At first glance, Proxmox may seem like a dainty FOSS virtualization platform designed for casual home labbers. But hidden underneath its maze of menus, options, and toggles lies a formidable collection of features. For starters, Proxmox supports Ceph distributed storage and Cluster Manager, which let you deploy high-availability PVE setups. There's also ZFS support for folks looking to leverage this high-end file system in their home labs.

Unlike its rivals, PVE also supports LXCs, and the Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts are pretty well-known in the community for supplying easy-to-deploy container commands. However, keen-eyed folks may have noticed the CT Templates option when uploading ISOs for their VMs. That’s where you’ll find TurnKey templates, and while the majority of these are oriented towards CMS platforms, databases, and business apps, some are pretty useful for home labbers.

6 Gitea

Only for my private repos

Whether it’s working on custom projects to enhance my DevOps skills or writing technical articles here on XDA, I end up creating numerous config files, Ansible Playbooks, and scripts each week. Over time, I’ve built a large collection of these documents, and I’d rather store them in a repository than have them remain scattered across VMs. But as much as GitHub is an amazing platform for storing repositories and sharing them with fellow coders, I don't want to store my job-related files on GitHub.

That’s where a self-hosted Gitea server comes in handy, as I can store all my coding documents in there and use Git commands to manage them. While it’s somewhat clunky to use when collaborating with others, the TurnKey implementation of Gitea provides a fully-functional LXC to store my private code files.

5 Ansible

Featuring the Semaphore web UI

Continuing with development-centric LXC templates, Ansible is my favorite automation utility for my home lab. Since I spin up new virtual machines and containers, Ansible Playbooks are a godsend for my projects. Instead of manually setting up multiple packages and tinkering with certain settings on fresh installations, I can define a universal configuration via Ansible and sit back as the automation utility works its magic.

What’s more, the Ansible TurnKey template includes the Semaphore web UI built into it. While I’m more accustomed to creating Playbooks inside VS Code, a menu-based interface is pretty useful when I want to quickly create some scripts and schedule them. It also meshes well with Gitea, allowing me to pull config files from my self-hosted repos.

4 BookStack

A personal wiki, filled to the brim with my chaotic notes

Confession time: I consider TriliumNext Notes the pinnacle of self-hosted note-takers. That said, I rely on other ideation tools to manage my home lab and DevOps documentation. BookStack is one such utility, though it features a rather unconventional wiki-based design. It also follows a strict form of hierarchy, where shelves contain books, which include numerous chapters. Pages lie at the next hierarchy level, essentially serving as individual notes – or in this case, wiki pages.

Personally, I prefer BookStack when I need to share my documentation with others, as its organized layout and cleaner, wiki-esque UI make it more approachable than rival services. It’s also available as a TurnKey template inside Proxmox and can be deployed as an LXC without too much trouble.

3 ZoneMinder

A top-tier NVR utility

Capable of archiving streams from surveillance cameras, Network Video Recorders are great for folks who want to bolster the security of their living space. For a Proxmox-only setup, ZoneMinder is hands-down the best self-hosted NVR utility. Despite a seemingly complicated UI, ZoneMinder’s extensive menus and toggles are pretty easy to work with, and you don’t have to fiddle with YAML files just to manage your cameras.

In fact, I’ve used a TurnKey ZoneMinder LXC to power my surveillance system for the longest time. While I’ve since shifted my NVR stack to a Raspberry Pi + Frigate combo just to avoid crashing the surveillance setup due to my home lab experiments, I’d recommend ZoneMinder to PVE users who need a simple yet effective control center for their security system.

2 WireGuard

To access my Proxmox server from external networks

As much as I love to spend my time indoors building PCs and working with virtualization platforms, there are times when I need to leave my rat’s nest for extended periods. However, exposing my home lab to the Internet can make it vulnerable to a variety of security issues, especially on unprotected public networks.

VPNs like WireGuard can mitigate these risks to a huge extent. The TurnKey templates for Proxmox include a WireGuard LXC, which is not only easy to deploy but also delivers a responsive experience when I need to run a couple of scripts on my Proxmox virtual guests from the other end of the country.

1 Debian/Ubuntu/Arch/Rocky/Fedora

Despite being a Debian fanboy, I have one LXC for each distro

LXCs dedicated to Linux distros are my favorite use case for TurnKey templates. After all, Linux containers have a fairly low performance overhead compared to virtual machines, making them perfect for the low-power devices I’ve turned into Proxmox hosts these last couple of weeks. Sure, they may not offer the same isolation provisions as their VM counterparts, but I can replicate the majority of my projects inside LXCs without encountering weird compatibility issues.

What’s more, TurnKey templates offer a number of distributions to choose from. I tend to favor stable and easy-to-use Debian LXCs, though Arch, Fedora, and Rocky Linux are just as useful for server projects.

Spice up your LXC suite with TurnKey templates

So far, I’ve only gone over my favorite LXC templates, but there are plenty more to choose from. If you’re into web development, the LAMP stack can aid your coding projects, and the same holds true for Tomcat and Node.js. On the CMS front, you can choose between Joomla and Concrete, while MediaServer and OwnCloud are fairly useful for managing your documents.