What it is

My home infrastructure: a Proxmox virtualization host behind an enterprise-grade firewall, running everything from home automation to media services.

Architecture

Internet (105/39 Mbps VDSL)
    │
    ▼
┌─────────────────────────┐
│  OPNsense Firewall      │
│  (Sophos SG 210)        │
└─────────────────────────┘
    │
    ├── LAN (192.168.128.0/24)
    │   └── Daily devices
    │
    └── LAB (192.168.129.0/24)
        └── Proxmox Host
            ├── Home Assistant
            ├── Media services
            └── VMs & containers

Key components

Network & Security

  • Firewall: OPNsense on Sophos SG 210 hardware
  • DNS: DNS-over-TLS with Quad9 (primary) and Cloudflare (backup)
  • Segmentation: VLANs separating daily-use from lab environment
  • Monitoring: Gateway monitoring, custom LCD status display on the firewall

Virtualization

  • Hypervisor: Proxmox VE
  • Containers: LXC for lightweight services
  • VMs: For workloads that need full isolation

Home Automation

  • Platform: Home Assistant
  • Protocol: Zigbee (thermostats, sensors)
  • Future: Integration with eva (my AI assistant)

Design principles

  1. Self-hosted first — Avoid cloud dependencies where possible
  2. Security by default — VLAN isolation, encrypted DNS, MFA everywhere
  3. Document everything — If I can’t reproduce it, I didn’t learn it
  4. Learning platform — Real infrastructure to experiment with

What I learned

  • Enterprise firewall configuration and hardening
  • VLAN design and inter-VLAN routing
  • DNS privacy (DNS-over-TLS, DNSSEC)
  • Proxmox storage and container management
  • Home automation protocols (Zigbee, MQTT)
  • Running servers costs more energy than you’d think

Roadmap

  • IDS/IPS with Suricata
  • WireGuard VPN for remote access
  • Monitoring dashboard with Grafana
  • Custom ESP32-H2 Zigbee devices