JJ
Homelab

GrandMasterJ.com — infrastructure
I run for fun

My homelab is a working sandbox where I practice real infrastructure patterns without putting production systems at risk. I use it to test segmented networking, reverse proxying, monitoring, documentation, and AI-assisted operations.

J.J. Smiley at his homelab workstation, server rack in the background

Network layout

Solid lines = routed traffic. Dashed lines = Tailscale-routed VLANs only (Trusted, Print, Directory Services — IoT, Gaming, and DMZ stay excluded).

A dedicated reverse proxy VM pairs with external DNS so every internal service gets a clean hostname instead of a raw IP.

Compute

lab-node-a

Standalone Proxmox VE host

ProxmoxSubnet routerExit node
lab-node-b

Standalone Proxmox VE host, primary monitoring parent

ProxmoxMonitoringSubnet routerExit node
backup-node

Proxmox Backup Server

Backup
route-node

Subnet router VM

LinuxRouting
proxy-node

Reverse proxy host routing lab-domain traffic to internal services

NetworkingDNS

Storage

Dual NAS appliances
NAS devices on the trusted VLAN
backup-node
2TB ZFS mirror on NVME

Overlay network

tailnet: mytailnet.ts.net
model: Full mesh — ACL tags for organizational structure
both hypervisor nodes advertise home routes
A dedicated tailnet node runs an AI operations assistant, authenticated via its own SSH keypair — scoped access, not blanket trust

Monitoring

Platform
Netdata Cloud
Parent node
lab-node-b
Coverage
Homelab nodes stream metrics continuously; key hosts are claimed and actively monitored.

NAS firmware updates can reset Netdata agents and cause duplicate node registrations — a known quirk that's now just part of the update runbook.

AI Ops

Meet my AI Assistant Sysadmin, running on Vellum.ai

This is a personal AI operations assistant running on the Vellum platform, connected to the tools and workflows that run this homelab. It helps administer the network, keeps documentation current, and handles repetitive operational work — the same philosophy I brought to enterprise AI adoption at work, applied at home first.

What's in flight

Handing off select maintenance activities to AI-assisted workflows — an ongoing experiment in how far automation can responsibly go.

This homelab is built to be rebuilt.

Memory is volatile. Markdown is durable.