Personal infrastructure lab focused on networking, Linux, virtualization, observability, resilience, and long-term growth in infrastructure and systems engineering.

This repository documents practical implementation work, technical decisions, lab architecture, and step-by-step infrastructure development through real projects and written engineering notes.

Website: eugeneivanov.dev

This lab is built to support steady growth in infrastructure and systems engineering through hands-on work.

The focus is not on isolated experiments, but on building, documenting, troubleshooting, and improving a structured environment over time.

The long-term direction behind this work includes:

• practical infrastructure implementation
• stronger systems thinking
• operational maturity
• resilience and service reliability
• gradual growth toward system-level design and architecture

The current work in this lab is centered on:

• networking and segmentation
• Linux systems administration
• virtualization with Proxmox
• infrastructure services and observability
• technical documentation
• real implementation logs from the lab

Repository documenting the build-out and evolution of a personal infrastructure lab.

Topics include:

• rack layout and infrastructure design
• network hardware and topology
• virtualization platform build-out
• infrastructure documentation
• hardware setup and deployment
• engineering journal entries with implementation logs

Repository: github.com/eugeneivanov-dev/homelab

Hands-on networking experiments focused on real infrastructure scenarios.

Topics include:

• DNS configuration and troubleshooting
• VLAN networking and segmentation
• VPN setup and secure remote access
• firewall policy logic
• network troubleshooting and validation

Repository: github.com/eugeneivanov-dev/networking-labs

Public journal documenting infrastructure work, decisions, experiments, and step-by-step implementation logs from the lab.

• Website: eugeneivanov.dev/journal
• GitHub: github.com/eugeneivanov-dev/homelab/tree/main/journal

Current infrastructure in the lab includes:

• Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine Pro Max
• UniFi Pro Max 24 PoE switch
• Synology RS1221+ NAS
• APC SMT1500RM2UC rackmount UPS
• Dell Pro Micro Plus compute node
• 12U wall-mounted rack
• structured Ethernet cabling and patch panel
• Proxmox virtualization platform

Infrastructure documentation: eugeneivanov.dev/infra

• single-node Proxmox compute foundation
• UniFi-based network infrastructure
• VLAN segmentation across the environment
• centralized NAS storage in the lab
• rack-mounted power protection
• dedicated virtual machines for separated services

• broader multi-VM service environment
• stronger observability and service visibility
• more repeatable operational workflows
• expansion from 1 Proxmox node to 3 nodes
• deeper NAS integration into infrastructure design
• more resilient clustered infrastructure
• Kubernetes after clustering and resilience foundations
• stronger system-level analysis and architecture documentation

This repository supports a phased infrastructure engineering roadmap focused on practical growth over time.

Current roadmap structure:

1. Networking Foundations
2. Linux, Virtualization, and Core Infrastructure Systems
3. Infrastructure Services and Observability
4. Infrastructure Automation and Operational Maturity
5. Resilient Infrastructure, Clustering, and Kubernetes
6. Systems Architecture and Complex Environment Design

The roadmap is intended to evolve as the lab grows and as deeper technical and architectural understanding develops.

Roadmap: eugeneivanov.dev/roadmap

• structured rack-based infrastructure layout
• network topology and segmentation
• UniFi-based network stack deployment
• Proxmox deployed as the first virtualization node
• initial VM-based infrastructure structure established

Infrastructure Services and Observability

Current and near-term work includes:

• self-hosted analytics services
• monitoring and dashboards
• secure remote access
• identity-oriented lab services
• service documentation and visibility
• continued Linux administration depth

Recent infrastructure work:

• 2026-03-29 — Deployed Proxmox as the first virtualization node in the lab
• 2026-03-30 — Built and documented the initial VM-based infrastructure structure
• 2026-04-03 — Deployed umami-vm for self-hosted analytics
• 2026-04-06 — Deployed minecraft-vm as an isolated service workload
• 2026-04-08 — Began expanding the lab toward a broader multi-VM infrastructure environment
• 2026-04-10 — Updated the roadmap to reflect a clearer long-term infrastructure direction
• 2026-04-11 — Added certification planning and a core technical reading path to the roadmap

Certifications are treated here as supporting checkpoints for structured learning and gap identification, not as the center of the lab.

Current certification direction:

• CCNA
• RHCSA or LFCS
• CKA later, after clustering and Kubernetes work
• one cloud certification only if it becomes directly relevant to real work

Books are part of the long-term learning foundation behind this lab.

Current reading path:

1. Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach
2. UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook
3. The Practice of System and Network Administration
4. Site Reliability Engineering
5. The Site Reliability Workbook
6. Building Secure and Reliable Systems
7. Designing Data-Intensive Applications
8. TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1

These books support deeper systems understanding over time, but they do not replace real implementation, troubleshooting, documentation, or system design work.

The best way to understand infrastructure is by building, testing, documenting, and improving real systems.

This lab is designed to make technical growth visible through implementation, troubleshooting, structure, and written engineering documentation.

The goal is not only to make systems work, but to understand how they are organized, how they behave, how they fail, and how they can be improved over time.

• prioritized scalable physical infrastructure from the beginning
• selected modular compute as a foundation for future expansion
• focused on real infrastructure patterns over purely theoretical setups
• treated documentation as part of engineering work, not as an afterthought
• used the lab as a long-term environment for practical infrastructure growth

• Website: eugeneivanov.dev
• Infrastructure: eugeneivanov.dev/infra
• Roadmap: eugeneivanov.dev/roadmap
• Journal: eugeneivanov.dev/journal
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/eugeneivanov-dev
• Home Lab Repository: github.com/eugeneivanov-dev/homelab
• Networking Labs Repository: github.com/eugeneivanov-dev/networking-labs