Documenting

Documenting, always the part most engineers loath. However it is proven to be a life saver. For me the home lab was becoming increasingly more complex, my better half, righteously, was more and more concerned that in case something happens to me or I’m not available for whatever reason, she did not know, where, how and what to do when it is relating to the devices at home.

Since I am running a TrueNas server, hosting a wiki should not be a problem.

  • Would it be possible to host Confluence?
  • Or what would the cost be for the cloud solution?

Confluence is the tool to write documentation. In the last decade I have worked with the tool daily.

To my happy surprise the tool is free for up to 10 users. This makes it the solution for documenting any home lab!

Starting new environment is pretty straightforward and easy. The documentation space is in play and the missus is very happy with it. Now there is a logical place for her to look for information on IT related stuff at home.

Network Upgrade

Next there is another thing that is bugging me for some time; the lack of managed switches at the home lab. These switches need to be Gigabit and have to be rackmountable and not to expensive. After some research I have found nice switch for this purpose: D-Link DGS-1210-20. Twenty ports, 40 Gbps switching capacity, fanless. Seems a fit, found a pair for a very decent price. Less then € 125 ex VAT. I have to say after I bought them the prices went up again.

Last Friday the switches arrived. But no time just yet. Configuration of these switched is pretty straightforward. Nice. Inside an hour both switches configured and on Saturday the switches placed.

Documenting the switches is now also very easy to do!

Creating a nice graph of the home lab

Besides the documentation of the switches themselves, having a small drawing helps.

Diagram Image

What is next?

Well, since I now have a managed network, why not move the GamePC in a nice isolated VLAN? And only allow printing access to the LAN. That would be a nice trick. Something for another rainy day.