The Stack: HP Elitebook, retired from daily use 2019.

By using Proxmox as the foundation, I’ve moved away from single-service hardware and into a virtualized environment that prioritizes modularity and rapid prototyping.

Infrastructure: The Ground Floor

• Proxmox VE: The Type-1 Hypervisor. This allows me to run multiple isolated services (VMs and LXCs) on a single machine without dependency collisions. It provides robust backups and the ability to spin up test environments for new code in seconds.

Automation & Ad Blocking

• HAOS (Home Assistant Operating System): Running in a dedicated virtual machine. This is the brain of the operation, handling everything from sensor data to device automation.
• AdGuard (Dashboard Integration): I run a AdGuard instance within Home Assistant to pipe real-time connection statistics directly into my main dashboard. It provides a quick visual check to ensure my network is up and running.

Networking & Routing

• Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM): This acts as the traffic controller. I use NPM to route friendly internal URLs (like ha.home or proxmox.home) across the network. It also handles SSL termination for secure connections.
• WireGuard (Proxmox Root/LXC): WireGuard instance running at the hypervisor level. This serves as my private tunnel ensuring I can reach the network when I’m away from home.

Connectivity & Persistence

• Dynamic DNS (DigitalOcean): Since my ISP rotates my public IP, I use a custom Bash script and the DigitalOcean API to keep my endpoint updated. This ensures I can always keep track of my home address. DigitalOcean Dynamic DNS