---
sheet_format: 1.0
id: 2025-10-forkit-kl-homelab-renaissance
title: "Homelab Renaissance: 21 Stacks, 200 Services, Full Autonomy"
speaker: Erwan Rougeux
with: []
date: 2025-10-25
event: "Fork It"
place: "Sunway University (Petaling Jaya), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia"
format: talk
language: en
duration: "40:59"
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM
slides: https://slides.wanoo.me/2025-10-forkit-kl-homelab-renaissance/
topics: [self-hosting, homelab, privacy, data sovereignty, docker, home automation, zfs, local ai]
source: "Summary written by Claude (AI) from the auto-generated YouTube captions, and the slides. Not a verbatim transcript; check the recording before quoting."
review: spot-checked
review_date: 2026-10-17
---

# Homelab Renaissance: 21 Stacks, 200 Services, Full Autonomy

**In one sentence:** Erwan Rougeux tours the homelab that runs his digital life (about 200 self-hosted services on one ten-year-old server, maintained in about an hour a week), arguing that the goal isn't "No-Cloud" but "Know-Cloud".

## TL;DR
Erwan, VP International Growth at Clever Cloud and self-described "productively paranoid" privacy advocate, starts from a cultural shift: we used to own our CDs, DVDs and books, and now we rent access that can be revoked. His answer is self-hosting. He walks through his architecture (secured ingress, Docker stacks managed with Portainer, network-wide ad blocking, Tailscale for remote access, Unraid + ZFS storage, Grafana monitoring), then a few stacks in depth: Nextcloud for family photos and files, the *arr media pipeline with Plex and Kodi, Home Assistant home automation, and local AI. Everything is maintained in roughly one hour on Sunday mornings. Email is the one service he has never managed to self-host, which is why his conclusion is about knowing where your data lives, not rejecting the cloud.

## Erwan's key points
- He describes himself as not a developer (he studied biology) but a white-hat hacker who always keeps data sovereignty and privacy by design in mind; "there is no cloud", only someone else's computer.
- He argues that moving from owning media to renting it means losing control: content can be removed from platforms by companies or governments, and costs and advertising keep growing.
- His homelab is built in layers: secured ingress (Traefik, Keycloak SSO/MFA, CrowdSec), Docker + Portainer orchestration with isolated networks, Pi-hole for the whole network, Tailscale for access while travelling, Unraid + ZFS for about 70 TB of data, and Prometheus/Telegraf + Grafana (around 25 dashboards) that he only looks at when something breaks.
- Nextcloud is the family photo and file hub, with automatic phone upload and AI face recognition; ZFS datasets are cloned daily to a second server at his parents' house.
- His media stack (Sonarr, Radarr, Readarr, Lidarr, Prowlarr, Plex, Kodi) manages personal copies of media he bought, which he frames as legal under the European/French private-copy regime ("not for piracy").
- A cloud-connected smart bulb shows how much lifestyle metadata ordinary devices leak; he recommends imagining the worst case for every device.
- He runs local LLMs on an old Nvidia 2080 GPU, enough for one person, so that AI providers don't see how he thinks and works; one goal is voice control of the house.
- Operations take about one hour per week: one upgrade button per stack in Portainer, then a regression check with Grafana and Portainer alerts. He accepts downtime because he is his own only customer.
- Use the technology you can master (Docker for him; Kubernetes or VMs are fine for others). He counts 221 services, including databases and caches.
- Email is the explicit exception: running a server is easy, getting mail trusted by Google's and Microsoft's anti-spam is not. "The idea is not no cloud": he would put some services on a trustworthy European cloud like Clever Cloud, but not the most private ones.

## Outline
- [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=0s) Introduction: Erwan, VP International Growth at Clever Cloud, studied biology, white-hat hacker; "there is no cloud", so where is my data?
- [2:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=130s) From owning DVDs and CDs to renting a digital life; content removal and why knowledge must stay accessible.
- [3:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=231s) Self-hosting as the only way he found, and why it scares people (time, software choice, security, maintenance).
- [4:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=285s) Architecture: secured ingress, orchestration with separate networks, network-wide ad blocking, Tailscale VPN when travelling.
- [6:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=363s) About 70 TB on Unraid with ZFS datasets; around 25 Grafana dashboards; a snapshot of the stacks and the home network split into four VLANs.
- [9:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=567s) Nextcloud for the whole family's photos and videos, AI face recognition, office add-ons, daily ZFS clone to his parents' house.
- [11:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=718s) The *arr media stack, the European private-copy law, Kodi on the TV and Plex for streaming while travelling.
- [15:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=902s) Home automation: home-made electronics (even the couch motors), Home Assistant, Node-RED, Frigate for CCTV.
- [16:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=998s) Smart bulbs and metadata: what a cloud light bulb reveals about your daily life; think like a paranoid person.
- [18:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1122s) AI and dev stack: local LLMs on an old GPU, voice control ideas, Foundry VTT for tabletop RPGs, Manyfold for 3D-printing files.
- [21:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1293s) One hour every Sunday: Docker Compose stacks, Portainer upgrades, regression check, Grafana glance.
- [23:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1418s) Philosophy over tooling: pick technology you can master; 221 services today, including a self-hosted crypto swap.
- [25:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1516s) Hardware: one ten-year-old server, 256 GB RAM, 64 cores, HDD pool with SSD and RAM caching via Unraid/ZFS.
- [26:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1616s) Why everyone should ask where their data is; email as the one stack he cannot self-host; "Know-Cloud", Clever Cloud and GDPR; wrap-up.
- [31:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1878s) Q&A: how long the setup took (about a month cumulated), keeping it updated, CrowdSec, LAN-only services behind Keycloak.
- [35:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=2132s) Q&A: no hypervisor (Unraid boots from USB); options for digital nomads (a server at your parents', encrypted Nextcloud on a cloud, a laptop homelab) and Pi-hole.

## Notable quotes
> "There is no cloud. Cloud is just the computer of another person." — Erwan Rougeux, [1:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=78s)

> "I have 20 stack, 20 button to click, 1 hour is done." — Erwan Rougeux, [22:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1345s)

> "The idea is not no cloud, it's just to have the knowledge of the cloud." — Erwan Rougeux, [28:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1720s)

> "I'm just a small guy with old servers and I managed to do it myself in a few weeks." — Erwan Rougeux, [30:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1801s)

> "I hate advertising." — Erwan Rougeux, [39:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=2356s)

## Questions this answers
**Q: How does Erwan Rougeux self-host 200 services at home?**
A: On one ten-year-old server running Unraid with ZFS, with every service in a Docker Compose stack managed through Portainer, a secured ingress and isolated networks. He describes the architecture from [4:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=285s) and the hardware at [25:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1516s).

**Q: How much time does it take to maintain a large homelab?**
A: About one hour on Sunday mornings: he clicks the upgrade button for each stack in Portainer, waits for the new images, then watches Grafana and Portainer for alerts ([21:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1293s), [33:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=2032s)). He estimates the initial build at about a month in total, spread out over time.

**Q: Why is email so hard to self-host?**
A: Erwan says bringing up a mail server is easy; the hard part is having your mail trusted by Google's and Microsoft's anti-spam over the long run. It is the only stack he has never managed to self-host ([27:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1669s)). The slides add deliverability, IP reputation, DKIM/SPF/DMARC and blocklists.

**Q: What does "Know-Cloud, not No-Cloud" mean?**
A: The point is not to reject the cloud but to know where your data is and how it is used. He would host some services on a European, GDPR-bound cloud like Clever Cloud, but not his most private ones ([28:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1720s)).

**Q: Can you run local AI on old hardware?**
A: Yes, according to Erwan: he runs local LLMs on a roughly five-year-old Nvidia 2080, which he says is enough for one person's use, partly so AI providers don't see how he thinks and works ([18:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=1122s)).

**Q: How can a digital nomad self-host without a home server?**
A: He suggests a server at a relative's home (he ran his first one at his parents' house for about ten years), a cloud instance with Nextcloud's server-side encryption, or a laptop carried as a nomad homelab ([37:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tZI-2GfrM&t=2230s)).

## Mentioned
Clever Cloud, Fork It, Sunway University, Traefik, Keycloak, CrowdSec, Pi-hole, Tailscale, Docker, Portainer, Unraid, ZFS, TrueNAS, Prometheus, Telegraf, Grafana, Nextcloud, OnlyOffice, Sonarr, Radarr, Readarr, Lidarr, Prowlarr, Plex, Kodi, Home Assistant, Node-RED, Frigate, Philips Hue, Ollama, Foundry VTT, Manyfold, Kubernetes, Nvidia, Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive, ChatGPT, GDPR

## Slides outline
1. Homelab Renaissance: 21 Stacks, 200 Services, Full Autonomy — title, Fork It, Sunway University, Kuala Lumpur, 25 Oct 2025
2. Who am I? — VP International Growth at Clever Cloud; open-source and privacy advocate; "productively paranoid"
3. The shift: from owning to renting — CDs/DVDs/books vs streams and subscriptions; access revoked, costs creep
4. Why self-hosting? — control, cost, privacy, resilience
5. Architecture overview — ingress, orchestration, network privacy, access, storage, observability & DR
6. Stack map — every stack by category, from security to CCTV, passwords and lab sensors
7. What it looks like — the real network map, blurred on purpose
8. Some stacks — section divider
9. Personal files — Nextcloud hub, OnlyOffice, full-text search, ZFS snapshot backups
10. Media & streaming — *arr pipeline, libraries, Plex and Kodi; personal-use copies only
11. Home automation & sensing — Home Assistant, Node-RED, ESPHome, Frigate + Coral TPU, ebusd, Mycodo for the mushroom lab
12. AI, dev & specialty stacks — Ollama + Open WebUI, code-server, Manyfold, Foundry VTT
13. How to operate it? — ~1h / week
14. Operate it in ~1h / week — compose pull/up per stack, Grafana alerts, front-door checks, automated ZFS sends
15. Underlay — 64 cores, 256 GB RAM, 12 × 12 TB HDD + 8 × 1 TB SSD; secondary host as replication target
16. Full autonomy* — the explicit exception: email; own the domain, outsource mailboxes; "Know-Cloud"
17. Questions? — offer to share templates, compose files and the weekly runbook