Enterprise Hybrid IaC Homelab: Version 2 🚀

THis is my Homelab Version 2. This project is an advanced, expanded, and more secure iteration of the private cloud architecture first built in Homelab v1.

Version 2 upgrades the OS baseline, scales the virtual infrastructure from 3 to 5 virtual machines, shifts from experimental Podman Quadlets to robust system-level sytemd service wrappers, and introduces secure, zero-config WAN networking (Cloudflare Tunnels & Playit.gg) to bypass local NAT limitations.

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1. What's New in Version 2? (V1 vs V2 Comparison)

Engineering Metric	Homelab V1	Homelab V2 (Current Project)
Control Laptop OS	Nobara Linux	Bazzite (Atomic/Immutable Fedora-based OS)
Physical Host OS	RHEL 10	AlmaLinux 10 (Network Bridge br0)
VM Capacity	3 Virtual Machines	5 Virtual Machines (Scaled & Isolated workloads)
Container Engine	User-level Podman Quadlets	System-level systemd Podman wrappers (compatible with Debian 12 Podman 4.3.1)
Identity Management	None (Local files/User lists)	FreeIPA Identity Manager (freeipa.lab.local)
Web Reverse Proxy	Local Nginx bindings	Cloudflare Zero Trust Tunnel (--net=host container)
Game Server Hosting	None	Minecraft & Palworld Dedicated VMs router port-forwarding
Shared Storage	None	Rclone FUSE Google Drive Mount (user_allow_other enabled)

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2. Infrastructure Architecture

This lab runs on a dedicated physical BOSGAME PC acting as our baremetal KVM hypervisor. The VMs are bridged directly to the local LAN, allowing them to act as first-class network devices.

graph LR
    %% Control node
    Laptop["Laptop: Bazzite OS"] -->|SSH / IaC Control| Hypervisor

    %% WAN Ingress Subgraphs
    subgraph WAN ["WAN / Public Ingress"]
        CF["Cloudflare Edge Proxy"]
        Playit["Playit.gg Relays"]
    end

    %% Hypervisor Subgraph
    subgraph Hypervisor ["Baremetal Host (172.30.1.200)"]
        direction TB
        HostOS["AlmaLinux 10 Host OS"]
        Bridge["Physical Bridge: br0"]
        Cloudflared["cloudflared container (--net=host)"]
        
        HostOS --- Bridge
        Bridge --- Cloudflared
        
        subgraph VMs ["KVM Guest Virtual Machines"]
            VM1["freeipa (172.30.1.85)"]
            VM2["portfolio (172.30.1.93)"]
            VM3["minecraft (172.30.1.91)"]
            VM4["palworld (172.30.1.90)"]
            VM5["navidrome (172.30.1.92)"]
        end
        
        Bridge --- VM1
        Bridge --- VM2
        Bridge --- VM3
        Bridge --- VM4
        Bridge --- VM5
    end

    %% Network Connections
    CF -->|Secure SSL Tunnel| Cloudflared
    CF -.->|portfolio.shooey.xyz| VM2
    CF -.->|hampter.shooey.xyz| VM2
    CF -.->|ipa.shooey.xyz| VM1
    
    Playit -->|TCP Tunnel:25565| VM3
    Playit -->|UDP Tunnel:8211| VM4

    %% Visual Styling Definitions
    style HostOS fill:#34495e,stroke:#2c3e50,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
    style Bridge fill:#27ae60,stroke:#218c53,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
    style Cloudflared fill:#2980b9,stroke:#2471a3,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
    style CF fill:#d35400,stroke:#ba4a00,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
    style Playit fill:#8e44ad,stroke:#7d3c98,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff

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3. Project Documentation Directory

To keep the project clean, the documentation is modularized as below:

• Hypervisor & Bridge Networking

Setting up AlmaLinux 10, KVM, storage pools, bridge interface (br0), and DHCP MAC reservation sweeps.

• IaC Provisioning (Terraform & Ansible)

Declarative VM deployments using Terraform cloud-init templates, and Ansible playbooks to install Podman, mount drives, and configure files.

• Secure Remote Access (Cloudflare Tunnels)

Configuring the cloudflared agent container in host network mode to expose web services privately with Host Header overrides for FreeIPA.

• Dedicated Game Servers

Setting up Minecraft Java server (wuith auto-pause and RCON console) and Palworld UDP server, tunneled through Playit agents using custom SRV records.

• Shared Cloud Storage (Rclone & FUSE)

Configuring Rclone to mount Google Drive, adjusting /etc/fuse.conf permissions, and setting up the Navidrome music server.

• Custom Web Hosting (Hammie's Y2K Card Deck)

A dedicated early-2000s pink hamster website on port 8080 with 3D flippable cards, local loopable .webm background audio, and click-sparkle JS.