Enterprise-grade home lab infrastructure — built, owned, operated
5 Proxmox nodes. 100+ cores. 440GB RAM. Always on.
Splunk. ELK. Automation. DevOps. The lab never sleeps.
KNZ Labs runs a 5-node Proxmox VE cluster (KNZLABS) backed by enterprise-grade Dell PowerEdge hardware. The cluster spans over 100 cores and roughly 440GB of RAM, purpose-built for running a diverse mix of LXC containers and virtual machines simultaneously — without breaking a sweat.
Storage is handled by a dual-Synology NAS setup (CYRAX and SEKTOR) for primary data, alongside TrueNAS SCALE units (SCORPION for media, FROST for datastore and Nextcloud). The latest addition — a Dell PowerEdge R730xd with dual E5-2690 v4 CPUs and 128GB RAM — serves as the dedicated Splunk lab host.
Security at KNZ Labs is layered, intentional, and always evolving. The network perimeter is enforced by an Arista NG Firewall (v17.4) with deep packet inspection, application-layer filtering, and session-level analytics. An OPNsense migration is actively in progress on Protectli hardware, bringing more granular VLAN-level control and open-source transparency.
Remote access is handled exclusively through Tailscale and OpenVPN, eliminating direct exposure of management interfaces to the public internet. DNS filtering runs through Unbound with Hagezi Pro and OISD blocklists, blocking malicious domains at the resolver level across all VLANs.
The KNZ Labs network is fully managed via UniFi — a Cloud Key Gen2 controller managing 18 switches, 7 access points, and over 150 devices across multiple VLANs. The physical backbone is a 42U rack with dedicated rack and home core switches, all connected at gigabit speeds with structured cabling throughout the home.
A remote lab site extends the network via T-Mobile Home Internet and a GL.iNet Flint 3 (WiFi 7) router, with full VPN tunnel back to the home lab. Nginx Proxy Manager handles all reverse proxy duties with wildcard Let's Encrypt certificates for every *.knzlabs.com subdomain.
Observability is the heartbeat of KNZ Labs. A fully distributed Splunk Enterprise 9.4 cluster lives on the R730xd — 8 nodes including a Cluster Master, Deployment Server, Monitoring Console, 3 Indexers, and 2 Search Heads, all running on AlmaLinux 9.4 LXCs. This mirrors real enterprise Splunk architecture at home lab scale.
An ELK Stack lab is actively being built on the ATHOME Proxmox node — Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and Fleet for agent-based log collection. Home Assistant runs on a dedicated Raspberry Pi, providing real-time automation telemetry and device state visibility across the entire home environment.
KNZ Labs is the proving ground for a DevOps engineering transition — CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and AI tooling are all first-class citizens here. Terraform and Ansible drive Proxmox LXC provisioning, while a custom Splunk Admin Toolkit handles deployment and maintenance across air-gapped environments.
An ecosystem of 17 MCP servers connects Claude AI directly to the infrastructure — enabling natural-language interaction with Proxmox, Synology, TrueNAS, UniFi, Home Assistant, Joplin, Wiki.js, and more.
KNZ Labs is a fully self-hosted, enterprise-grade home lab built and operated by a Lead Senior Splunk Engineer with deep roots in IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, and distributed systems. What started as a passion for hands-on learning has grown into a production-quality environment that mirrors real-world enterprise architecture.
The lab runs a full 42U rack housing multiple Dell PowerEdge servers, a 5-node Proxmox cluster, dual Synology NAS arrays, TrueNAS SCALE units, and a complete UniFi network stack. Every system is documented, versioned, and intentionally designed — because the best way to learn enterprise technology is to build it yourself.
KNZ Labs is the sandbox where new ideas get tested before they hit production. It's where automation scripts are born, Splunk architectures are validated, ELK stacks are benchmarked, and DevOps pipelines are refined. If it runs in the enterprise, it runs here first.
KNZ Labs is in constant motion. The active roadmap includes an OPNsense firewall migration, a full ELK Stack deployment, an 8-node Splunk cluster rebuild on the newly racked R730xd, and the expansion of an AI-powered MCP toolchain that lets Claude interact directly with live infrastructure in natural language.
The DevOps engineering transition is deliberate and systematic — CI/CD, Linux administration, infrastructure-as-code, and AI tooling are all being built into the DNA of the lab. The KNZ Wiki documents the journey in real time, serving as both a personal knowledge base and a reference for the broader community.
KNZ Labs follows the Mortal Kombat naming convention for all systems — because if you're going to build something serious, you might as well have fun doing it. SCORPION, CYRAX, SEKTOR, FROST, TITAN, and the rest of the roster keep the infrastructure humming 24/7.