New Year, New Homelab: Powering Up with Proxmox, 10GbE Dreams and Networking Dilemmas! Seeking Advice on Switch and WAP Choices. Your Insight Needed!

[tja]

Happy New Year, everyone!

I've given my homelab a significant boost with a refurbished HP EliteDesk 800 G5 SFF, now running Proxmox directly on bare metal.

Here's the lowdown on the upgrades:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-9500
• GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 630
• RAM: Crucial Pro RAM DDR4 2666 (4x32GB)
• PSU: 250 W (80 PLUS Platinum)
• SSD: Crucial MX500 SATA SSD (1 x 500GB)
• SSD: Crucial P3 M2 NVMe SSD (2 x 2TB)
• HDD: Seagate Exos X18 (2 x 16TB)
• NIC: Intel I219-LM (1GbE), HPE Mellanox ConnectX-3 546SFP+ Dual Port (10GbE)

My current AVM FRITZ!Box 7490 modem/router handles a 50 Mbps VDSL internet connection.

The plan? Run Kubernetes to orchestrate a variety of services, all fueled by a speedy 10GbE connection. Externalizing services calls for VLANs and security zones and that's where OPNsense steps in as a dedicated VM on Proxmox. Thinking ahead, redundancy might involve another OPNsense VM on a second Proxmox host in the cluster.

Here's the nitty-gritty:

        +-------------+
        |   Modem     |
        |(Cat8 [1GbE])|
        +------+------+
               |
               | Cat8
               v
        +-------------+
        |  Firewall   |
        |(Cat8 [1GbE])|
        |(SFP+ [10GbE])|
        +------+------+
               |
               | SFP+
               v
        +-------------+
        |   Switch    |
        |(SFP+ [10GbE])|
        |(Cat8 [1GbE])|
        +------+------+
               |
               | Cat8
               v
        +-------------+
        |    WAP      |
        |(Cat8 [1GbE])|
        +-------------+

Given the living room locale and the upward trend in European electricity prices, I'm eyeing a power-efficient and hushed 10GbE switch with SFP+ and a wireless access point (WAP) is a must for device connectivity. Refurbished devices and OpenWRT flashing are right up my alley.

Now, the budget-minded decisions:

Switch Options:

• MikroTik CRS310-8G+2S+IN
• MikroTik CRS326-24G-2S+IN

Access Point:

• Netgear WAX220 (with PAV12V25 power adapter)

Despite hearing good things about Ubiquiti, I want to dodge the ecosystem tie-down.

Budget constraints:

• Switch: 250 € max.
• WAP: 150 € max.

After delving into the research trenches, I've unearthed potential options and I'm on the lookout for "future-proof" devices, especially considering a potential shift to cable internet with 1GbE / 1000 Mbps.

Your input would be immensely valuable.

Thanks a bunch for your expertise!

 

[Dunuin]

I've got the Aruba JL682A switch. Bought it 1 or 2 years ago for 170€ with its 24x Gbit + 4x SFP+. Fanless and very low power consumption. No cloud needed and SFP+ ports are not vendor-locked. Maybe not the most powerful webUI but it does all I needed so far. They are also stackable for some additional redundancy and SFP+ ports so my idea buying the 24 port version was that I later could buy another one once I run out of ports instead of buying the 48 port version. Now I already ran out of ports but didn't bought a second one because of the increased electricity prices in europe.

 

[guletz]

Hi, @tja Happy New Year to all...

For a home lab, is ok your setup. Take in account that almost evry Mikrotik device is not a simple switch, is more like a mini server. The crs326 is ok for sure, and very capable/versatile. I am not sure if crs310 will be ok for your setup from performance perspective(maybe you can make 1-2 vlans).

If you are not allready using a Mikrotik device, take in account that you will need some time to spend to find how to use a decent configuration. I could help you with some hints if you want(use my profile email).

Only from security perspective, it is better to have 2 different firewall devices(VM and Hardware, as example), because is a less probability to have the same bug/exploit on 2 different firewalls. But maybe is not a must to have for a home lab.

Good luck / Bafta !

 

[guletz]

Hi again,

I also run a home-lab +:

- border ruter(firewall, many vpns, vlans) - mikrotik hap ac3
- a pc with Proxmox
- a switch direct connect to PC(vlans) - Mikrotik L009UiGS-RM

On the PC I run:
- vm with ipfire(second firewall)
- vm with linux AD, for all my laptops of my family
- many VMs with different OS'es, for tests, like GNS3, wazuh, and other

Good luck / Bafta !