Once again, it's been a bit since I've posted an update.  Between the end of the semester and traveling for the holidays I didn't have much time to play around with much.  I did get a Raspberry Pi 3 running PiVPN on my network, but I can't seem to access it from outside my network which means something isn't working right.  However, I do have a couple of weeks where I can actually get some work done.  I'll do a quick outline of what I'm considering then I'll try to give updates as I go.

First, I have some new networking equipment.  I got an 8-port unmanaged gigabit switch for Christmas, so now I actually have ports that I can use for my setup.  I was running out of network space so I couldn't actually add on to my lab.  I also got an older 5-port 100 Mbit switch and an old D-Link router.  The switch will be used in case I need more ports and I can start daisy-chaining the switches, and the router will be loaded with DD-WRT and will be used in wireless mode as a managed switch.

That leads me to my next point, I'm picking up a Network+ study book so I can actually learn how to put together a better network.  Right now everything is on one LAN but I'm hoping to separate my lab to its own VLAN.  I lack the actual networking background to know how to set up a VLAN and if it's even the right tool for the application, which is why I'm going through the book.  I also have a Udemy course that I purchased for about $5 a while back but I'm not sure if I'll actually need it.

Most excitingly, I have some nicer hardware to play with.  I purchased a small form factor Dell Optiplex from their refurbished site on sale.  It came with an i5 and 8 GB of RAM, but I got a nice surprise for Christmas.  As it turns out my dad snagged an almost identical machine from work (it was outbound to the trash) with an i7 and 16 GB of RAM.  Since he knows he can snag another 8 GB later, he simply gave me half the memory from his (it had a 4x4 configuration) so now I have a machine with 4 cores and 16 GB of RAM to play with.  My original idea was to put Debian on it and set up some KVM machines manually, but I've since revised that idea.  I looked into ESXi but they want you to set up an account and list your company affiliation and everything like that, and I just wasn't comfortable with that.  That gives me two options: Proxmox and Ganeti.  Proxmox looks like the better option right now due to its web interface, but my research has been very surface-level only.

So that's my main goals for the near future.  Getting through the Network+ book (or at least through the section on VLANs) is the limiting factor, but classes start in two weeks so I'm not sure how far I'll get.  Fixing the VPN can wait since I'm not trying to remote into most of my services, and both nextCloud and my Minecraft server are doing just fine.  Hopefully I'll be able to update more often in the next two or three weeks!