Virtualization
How virtual machines, Linux containers, and hypervisor choices fit together in a practical homelab.
Published February 15, 2024
Virtualization
If networking is the plumbing, virtualization is the floor plan. It is the part of a homelab that turns one box into several useful machines without making the whole thing feel improvised.
This section stays focused on compute, isolation, storage behavior, and day-2 operations in a platform-agnostic way. When a topic becomes primarily about one product, it should live in that product's own section instead of stretching this overview into a mixed bag.
Concepts
- Virtualization Concepts - the overview for core theory and container types.
- Virtualization Fundamentals
- VM Architecture
- LXC and OCI Containers
- Docker
- Podman
- VirtualBox
- systemd-nspawn
- VMware ESXi
Platform Deep Dives
- Proxmox - the dedicated Proxmox VE section for platform fundamentals, architecture, operations, and workload-specific guides.
Day-2 Operations
- Day-2 Operations - the overview for lifecycle, habits, and troubleshooting.
- VM Lifecycle
- Best Practices
- Troubleshooting and Performance
- Vagrant
Read This Alongside Networking
These pages pair well with the existing networking material:
Those pages explain how packets move. This section explains what kind of machine is sending them, how isolated it really is, and how much trouble it will cause when you need to change it later.