The R930
A retired quad-socket enterprise server, rebuilt as a private cloud. Everything self-hosted, nothing exposed to the open internet, every service reachable from anywhere over a private mesh.
threads
144
memory
192 GB
mirrored SSD
4.4 TB
networking
10 GbE
forwarded ports
0
It was bought retired, for a fraction of what it cost new, because a four-socket server from the enterprise second-hand market buys more memory and more disk bays per pound than anything built for a home. Almost nothing here needs that capacity; what it buys is room to be wrong about the next requirement, and hardware that was designed to be serviced rather than replaced.
Two pages carry the detail: the hardware, drawn from the manual and the machine's own inventory, and the services it runs.
Where it sits in the estate — the architecture view, opened on this node: what it sits on, what it carries, what it serves. Generated from the model, so it cannot drift from what is built.
Principles
Private by default
Services are reachable over the private mesh, never through an opening in the router. Public access is a deliberate exception, published outbound, one hostname at a time.
Three copies, one elsewhere
Local backups handle mistakes. The auxiliary node holds a copy it checks every week. An encrypted off-site copy handles the house, and a machine restores one every month.
Least privilege, always
Every credential does one job. Guests reach exactly the service they were invited to and nothing else on the same machine.
Documented as built
Configuration, decisions, and the reasoning behind them are written down as the work happens — including what was rejected and why. The decisions and the lessons are on this site.
Built and documented in 2026. Hardware from the enterprise second-hand market, software entirely open source or free tier. Served to you right now from that machine, through an outbound tunnel, over a connection it opened itself.