I Built My Own Cloud

A dedicated server, a pile of containers, and the belief that the best way to learn infrastructure is to run your own.

Why Self-Host?

Cloud providers make things easy. Maybe too easy. I wanted to understand what's actually happening underneath — networking, storage, virtualization, DNS, tunneling — all of it. The homelab is where I break things on purpose so I can fix them on purpose.

It's also just more fun. Running your own infrastructure means you own the whole stack. No vendor lock-in, no surprise bills, no rate limits. Just a box in my room and a lot of SSH sessions.

Hardware

The foundation: a single dedicated tower running Proxmox VE as the hypervisor.

CPU
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
Memory
32 GB RAM
Hypervisor
Proxmox VE
Storage
ZFS Mirrored + LVM

Services

VMs and containers running various workloads — from automation to personal tools.

Traderbot

Running

Windows 11 VM running automated trading workflows. Runs 24/7 with monitoring and alerts.

Tailscale VPN

Running

Mesh VPN connecting all devices into a private network. Secure remote access to the homelab from anywhere.

Immich Photo Store

Stopped

Self-hosted Google Photos alternative with AI-powered face recognition and automatic backup.

n8n Workflows

Running

Open-source workflow automation platform. Connects APIs and services for custom automations.

PiHole DNS

Running

Network-level ad blocker and DNS sinkhole. Handles network-wide privacy and tracking protection.

ClickHouse

Stopped

Column-oriented data warehouse for analytics workloads. Used for experimenting with large dataset queries.

ClawdBot

Running

Self-hosted AI assistant with Discord integration, SSH access to the homelab, and custom tooling.

Cloudflare Infrastructure

Cloudflare is the connective tissue. Tunnels expose homelab services to the internet without opening ports. Pages hosts static sites. R2 handles storage. DNS ties it all together.

7
Domains
6
Tunnels
6
Pages Sites
2
R2 Buckets

Each tunnel connects a local service to a public hostname through Cloudflare's network — no port forwarding, no exposed IP, just encrypted connections through their edge. It's the closest thing to zero-trust networking you can get for free.

AI Infrastructure

The homelab doubles as an AI playground. ClawdBot (aka Jarvis) is a self-hosted assistant that lives on the server and connects to everything.

ClawdBot / Jarvis

Clawd is Nicolo's AI assistant — the red-shelled operator running in the background. Not a generic chatbot. It has context on active projects and aims to be actually useful rather than just pleasant. Sharp first, witty second.

It handles automation and tooling, research and answers, Discord server management, and general ops — calendar, reminders, file organization, whatever needs doing.

Discord Integration
SSH Homelab Access
Custom Tool Calling
Context-Aware Responses
Alert Monitoring
Code Execution

Discord Server Security

The Discord server runs server-wide 2FA for all moderators with admin permissions. Anyone with kick/ban/manage powers needs 2FA enabled on their account — protects against compromised mod accounts and keeps the server locked down.

Server-Wide 2FA Required
Authenticator App Enforced
Mod Permission Gating
Backup Code Recovery

Tech Stack

Everything that keeps the lab running.

Proxmox VE ZFS LVM Docker Linux Windows Server Cloudflare Tunnels Cloudflare Pages Cloudflare R2 Cloudflare DNS Tailscale n8n Immich ClickHouse PiHole Python Node.js Bash SSH Discord.py Claude API Nginx