Skip to content

Home Lab Architecture Overview

Infrastructure Environment: TrueNAS SCALE

The primary infrastructure for this home lab is built on TrueNAS SCALE, an open-source storage platform based on Debian GNU/Linux. It provides a robust foundation for running containerized services and managing large-scale ZFS storage pools.

Core Components

  1. ZFS Storage: All persistent data is stored on ZFS pools (e.g., tank). This ensures data integrity with features like snapshots, replication, and self-healing.
  2. App Management: Services are deployed as Docker containers or Kubernetes pods (via TrueNAS Apps/Charts).
  3. Network: Services are primarily accessed over the local network (LAN) or securely via a Tailscale mesh network. A reverse proxy (Traefik/Nginx) handles TLS and subdomain routing.

Service Interaction Map

Services are organized into a functional pipeline to handle information and automation.

1. Ingest & Storage

Raw data enters the system through email (IMAP), scanners, or manual uploads. It is stored in dedicated ZFS datasets within /mnt/<pool>/applications/. - Services: Paperless-ngx, Nextcloud, Syncthing, qBittorrent.

2. Process & Understanding

Stored data is processed for OCR and analyzed using local reasoning engines. - Services: Ollama, LiteLLM, Paperless-AI, Diskover.

3. Automation & Orchestration

Workflows connect services to perform complex tasks, such as extracting events from documents and syncing them to calendars. - Services: n8n, Home Assistant.

4. Productivity & Synchronization

The final outcomes are synced to user-facing applications like calendars, task managers, and knowledge bases. - Services: Vikunja, Radicale, Obsidian.

5. Benchmarking & Quality Assurance

Continuous evaluation of model performance and reasoning accuracy. - Services: HLE, Terminal-Bench, Ollama Benchmark CLI.

Backup & Recovery

  • Local: Scheduled ZFS snapshots of all application datasets.
  • Offsite: Periodic synchronization of critical datasets to cloud storage using rclone.
  • Configuration: All infrastructure-as-code and configuration files are version-controlled in this repository.