Homelab

Personal homelab running on a GMKtec M5 Ultra mini PC.

Hardware

Component	Spec
Device	GMKtec M5 Ultra
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7730U (8c/16t, up to 4.5 GHz)
RAM	16 GB DDR4
Storage	512 GB NVMe SSD

Stack

Layer	Technology
Hypervisor	Proxmox VE
Container runtime	Docker
Container management	Portainer
VPN / mesh network	Tailscale
Metrics collection	Prometheus
Dashboards	Grafana
Local AI inference	Ollama
AI chat UI	Open WebUI
Database	PostgreSQL
Media server	Jellyfin (planned)

Service URLs

Memorable, port-free names served by the proxy stack (Caddy + AdGuard split-DNS). They resolve on any device on the Tailscale tailnet — phone or laptop, anywhere. Source of truth: docker/proxy/Caddyfile.

URL	Service	What it's for
http://chat.home	Open WebUI	AI chat
http://stats.home	Grafana	Dashboards & metrics
http://apps.home	Portainer	Docker management
http://dns.home	AdGuard Home	DNS admin & ad blocking
http://alerts.home	ntfy	Monitoring push notifications
http://kali.home	Kali Linux (webtop)	On-demand security desktop (boots on visit, scales to zero)

These names only resolve over the tailnet via AdGuard (*.home → 10.0.0.201). To add or rename one: edit the site label in the Caddyfile, then docker compose restart caddy.

Repository layout

homelab/
├── docker/
│   ├── monitoring/          # Grafana + Prometheus
│   │   ├── docker-compose.yml
│   │   └── prometheus/
│   │       └── prometheus.yml
│   ├── core/                # Portainer + PostgreSQL
│   │   └── docker-compose.yml
│   └── ai/                  # Ollama + Open WebUI
│       └── docker-compose.yml
├── scripts/
│   └── bootstrap-docker.sh  # Install Docker on a fresh Debian/Ubuntu host
├── docs/
│   └── setup-log.md         # Chronological setup notes
└── .gitignore

Quick start

1. Bootstrap Docker on the host (run once on a fresh install):

   bash scripts/bootstrap-docker.sh

2. Copy and fill in environment variables:

   cp docker/core/.env.example docker/core/.env
   cp docker/monitoring/.env.example docker/monitoring/.env
   cp docker/ai/.env.example docker/ai/.env

3. Bring up a stack:

   docker compose -f docker/core/docker-compose.yml up -d
   docker compose -f docker/monitoring/docker-compose.yml up -d
   docker compose -f docker/ai/docker-compose.yml up -d

AI models

One model runs on Ollama: llama3.2:3b (built from docker/ai/models/llama3.2.Modelfile via docker/ai/load-models.sh; pins num_thread 4 for the LXC CPU quota — see AGENTS.md). Kept resident (OLLAMA_KEEP_ALIVE=-1) so there's no cold-load lag.

Use it for fast, private, offline tasks: quick Q&A from training knowledge, summarizing/rewriting pasted text, drafting boilerplate. No web search — see docs/ai-strategy.md for what goes to local vs. Claude.

Tried and removed (2026-06-07): a self-hosted SearXNG + qwen2.5:7b for web-augmented answers. On this CPU-only / 16 GB box the 7B was too slow and RAM-hungry, and a 3B can't faithfully use retrieved sources anyway. Anything needing current web data or real reasoning (trip/weather planning, research, debugging) goes to Claude. See docs/ai-strategy.md.

Tailscale Hostname

The Proxmox host m5 is on the tailnet as m5.tail58e272.ts.net (100.116.69.120). It runs as a subnet router advertising the LAN 10.0.0.0/24 (route approved in the admin console), so the Docker LXC and every service at 10.0.0.201 is reachable from any tailnet device — e.g. Grafana at http://10.0.0.201:3000. Set --accept-routes on client devices to use it.

Networking

All services are exposed on the Tailscale interface only (no public ports). Tailscale MagicDNS is used for service discovery within the mesh.

Service	Default port
Portainer	9000
Grafana	3000
Prometheus	9090
Open WebUI	3010
Ollama API	11434
PostgreSQL	5432