About Me
Hey, I'm Benjamin a tech enthusiast from the UK with a love for homelabs, self-hosting, and all things infrastructure. Most of my free time is spent tinkering with servers, spinning up LXCs, testing new services, and finding new ways to improve my setup. I've been around technology from a young age, and I've always had the urge to understand how things work. From Proxmox and networking to automation and self-hosted apps, I enjoy building things, breaking things, and learning along the way.
The Journey
How a kid with an Xbox ended up running a homelab.
Xbox 360
Where it all started. Console gaming was my first love — endless hours on the 360 that built a genuine passion for interactive tech and the worlds you could explore through a screen.
CS:GO — First PC Game
Made the jump from console to PC. CS:GO was the gateway — and with it came the rabbit hole of PC hardware, settings, performance tweaking, and "why is my FPS low?"
Built My First PC
Took the plunge and built my own rig from scratch. Ryzen 7 5800X, RTX 3060 — every part researched, every cable routed by hand. That feeling of pressing power for the first time is unmatched.
Linux, Proxmox & the Homelab
Discovered Proxmox and there was no going back. Suddenly I had an old PC running as a full hypervisor — LXC containers, TrueNAS, Pi-hole, Tailscale. The homelab had begun.
AI, Vibe Coding & This Site Now
Picked up AI-assisted development using Antigravity — building things I wouldn't have been able to tackle alone. Self-hosting, shipping code, and figuring it all out as I go.
Daily Drivers
My Interests
Technology
Exploring the latest in web development, homelabs, and self-hosting architectures like Proxmox.
Design
Appreciating modern aesthetics, UI/UX, glassmorphism, and clean, intuitive interfaces.
Continuous Learning
Always reading and discovering new concepts across various fields to broaden my horizons.
AI & Vibe Coding
Using AI tools like Antigravity, Codex, Claude Code to build and ship things fast. Less boilerplate, more creating — letting the AI handle the heavy lifting while I focus on ideas.
Things I Knowish
Infrastructure
Networking
Development
AI & Vibe Coding
I build with AI as a co-pilot — shipping things I wouldn't have been able to alone.
My Setup
The Server
The Desktop
My Homelab & Projects
Hover or tap a card to flip it for more details
Proxmox VE
My main server OS and hypervisor. The bare-metal backbone running all VMs and LXC containers.
Proxmox VE
- Bare-metal install on dedicated hardware
- Running 6+ LXC containers & VMs
- Web UI accessible via Tailscale
- Regular backups to TrueNAS storage
TrueNAS (VM)
Robust network-attached storage running as a virtual machine, managing all my data pools.
TrueNAS
- ZFS filesystem for data integrity
- SMB shares for local network access
- Automated SMART disk health checks
- Receives all Proxmox VM backups
Docker (LXC)
A dedicated LXC environment running Docker to deploy, manage, and isolate containerised apps.
Docker
- Dedicated Debian LXC container
- Portainer for visual management
- Docker Compose for stack management
- Various self-hosted apps running
Pi-hole (LXC)
Network-wide ad blocking and local DNS resolution running in a lightweight container.
Pi-hole
- Blocks ads on every LAN device
- Custom DNS entries for local services
- Multiple block lists active
- Upstream DNS: Cloudflare 1.1.1.1
Tailscale (LXC)
My zero-config mesh VPN. Seamless, secure remote access to the entire homelab from anywhere.
Tailscale
- WireGuard-based mesh VPN
- Exit node configured for routing
- 100.x.x.x IPs on all devices
- Zero open ports on router needed
Cloudflare Tunnel
Securely routing external traffic to this personal site on Proxmox LXC without open ports.
Cloudflare Tunnel
- cloudflared daemon on dedicated LXC
- Routes traffic to local Nginx server
- No inbound firewall ports opened
- Still mastering the full config!