Marine veteran. Federal IT professional. Cybersecurity student. Building, breaking, and securing things from a TV stand.
My Homelab in 2026 — How It Started and What I'm Running
Like a lot of people, it started with YouTube and TikTok. I kept seeing videos about homelabs, what people were running, what it could do, why they built one, and it slowly pulled me in. For me it came down to three things. First, security. I have a cybersecurity background, currently working toward a BS in cybersecurity, and my day job leans heavily on the sysadmin side with a security emphasis. But the work can get stagnant. Limited scope, slow technology adoption, not a lot of room to experiment. A homelab fixes that. It gives me a sandbox where I can actually try things without waiting for an approval process. ...