Turn one box into your own private cloud, smart-home brain, and ad-free network—powered by Proxmox VE 9. If you’ve ever wished your Wi-Fi were cleaner, your data safer, and your smart devices actually smart , this hands-on guide shows you how to build a modern homelab that quietly runs everything you care about—24/7—under your control. What you’ll build (step by step): A Proxmox VE 9 host running fast, isolated VMs & LXCs - Pi-hole for whole-home ad/tracker blocking and cleaner DNS - Home Assistant for lights, sensors, presence, and automations - TrueNAS SCALE with ZFS for reliable storage, media, and personal cloud - Bulletproof backups with Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) - Optional power-ups: Docker apps, Grafana/Prometheus monitoring, WireGuard VPN , VLANs , and a future-proof cluster/Ceph roadmap Why this book is different (and works): Purely practical. No fluff. Every chapter ends with a Practice Lab and validation checks. - Beginner-friendly → Advanced-ready. Start with one PC/mini-server; scale to multi-node. - Covers the full stack. Networking, storage, virtualization, automation, security, and monitoring—connected end-to-end. - Disaster-ready. Snapshots, scheduled backups, and a proven restore test so you know you can recover. - Real hardware guidance. From NUCs & mini-PCs to used enterprise servers and the right switches/NICs. Inside, you’ll master: Creating VMs vs. LXCs, virtio drivers, storage backends (Local, ZFS, NFS, USB) - Deploying Pi-hole and routing your entire LAN through clean DNS - Spinning up Home Assistant OS and automating your first smart device - Building ZFS pools/datasets , exposing SMB/NFS/iSCSI shares, and serving media - Scheduling PBS backups and restoring to a new VM ID (non-destructive recovery test) - Securing access with firewalls + VPN , least-privilege users, and audit logs - Visualizing your homelab with Grafana and Proxmox metrics - Scaling plans: clusters, Ceph, advanced networking —only when you’re ready Perfect for: curious beginners, DIY tinkerers, home-server newcomers, and time-pressed pros who want a clean, modern, self-hosted setup that actually lasts. Bonus Appendices: Proxmox CLI cheat sheet · TrueNAS quick reference · Home Assistant automation templates · Hardware buyer’s guide · Community & learning roadmap. If you can follow a recipe, you can build this. Take control of your network, your data, and your smart home—start today with Proxmox VE 9.