🏠 VEKA Homelab: Self‑Hosted Private Cloud & Content Creation Hub

Gaming PC turned enterprise-style homelab for content creation, self‑hosting, and infra learning.

📖 Documentation • 🚀 Getting Started • 📊 Services • 🛠️ Hardware • 🔍 Infra Notes

🎯 Project Vision

VEKA Homelab transforms a gaming PC into a comprehensive self‑hosted platform behind veka.gg.
It’s built to practice real‑world infrastructure: virtualization, storage, container platforms, monitoring, CI/CD, and secure remote access.

✨ Core Focus Areas

🎮 Content Creation – Dual-PC streaming, RTMP ingest, future headless OBS
🌐 Web & APIs – Hosting SvelteKit (shafaat.net / veka.gg) and microservices
📷 Photo Management – Self-hosted Google Photos alternative (Immich)
☁️ Private Cloud – Nextcloud, future document/paperless stack
🎬 Media & Games – Media server, Pterodactyl for game servers
📈 Monitoring – Grafana + Prometheus on Proxmox + Docker
🔒 Privacy & Control – Data on my disks, under my network policies

📊 Current Services

Note: URLs are illustrative; exact hostnames/ports can change.

Service	Status	URL / Access	Purpose
🐳 Portainer	✅ Active	`https://portainer.veka`	Docker container management
🧱 Nginx Proxy Manager	✅ Active	`https://proxy.veka`	Reverse proxy + SSL + routing
📡 Cloudflare Tunnel	✅ Active	Cloudflare Zero Trust	Secure ingress for public domains
🖼️ Immich	✅ Active	`https://photos.veka.gg`	AI photo management (Google Photos alt)
☁️ Nextcloud	🔧 In Use	`https://cloud.veka.gg`	File sync and personal cloud
🧮 Grafana	✅ Active	`https://dash.veka.gg`	Dashboards for homelab metrics
📡 Prometheus	✅ Active	Internal	Metrics collection (Proxmox, Docker, TrueNAS)
💾 TrueNAS SCALE	✅ Active	`https://truenas.veka`	ZFS storage (RAID-Z1) for services/data
🧊 Pi‑hole	✅ Active	`https://pihole.veka`	DNS + ad/tracker blocking, `.veka` domains
🌐 SvelteKit Portfolio	✅ Active	`https://shafaat.net` / `https://veka.gg`	Personal portfolio & hub
🤖 Discord Bot	✅ Active	Internal	Community / automation bot (Python)
🎮 Pterodactyl Panel	🔧 Setup	`https://game.veka.gg`	Game server management
🧪 Test Services	🔁 Rotating	Internal	Dev/testing containers, experiments

🚧 In Development

OBS Headless VM – Dedicated encoder for streaming
Dedicated “Games” VM – Factorio / Minecraft via Docker with isolated resources
Paperless‑ngx – Document and receipt management
Vaultwarden – Password manager
Home Assistant – Smart home hub

📋 Planned Services

Jellyfin – Media server (media.veka.gg)
Ollama – Local AI models
Mailcow / Mail solution – Self-hosted email (experimental)
Dashcam / IRL streaming tools – Future projects

🛠️ Hardware & Platform

Main Server: Gaming PC Repurposed

CPU:          Intel i7-7700K (4c/8t, Kaby Lake)
Motherboard:  ASUS ROG Strix Z270E Gaming
RAM:          64GB DDR4
GPU:          NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti (for transcoding/ML/encode)
Storage:
  - Proxmox boot:           SSD/HDD
  - TrueNAS pool:           4 x 4TB HDD (RAID-Z1, ~10TB usable)
Network:      Gigabit LAN (2.5G / 10G ready)
Hypervisor:   Proxmox VE
Power:        Gaming PSU (~400W under load)

Virtualization Layout

Proxmox VE Host – As thin as possible; runs:
- TrueNAS SCALE VM – ZFS pool + SMB/NFS shares
- Docker LXC (101, “docker-host”) – All core services
- Future VMs (games, headless OBS, misc)

💾 Storage & TrueNAS Strategy

ZFS Pool & Shares

TrueNAS SCALE VM with:

Pool: RAID‑Z1 (4×4TB) for redundancy
Datasets / SMB shares (examples):

/mnt/tank/docker-volumes   # Generic Docker volumes
/mnt/tank/documents        # General docs
/mnt/tank/immich-photos    # Immich photo/video library
/mnt/tank/media            # Media / downloads
/mnt/tank/nextcloud        # Nextcloud data
/mnt/tank/pterodactyl      # Game server data

(Exposed via SMB/NFS and mounted into Docker host.)

Storage Policy

Local (Docker host):
- Databases (PostgreSQL, MariaDB) – low-latency, no NFS locking issues
- Config directories and critical metadata
TrueNAS (NAS):
- Heavy media (Immich photos, videos)
- Nextcloud user data
- Pterodactyl game server files
- Long‑term backups / archives

Capacity & Upgrade Plan

Using TrueNAS community edition.
Current pool is enough for personal workloads.
Larger expansion (more drives / higher capacity) is deferred until:
- Used/enterprise disk prices normalize post‑“AI bubble”
- The platform is stable enough to confidently host data for family & close friends

🧱 Docker, LXC & Security

Docker-in-LXC Design

Docker runs inside a Proxmox LXC (101):

LXC is configured with:
- nesting=1, appropriate cgroup settings
- AppArmor workarounds: lxc.apparmor.profile: unconfined
Docker daemon configured with:
- security-opt: ["apparmor=unconfined"] to avoid profile load errors in LXC

Container Roles

Core reverse proxy stack: Nginx Proxy Manager + Cloudflare Tunnel sidecar
App stack: Immich, Nextcloud, SvelteKit site, Discord bot, Pterodactyl, Pi-hole, etc.
Monitoring stack: Prometheus, Grafana, exporters

🌐 Networking, DNS & Ingress

Domain & Local DNS

Primary domain: veka.gg
Local resolution: Pi‑hole providing .veka names for LAN:
- pve.veka, docker.veka, truenas.veka, etc.
- Service aliases: photos.veka, cloud.veka, dash.veka, etc.

External Access Model

Cloudflare Tunnel (Zero Trust):
- Single cloudflared container
- One tunnel, many hostnames (photos.veka.gg, cloud.veka.gg, etc.)
- No inbound ports opened on the home router
Nginx Proxy Manager:
- Terminates HTTPS (Let’s Encrypt certificates)
- Routes requests to internal services by hostname
- Central place to manage URLs, SSL, redirects

Docker Network Planning

Standardized Docker networks to avoid overlapping subnets across stacks (fixed issues where Pterodactyl + NPM competed for the same ranges).

📈 Monitoring & Observability

Monitoring is active, not just “planned”.

Prometheus

Runs in Docker, scrapes:
- Proxmox node (exporter)
- Docker LXC (node_exporter)
- Containers (cAdvisor / service-specific exporters)

Grafana

Dashboards for:
- CPU/RAM/disk usage on Proxmox and Docker LXC
- TrueNAS pool capacity & health (via collected metrics)
- Container health (Immich, Nextcloud, NPM, etc.)
- Traffic and workload trends
Used to:
- Diagnose Immich ML spikes and RAM usage
- Observe Nextcloud scans and disk I/O
- Confirm stability after changes or updates

🌐 Web & CI/CD

Portfolio / Website (shafaat.net / veka.gg)

Stack: SvelteKit 5 + TypeScript + TailwindCSS (Tron / cyberpunk aesthetic)
Runtime: Node adapter in Docker (exposed via Nginx Proxy Manager)
Extras:
- Nodemailer contact endpoint
- Brotli + Gzip precompression
- SEO meta tags, OG/Twitter cards

CI/CD

GitHub Actions:
- On push to main, build and deploy updated images
- Run simple health checks against service URL
- If deploy fails, rollback to previous version
Used initially for the website, extendable to other apps.

🧩 Example Architecture Diagram

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Proxmox VE Host                    │
├─────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┤
│ TrueNAS SCALE VM    │   LXC 101: docker-host           │
│ ZFS Storage         │   Docker Engine                  │
│                     │                                   │
│  ZFS Pool (RAID-Z1) │   Core Services:                  │
│  ├─ docker-volumes  │   ├─ Nginx Proxy Manager          │
│  ├─ immich-photos   │   ├─ Cloudflare Tunnel            │
│  ├─ nextcloud       │   ├─ Immich                       │
│  ├─ media           │   ├─ Nextcloud                    │
│  └─ pterodactyl     │   ├─ Grafana + Prometheus         │
│                     │   ├─ Pi-hole                      │
│                     │   ├─ SvelteKit site               │
│                     │   └─ Discord bot / misc services  │
├─────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┤
│            Future VMs: Games, OBS Headless, etc.       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

🎯 Project Roadmap (Reality‑Adjusted)

✅ Phase 1: Foundation (Complete)

Proxmox VE on gaming PC
TrueNAS SCALE VM with RAID‑Z1 pool
Docker LXC (101) with AppArmor fixes
Pi-hole DNS and .veka domains
Cloudflare Tunnel + Nginx Proxy Manager

✅ Phase 2: Core Services (Mostly Done)

Immich for photos (on TrueNAS shares)
Nextcloud for file sync
SvelteKit portfolio + GitHub Actions CI/CD
Grafana + Prometheus monitoring stack
Discord bot, misc microservices
Pterodactyl + game server storage on TrueNAS (in use / tuning)

🚧 Phase 3: Media & Streaming

OBS headless VM for encoding
RTMP ingest pipeline for IRL / mobile streaming
Jellyfin media server
Dedicated “games” VM for Factorio / Minecraft

📋 Phase 4: Automation & AI

Home Assistant for smart home
Paperless‑ngx for documents
Vaultwarden for secrets
Ollama and local LLM experiments

🔧 Key Technologies

Technology	Role
Proxmox VE	Hypervisor, VM/LXC management
TrueNAS SCALE (Community)	ZFS storage, NAS, SMB/NFS exports
Docker + Docker Compose	Container orchestrator for services
Nginx Proxy Manager	Reverse proxy, SSL, virtual hosts
Cloudflare Tunnel	Secure external access, no open ports
Pi-hole	DNS, ad blocking, internal domains
Prometheus + Grafana	Metrics & dashboards
SvelteKit / Node / PM2	Web apps and bots

🧠 Why This Homelab Matters

This build is not just about “running a few containers”:

It mirrors patterns from real infrastructure: storage policy, monitoring, ingress, CI/CD, identity, and segmentation.
It supports experimentation without risk: break things here before touching production.
It’s a portfolio piece for IT infrastructure / SRE / datacenter roles, showing:
- How services are designed, not just installed
- How observability and reliability are baked in
- How costs and hardware timing (e.g., AI‑inflated disk prices) influence design decisions

📞 Connect

🌐 Main Site: https://shafaat.net (hosted on this homelab)
💻 GitHub: https://github.com/VEKAgg
🔐 Access: Remote access via Tailscale + Cloudflare Zero Trust

Built for learning, reliability, and long‑term ownership of data.
Turning a gaming PC into real infrastructure, one container at a time.

Last Updated: June 18, 2026

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