Introduction When I was running WordPress, I was using Matomo (formerly Piwik) for analytics. This solution worked for me, but was more complicated than I needed, and I didn’t make use of 99% of the features. It also required PHP and MySQL/MariaDB, which were not installed on the new server hosting my Hugo-based blog. Because of this, I wanted to switch to a simpler analytics solution. Self-hosted vs SaaS For a long time, I’ve hosted a Matomo instance on my server and proudly stated in my privacy policy:...

Introduction Hopefully this page is coming at you blazing fast, and with a new look! If so, you’re seeing my static site generated by Hugo. Here’s some high-level thoughts about the migration from WordPress, which I’ve been using since 2014, to Hugo. Why I’m switching You can Google “wordpress to hugo” and read 1000 posts about why people make the switch. Here are my reasons: Security WordPress is written in PHP, which has an unfairly bad reputation....

Hey! Listen! This post is part of a series on 10" mini-racks. Check them all out! Date URL Part 2022-09-16 Homelab 10" mini-rack shelves Comparison of 10" shelves 2021-01-05 Homelab 10" mini-rack Initial post about mini-rack Update: 2021-01-10 I made the following changes and updated the post below (not the pictures) to reflect those changes: Replaced side vent panels with metal bars Added labels to patch panel One of the RJ45 couplers was stuck in 100Mbps mode and would not transfer full 1Gbps....

Introduction I’m on a quest to SSL all the things on my local network. I work in IT security, and am more than paranoid when it comes to my homelab (shout-out to r/homelab and r/selfhosted). For my web applications, everything is accessed through a Nginx reverse proxy that uses Let’s Encrypt wildcard certificates (using the DNS challenge) for encryption. It provides a single choke-point for all my traffic, all using one wildcard certificate, and all my clients accept it with the green lock....

Introduction I have a small homelab in my home that runs pfSense, Proxmox, Docker, a Synology NAS, UniFi wireless, etc… I already monitor my pfSense firewall logs using Graylog, but I was looking for a solution to monitor hardware (e.g., CPU usage, RAM usage, etc…) as well as software processes (e.g., containers using network, current download/upload speed, etc…). I stumbled upon two separate software stacks for this. First is the TICK stack, which is composed of open-source products from InfluxData:...

Introduction In my last post, I went over linting Ansible playbooks manually. In this post, I’m going to give you a brief introduction on how to lint playbooks automatically, using Drone. I was inspired to post this after watching Jeff Geerling’s (geerlingguy on Github) Ansible 101 YouTube series. In it, he mentions using automated testing/linting of his playbooks. If you haven’t seen it, give it a watch. As with before, I’m not a developer or professional DevOps person....

Introduction What is Ansible? If you’re reading this, you probably already know what Ansible is, so I won’t spend a lot of time here. Ansible is open-source configuration management software. It lets you configure one machine, or 100 machines, in the same way, every time. You can use Ansible to install software, create users, update files, etc… Basically, if it’s a task that can be automated, Ansible can do it....

Introduction Hey! Listen! This post is part of a series on pfSense. Check them all out! Date URL Part 2019-08-25 pfSense on the PC Engines APU2 Migrated to a PC Engines APU2D4 2019-07-17 My SG-1100 died Migrated back the the EdgeRouter Lite 2019-06-28 Migrating away from the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite Migrated to a Netgate SG-1100 In the past few weeks, I replaced my EdgeRouter Lite with a Netgate SG-1100. Two weeks later, my SG-1100 died, and I had to put the EdgeRouter Lite back....

Hey! Listen! This post is part of a series on pfSense. Check them all out! Date URL Part 2019-08-25 pfSense on the PC Engines APU2 Migrated to a PC Engines APU2D4 2019-07-17 My SG-1100 died Migrated back the the EdgeRouter Lite 2019-06-28 Migrating away from the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite Migrated to a Netgate SG-1100 Introduction I recently wrote about how I was dropping the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite for a Netgate SG-1100 running pfSense....

Hey! Listen! This post is part of a series on the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite. Check them all out! Date URL Part 2019-06-28 Migrating away from the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite Migrated to a Netgate SG-1100 2019-02-03 EdgeRouter CNAME records Setup CNAME records 2017-10-03 Dyn DDNS on EdgeRouter Setup DynDNS 2017-04-25 DuckDNS on EdgeRouter Setup DuckDNS 2017-01-08 Ubiquiti EdgeRouter serial console settings Serial console settings 2016-11-29 Ubiquiti UniFi controller setup on Raspberry Pi 3 Install UniFi Controller 2016-08-30 EdgeRouter Lite Dnsmasq setup Setup dnsmasq 2016-06-13 EdgeRouter Lite software upgrade Firmware upgrade 2016-05-12 EdgeRouter Lite OpenVPN setup OpenVPN server setup 2016-04-29 Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite setup Initial setup Introduction For years, I’ve been using and loving my Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite....