with operating systems and finding ways they improve day-to-day life. I’m not a cloud hater. Cloud services are useful and I still use them. I self-host because it’s fun. With most SaaS tools, you’re limited by design choices you had no part in. My biggest self-hosted system is a Plex machine. I watch what I want, how I want, for roughly the cost of electricity. There’s also been a serious learning component: networking, security, general IT practice. That alone has made it worth running. ...