What I have been building during two months away from the blog: a local grow journal, optional environmental monitoring, smart outlet control, and an open approach to hardware.

Building the Foundation: Where a Real Home Lab Actually Begins

Key principle:

Terminate TLS at a single reverse proxy.
Expose one entry point.
Keep everything else internal.

That’s discipline.

The Real Reason to Do It This Way

This isn’t about running Plex on better hardware.

This is about understanding:

• How packets move
• How identity works
• How segmentation reduces risk
• How public DNS interacts with private services
• How virtualization abstracts hardware

You can buy ecosystems.