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Stop Using Spreadsheets: A Lightweight, Self-Hosted IPAM for Home Labs

·223 words·2 mins
Some Random Tech
Author
Some Random Tech
I’m a full time director of Solution Engineering and use technology on a daily basis. I’m an avid keyboard/mouse whore for a lack of a better term and consistently change out my keyboards and mice enough that my wife is starting to think I need therapy.

My first public github repo
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I’m new at this so be gentle, I thought this was pretty cool and figured others might get a kick out of deploying an IPAM of their own. The problem I saw was that every other IPAM out there was overly complicated for no apparent reason and figured there had to be a better way. Sure enough here we are.

The Infrastructure Problem
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Managing IP addresses in a growing lab or small business usually starts in Excel and ends in chaos. When you’re juggling VLANs, Docker containers, and static IPs for vSphere or Proxmox, you need a single source of truth that doesn’t require a 4GB RAM footprint.

Why I Built This IPAM
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I wanted something that followed the Unix Philosophy: do one thing and do it well.

  • Zero Bloat: Unlike enterprise solutions (Infoblox, BlueCat), this is designed to be lightweight.
  • GitHub Native: Version control for your network state.
  • Architect Approved: Built for engineers who want visibility without the overhead.

The Benefits of Lightweight IPAM
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  1. Conflict Prevention: Instantly see what’s available before spinning up a new VM.
  2. Standardization: Forces a consistent naming convention across your subnets.
  3. Auditability: Know exactly when an IP was assigned and why.

Deployment
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You can find the source code and deployment instructions on my GitHub: 8-bit-wizard/ipam

View on GitHub