# _The Homelab Show_

I have listened to over 70 episodes of _The Homelab Show_
with Tom Lawrence and Jay LaCroix
([playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjGQNuuUzvmtAzqgH7PVvnF_v0X9ZKMeA),
[website](https://thehomelab.show/)).
I found it both educational and fun.
I think it has substantially updated and expanded
my patchy early-2010s knowledge of sysadmin lore.

The main conclusion I have drawn from the show is that for essential infrastructure like
virtualization,
NAS,
and firewalls
you can DIY to learn how it works,
but in production you should deploy an open-source appliance OS.
The hosts' choices are:

- [XCP-ng](!W) (Tom Lawrence)
  and
  [Proxmox](!W "Proxmox Virtual Environment") (Jay LaCroix)
  for virtualization
- [TrueNAS CORE/SCALE](!W "TrueNAS")
  for the NAS
- [pfSense](!W)
  as your firewall
  (but
  [OPNsense](!W)
  is an option)

Do not virtualize the firewall that connects your network to the Internet.
(I thought this was obvious,
but an anecdote made the idea vivid.)

## Page metadata

URL: <https://dbohdan.com/homelab-show.md>

Published 2023-03-24, updated 2024-09-19.

Tags:

- notes
- podcast
- review
- sysadmin

Index: [Notes and reviews](/notes).