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+---
+title: "Inside My Proxmox Lab: A Practical Self-Hosted Environment"
+date: 2025-12-16T10:27:00.000-06:00
+description: A look at my Proxmox-based home lab, what I’m running, and what I’m
+  learning by building and breaking real systems.
+draft: false
+---
+### Why I Built This Lab
+
+
+
+Over the years, I’ve learned that the best way to truly understand infrastructure is to \*\*build it yourself\*\*, operate it, and occasionally break it. Documentation and diagrams are helpful, but nothing replaces the lessons learned from running real services under real constraints.
+
+
+
+This Proxmox environment is my personal lab — a place to experiment, learn, and refine how modern infrastructure fits together.
+
+
+
+It’s not meant to be perfect. It’s meant to be \*useful\*.
+
+
+
+\---
+
+
+
+### The Foundation: Proxmox VE
+
+
+
+At the core of this setup is \*\*Proxmox VE\*\*, which I use to manage virtual machines and containers. Proxmox gives me the flexibility to:
+
+
+
+\- Run multiple isolated workloads
+
+\- Snapshot before risky changes
+
+\- Allocate resources intentionally
+
+\- Treat infrastructure as something I can iterate on
+
+
+
+Everything else in this lab builds on top of that foundation.
+
+
+
+\---
+
+
+
+### Core Services I’m Running
+
+
+
+#### Git & Source Control (Gitea)
+
+
+
+I run a self-hosted \*\*Gitea\*\* instance for source control. This powers:
+
+
+
+\- Version control for my websites and projects
+
+\- Authentication for Decap CMS
+
+\- A private, self-contained development workflow
+
+
+
+Hosting my own Git server forces me to think about identity, access, TLS, and availability in ways that cloud-hosted Git never exposes.
+
+
+
+\---
+
+
+
+#### This Website: seans.cloud
+
+
+
+This site is built with \*\*Astro\*\* and intentionally kept simple. It serves as:
+
+
+
+\- A place to document what I’m learning
+
+\- A long-term knowledge archive
+
+\- A testing ground for ideas before they become something bigger
+
+
+
+Content is written in Markdown and managed through Decap CMS, which commits directly to Gitea. That means everything here is versioned, reviewable, and reproducible.
+
+
+
+\---
+
+
+
+Browser-Based Editing with Decap CMS
+
+
+
+One of my goals was to make writing frictionless. With \*\*Decap CMS\*\*, I can:
+
+
+
+\- Write blog posts from a browser
+
+\- Save drafts without publishing
+
+\- Commit content directly to Git
+
+\- Let the site build itself
+
+
+
+This setup blends the convenience of a traditional CMS with the reliability of Git-based workflows.
+
+
+
+\---
+
+
+
+#### Media & Personal Services
+
+
+
+Alongside the “serious” infrastructure, I also run services that support daily life and experimentation:
+
+
+
+\- \*\*Jellyfin\*\* for personal media streaming
+
+\- A \*\*Minecraft server\*\* for shared worlds and tinkering
+
+\- Supporting services behind a reverse proxy with TLS
+
+
+
+These services might seem unrelated, but they provide real traffic patterns, real users, and real failure modes — which makes them excellent learning tools.
+
+
+
+\---
+
+
+
+### Networking & Access
+
+
+
+I rely on a layered approach to access and security:
+
+
+
+\- Reverse proxying with TLS
+
+\- Internal-only services where possible
+
+\- Controlled exposure of public endpoints
+
+\- Clear separation between management and user-facing services
+
+
+
+Debugging OAuth flows, certificates, and proxy behavior has been one of the most educational parts of this lab.
+
+
+
+\---
+
+
+
+### What This Lab Teaches Me
+
+
+
+This environment constantly reinforces a few core lessons:
+
+
+
+\- \*\*Small decisions compound quickly\*\*
+
+\- \*\*Security is a system, not a feature\*\*
+
+\- \*\*Documentation matters — especially your own\*\*
+
+\- \*\*Operational simplicity beats cleverness\*\*
+
+
+
+Running your own infrastructure forces you to think holistically: networking, identity, storage, automation, and human workflows all intersect.
+
+
+
+\---
+
+### What’s Next
+
+
+
+This lab will continue to evolve. Some things I’m actively working toward:
+
+
+
+\- More automation and infrastructure-as-code
+
+\- Better observability and logging
+
+\- Expanding content and experiments on this site
+
+\- Turning lessons learned into reusable patterns
+
+
+
+This site — and this lab — are living systems. They exist to support learning, reflection, and growth.
+
+
+
+If you’re building something similar, I hope this gives you ideas — or at least reassurance that imperfect systems are still incredibly valuable teachers.
+
+
+
+\---
+
+
+
+\*Thanks for reading. More experiments to come.\*