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Homelab & Security Resources

The best open source tools, homelab projects, and books that actually taught me something. No fluff, just the good stuff.

The Good Stuff: Tools, Toys, and Rabbit Holes

The tools that survived my testing, the projects that actually work, and the books that are worth your time. No vendor pitches, no compliance frameworks – just the open source goodness that makes homelabbing addictive.

🚀 Hot Right Now: Tools I'm Excited About

These are the tools that have me staying up way too late "just testing one more thing."

Slim.AI

Container minification that actually works. Turned my 1.2GB containers into 40MB. Black magic.

Why I love it: Smaller attack surface + faster deploys = happy me

Tailscale

WireGuard VPN that just works. No port forwarding, no crying.

Why I love it: Connected my homelab to my phone in 2 minutes. TWO MINUTES.

CrowdSec

Collaborative IPS that actually learns from attacks. Like fail2ban grew a brain.

Why I love it: Community-powered threat intel that actually works

Netdata

Real-time monitoring that doesn't need a PhD to configure. Pretty graphs included.

Why I love it: Found a memory leak in 5 minutes that I'd been hunting for days

🏠 Homelab Essentials: The Foundation

Container & Orchestration

🐳 Container Platforms
  • Portainer - Docker management that doesn't suck
  • K3s - Kubernetes for humans (only 40MB!)
  • Podman - Docker without the daemon drama
  • Nomad - Simple orchestration that actually is simple
🔧 Infrastructure as Code
  • Ansible - Automate all the things
  • Terraform - For when you want to code your infrastructure
  • Pulumi - Terraform but with real programming languages
  • Packer - Golden images done right

Self-Hosted Services That Don't Suck

🎯 Actually Useful Services

Monitoring & Logs
Dev Tools
Actually Fun

🔒 Security Tools That Actually Work

Offensive Tools (For Defense, Obviously)

⚔️ Know Your Enemy

Recon & Scanning
  • Nuclei - Template-based vulnerability scanner
  • Subfinder - Subdomain discovery on steroids
  • Aquatone - Visual recon for web apps
  • Amass - Network mapping that's scary good
Exploitation Frameworks

Defensive Arsenal

🛡️ Blue Team Power Tools

SIEM & Monitoring
  • Wazuh - Free SIEM that's actually good
  • Graylog - Log management done right
  • Sigma - Detection rules that work everywhere
  • TheHive - Incident response platform
Network Defense
  • Suricata - IDS/IPS that scales
  • Zeek - Network analysis framework
  • ntopng - Traffic analysis with pretty graphs
  • Arkime - Full packet capture and search
Threat Hunting

Container & Cloud Security

☁️ Modern Problems, Modern Solutions

Container Security
  • Trivy - Vulnerability scanner that finds everything
  • Falco - Runtime security for containers
  • SecretScanner - Find secrets in containers/images
  • Kubesec - Security risk analysis for K8s
Cloud Security

🎮 Fun Homelab Projects

Because learning should be fun, here are some projects that'll teach you tons:

Weekend Warriors

🍯 Build a Honeypot Network

Deploy T-Pot and watch the internet try to hack you. Grab popcorn.

🔐 Red Team Lab

Set up GOAD (Game of Active Directory) and practice your pentest skills.

📡 WiFi Pineapple DIY

Build your own with a Raspberry Pi and Wifiphisher. Test your network's security.

🎯 Malware Analysis Lab

Set up REMnux and FLARE-VM for safe malware analysis.

📚 Books That Actually Taught Me Something

Not affiliate links, just books worth your money:

Security Essentials

Technical Deep Dives
Mind-Expanding Reads

Homelab & DevOps

Level Up Your Lab

🎓 Learning Platforms That Don't Suck

Free Stuff That's Actually Good

Hands-On Labs
YouTube University

Worth Paying For

💰 If You're Going to Spend Money
  • TryHackMe - Guided learning path, great for beginners ($10/month)
  • HackTheBox - More challenging, great community ($20/month)
  • TCM Security - Practical, real-world focused courses
  • PentesterLab - Web security focus ($20/month)

🚨 Security News & Intel

Stay paranoid, stay informed:

Daily Reads
Threat Intel
Vulnerability Feeds

🔥 The Bleeding Edge

Tools so new they might break everything (that's half the fun):

⚠️ Use at Your Own Risk

  • 🔬 Sliver - Adversary emulation framework (Cobalt Strike alternative)
  • 🎯 Evilginx2 - Advanced phishing with 2FA bypass
  • 🔍 reNgine - Automated recon framework
  • 🛠️ BloodHound.py - Active Directory recon
  • ⚡ Certipy - Active Directory certificate abuse

🎉 Join the Chaos

This list grows every time I find something that makes me go "Oh, that's clever!"

Got a tool that changed your life? Found something that should be on this list? Want to argue about why vim is better than nano? (It is.)

Share Your Discoveries

Remember: With great tools comes great responsibility. Only hack what you own,

and always have backups. Seriously. Backups of your backups.