Jacob O'Brien

Home (Starmen) Datacenter

This page is to be updated regularly.

Running a personal datacenter at home is so thrilling, to create your own services and manage them all in one place. To not have to leave your own network to do basic tasks! I have plenty of services and servers running at home, Whats even cooler is privicy and control. I mean if you own your hardware, and own the network and administer everything then you can be more assured that some random company isnt going to steal all of your data for advertising uses. or their database of passwords are just randomly going to leak out to the public. "Oh no, I guess there goes all my private data"- now instead of blaming a poor tech at a big company, you can blame yourself for the failures (And of couse learn from them and make it 10x better)! I called this entire project "Starmen Datacenter", I just like the name, and yes it came from the Song. This page will detail what I run locally.

1. Main Cluster

1.1 Overview: Networking

I have a main cluster that is right next to my router, these are directly connected to the internet and doesn't use wireless. each physical server is connected directly to the router, now of course some of you might be asking: "wait if it connects directly to the router, then how do you access them on the same network?" that is a very valid question... Because I had that question. I do not own a switch- this is a future purchase that I need to get, but as of now I've been doing well without it. I have an ASA as you can see in the picture 1.1.A (below). and since it isnt an Multi-Layer Switch (MLS) It can only route Layer 3 traffic, which means each of the 9 ports are completly seprate networks. (Not Vlans as they are using seprate hardware, ie cables, for each network).

Since I have two servers (1.1.B) there are two seperate networks. I was trying to think what is the best way to address these, I came up with a 10.0.N.X/24 or /30 Network, where N is the server number and X is the IP address within that subnet. the /24 network is for the Proxmox instance which will be talked below, and /30 is for exactly one end host (Server) on the network. For an example: the first server will be a 10.0.1.0/30 network. and the server address will be 10.0.1.2 (10.0.1.1 is the gateway). If I want to access the 2nd server I just change the 3rd octet to a 2. This system has been working perfectly, and luckily I knew how to configure this on the Cisco ASA, I learned these things from my CCNA classes. Wifi is handled with a TP-link Deco, I have two of them making a mesh homenetwork, They work alright once they are set up, my only complaint is that their configuration is only done on their app, which should be Illegal because that sucks. Why should I have to pull out my phone to configure my home network wifi? When most of the big configuration is done via a terminal. What is nice about these Access Points is that they auto configure 2Ghz and 5Ghz bands depending on the device and how much they are using. So there are no issues with users asking which one to join.

1.2 Services

1.2.1 AdGuard DNS Server

Looking at the 1.1.B image, you can see there are two main physical servers at the main cluster. Let's start on the one on the right, this is a simple server. It's main purpose is to run an AdGuard DNS server. Why have a DNS service at home? The big one is speed and efficiency: instead of constantly having to leave the network to process domain names each time its called (on seprate devices), this server caches it all, of course it has to leave the network for a bigger DNS Server, like Google's 8.8.8.8 or Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 (And I also added Cisco's DNS: OpenDNS). It's big selling point is it blocks ads on the network, however even with a good amount of block lists, I do see plenty of ads go through but its great with ublock origin. I do have it block a bunch of tracking endpoints, the biggest tracker I seen is ROKU, those devices send out so much tracking data to 'scribe.logs.roku.com'. Same with netflix and google. It is also great for local domains, that stays within the network (or the devices that use this DNS service). So I have a binding of pve.local to point to the proxmox instance. and adg.local to point to the adguard DNS server. If you enter this into your browser it wont go anywhere, but if I do (or anyone on the network) it will take me to the deseried server. The DHCP service on the ASA points the DNS to all end devices to the Local Adgaurd DNS. This server isnt just hosting AdGuard DNS, it also hosts the databse for my assignment tracker program: GRAaT, in this use I can access this database anywhere. And this server is also running an wireguard VPN server to access these services anywhere securely. so that little box is running a lot of services- but it is plenty capable: has about 6GB of ddr2 ram and the processor is an Core 2 Duo... Which is more than plenty for this.

1.2.2 Proxmox Server

Now moving to the server on the left in image 1.1.B, this is the proxmox server. Proxmox is a virtualization platform that I use to run multiple VMs and containers on a single physical server. You can vist their website for more infomation on their software. It is really cool that you're able to spin up a random VM or container in a few clicks. Get a service running in an hour.

It is definitely used on massive scales in data centers and cloud environments. with terrabytes of memory-- but with ram prices lately, 28 GB is enough for what I am doing. Which is not a lot, This server Honestly been used to run Minecraft Servers with my friends and I. I run a small Minecraft Bedrock server for My litle brother and I to play on, and then I run a Modded Minecraft Java server for my friends and I, this is a heavy process that takes up 20GB of ram and a lot of proccessing power to generate the world. There is a screenshot of the proxmox interface below (image 1.2.2.A).

2. Room Cluster

2.1 Overview

Now this isnt really a cluser, as it is a single 'server' device, but it is of couse running multiple services. It is hardwired into the AP built in Swich so it is Technically wireless to the main router (In the future I want to run cable through the attic), this is the only server on the main home network.

2.2 Services

This server (2.2.A) runs a very imporant service becuase it is my 6TB NAS (Network Attached Storage). I am using a python program called Copyparty. Honestly it runs lightly in the background and can handle the storage complexity. It's really only me accessing this NAS, so I dont need to worry about much proccessing power. I tried Nextcloud beforem but I really didnt like it, It was too heavy and I didn't use 80% of the features. I think it's good if there is plenty of people using it, like a business environment.. Which this is not. Copyparty also supports SMB and SFTP, which is perfect. The UI is fast and easy to use in my experience.

What is also cool about this server, it is connected to the sound bar directly using an auxiliary cable. This is perfect as my music collection is stored on this NAS. I installed a Sound Server on this server, using ALSA at first then I installed Pipewire to use ALSA more effectively. Then installed a program called cmus (C* Music Player) look at image 2.2.C . So now I can just ssh into the server and control the music via CMUS, I can even control the volume via alsamixer directly from the terminal, I Don't have to stream any music or wait for it to load, its just instant and local. It's really nice to just have background music playing all the time, without worrying about api limits.

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Author: Jacob O'Brien

Date : December 26th, 2025 : 4:15pm