From 969aaa1ef09dc0176504bdabf91b33c6b6e8b66c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: davegallant Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2024 03:16:13 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] deploy: 8b4902e3e25f42c60a4c18e08ca4d55bce7f9f8a --- blog/appgate-sdp-on-arch-linux/index.html | 2 +- blog/automatically-rotating-aws-keys/index.html | 2 +- blog/backing-up-gmail-with-synology/index.html | 2 +- blog/replacing-docker-with-podman-on-macos/index.html | 2 +- blog/running-k3s-in-lxc-on-proxmox/index.html | 2 +- blog/setting-up-gitea-actions-with-tailscale/index.html | 2 +- .../index.html | 2 +- blog/virtualizing-a-router-with-pfsense/index.html | 2 +- blog/watching-youtube-in-private/index.html | 2 +- blog/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/index.html | 2 +- blog/why-i-threw-out-my-dotfiles/index.html | 2 +- 11 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-) diff --git a/blog/appgate-sdp-on-arch-linux/index.html b/blog/appgate-sdp-on-arch-linux/index.html index cff40c6f..3dcd72ba 100644 --- a/blog/appgate-sdp-on-arch-linux/index.html +++ b/blog/appgate-sdp-on-arch-linux/index.html @@ -63,4 +63,4 @@ Let’s try to run it.

This is a breaking change in Python3.8.
So what is calling platform.linux_distribution?
Let’s search for it:
$ sudo grep -r 'linux_distribution' /opt/appgate/linux/
 /opt/appgate/linux/nm.py:    if platform.linux_distribution()[0] != 'Fedora':
 
Aha! So this is in the local AppGate source code. This should be an easy fix. Let’s just replace this line with:
if True: # Since we are not using Fedora :)
-
Wrapping up
It turns out there are breaking changes in Python3.8.
The docs say Deprecated since version 3.5, will be removed in version 3.8: See alternative like the distro package.
I suppose this highlights one of the caveats of relying upon the system’s python, rather than having an isolated, dedicated environment for all dependencies.

\ No newline at end of file
+
Wrapping up
It turns out there are breaking changes in Python3.8.
The docs say Deprecated since version 3.5, will be removed in version 3.8: See alternative like the distro package.
I suppose this highlights one of the caveats of relying upon the system’s python, rather than having an isolated, dedicated environment for all dependencies.

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/automatically-rotating-aws-keys/index.html b/blog/automatically-rotating-aws-keys/index.html
index 9209facf..ee8e4728 100644
--- a/blog/automatically-rotating-aws-keys/index.html
+++ b/blog/automatically-rotating-aws-keys/index.html
@@ -9,4 +9,4 @@ In the longer term, migrating my local workflows to aws-vault seems like a more
 
 /*! CC BY-SA 3.0 License | https://stackoverflow.com/a/36118384/1154965 */@keyframes blink{50%{opacity:0}to{opacity:1}}
 
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Automatically rotating AWS access keys
2021-09-17
Rotating credentials is a security best practice. This morning, I read a question about automatically rotating AWS Access Keys without having to go through the hassle of navigating the AWS console. There are some existing solutions already, but I decided to write a script since it was incredibly simple. The script could be packed up as a systemd/launchd service to continually rotate access keys in the background.
In the longer term, migrating my local workflows to aws-vault seems like a more secure solution. This would mean that credentials (even temporary session credentials) never have to be written in plaintext to disk (i.e. where AWS suggests). Any existing applications, such as terraform, could be have their credentials passed to them from aws-vault, which retrieves them from the OS’s secure keystore. There is even a rotate command included.
Dave Gallant

\ No newline at end of file
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Automatically rotating AWS access keys
2021-09-17
Rotating credentials is a security best practice. This morning, I read a question about automatically rotating AWS Access Keys without having to go through the hassle of navigating the AWS console. There are some existing solutions already, but I decided to write a script since it was incredibly simple. The script could be packed up as a systemd/launchd service to continually rotate access keys in the background.
In the longer term, migrating my local workflows to aws-vault seems like a more secure solution. This would mean that credentials (even temporary session credentials) never have to be written in plaintext to disk (i.e. where AWS suggests). Any existing applications, such as terraform, could be have their credentials passed to them from aws-vault, which retrieves them from the OS’s secure keystore. There is even a rotate command included.
Dave Gallant

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/backing-up-gmail-with-synology/index.html b/blog/backing-up-gmail-with-synology/index.html
index eabe3865..d2430e23 100644
--- a/blog/backing-up-gmail-with-synology/index.html
+++ b/blog/backing-up-gmail-with-synology/index.html
@@ -7,4 +7,4 @@
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Backing up gmail with Synology
2022-03-13
I’ve used gmail since the beta launched touting a whopping 1GB of storage. I thought this was a massive leap in email technology at the time. I was lucky enough to get an invite fairly quickly. Not suprisingly, I have many years of emails, attachments, and photos. I certainly do not want to lose the content of many of these emails. Despite the redundancy of the data that Google secures, I still feel better retaining a copy of this data on my own physical machines.
The thought of completely de-googling has crossed my mind on occassion. Convenience, coupled with my admiration for Google engineering, has prevented me from doing so thus far. Though, I may end up doing so at some point in the future.
Synology MailPlus Server
Synology products are reasonably priced for what you get (essentially a cloud-in-a-box) and there is very little maintenance required. I’ve recently been in interested in syncing and snapshotting my personal data. I’ve setup Synology’s Cloud Sync and keep copies of most of my cloud data.
I’ve used tools such as gmvault with success in the past. Setting this up on a cron seems like a viable option. However, I don’t really need a lot of the features it offers and do not plan to restore this data to another account.
Synology’s MailPlus seems to be a good candidate for backing up this data. By enabling POP3 fetching, it’s possible to fetch all existing emails, as well as periodically fetch all new emails. If a disaster ever did occur, having these emails would be beneficial, as they are an extension of my memory bank.
Installing MailPlus can be done from the Package Center:
image
Next, I went into Synology MailPlus Server and on the left, clicked on Account and ensured my user was marked as active.
Afterwords, I followed these instructions in order to start backing up emails.
When entering the POP3 credentials, I created an app password solely for authenticating to POP3 from the Synology device. This is required because I have 2-Step verification enabled on my account. There doesn’t seem to be a more secure way to access POP3 at the moment. It does seem like app password access is limited in scope (when MFA is enabled). These app passwords can’t be used to login to the main Google account.
I made sure to set the Fetch Range to All in order to get all emails from the beginning of time.
After this, mail started coming in.
image
After fetching 19 years worth of emails, I tried searching for some emails. It only took a few seconds to search through ~50K emails, which is a relief if I ever did have to search for something important.
Securing Synology
Since Synology devices are not hermetically sealed, it’s best to secure them by enabling MFA to help prevent being the victim of ransomware. It is also wise to backup your system settings and volumes to the cloud using a tool such as Hyper Backup.
-Encrypting your shared volumes should also be done, since unfortunately DSM does not support full disk encryption.
Summary
Having backups of various forms of cloud data is a good investment, especially in times of war. I certainly feel more at ease for having backed up my emails.
Dave Gallant

\ No newline at end of file
+Encrypting your shared volumes should also be done, since unfortunately DSM does not support full disk encryption.
Summary
Having backups of various forms of cloud data is a good investment, especially in times of war. I certainly feel more at ease for having backed up my emails.

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/replacing-docker-with-podman-on-macos/index.html b/blog/replacing-docker-with-podman-on-macos/index.html
index a1b4668d..1cae2d18 100644
--- a/blog/replacing-docker-with-podman-on-macos/index.html
+++ b/blog/replacing-docker-with-podman-on-macos/index.html
@@ -47,4 +47,4 @@
 0
 podman start -a davegallant.github.io_hello_world_1
 Hello world
-
This should more or less provide the same results you would come to expect with docker. The README does clearly state that podman-compose is under development.
Summary
Installing Podman on macOS was not seamless, but it was manageable well within 30 minutes. I would recommend giving Podman a try to anyone who is unhappy with experiencing forced docker updates, or who is interested in using a more modern technology for running containers.
One caveat to mention is that there isn’t an official graphical user interface for Podman, but there is an open issue considering one. If you rely heavily on Docker Desktop’s UI, you may not be as interested in using podman yet.
Update: After further usage, bind mounts do not seem to work out of the box when the client and host are on different machines. A rather involved solution using sshfs was shared here.
I had been experimenting with Podman on Linux before writing this, but after listening to this podcast episode, I was inspired to give Podman a try on macOS.

\ No newline at end of file
+
This should more or less provide the same results you would come to expect with docker. The README does clearly state that podman-compose is under development.
Summary
Installing Podman on macOS was not seamless, but it was manageable well within 30 minutes. I would recommend giving Podman a try to anyone who is unhappy with experiencing forced docker updates, or who is interested in using a more modern technology for running containers.
One caveat to mention is that there isn’t an official graphical user interface for Podman, but there is an open issue considering one. If you rely heavily on Docker Desktop’s UI, you may not be as interested in using podman yet.
Update: After further usage, bind mounts do not seem to work out of the box when the client and host are on different machines. A rather involved solution using sshfs was shared here.
I had been experimenting with Podman on Linux before writing this, but after listening to this podcast episode, I was inspired to give Podman a try on macOS.

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/running-k3s-in-lxc-on-proxmox/index.html b/blog/running-k3s-in-lxc-on-proxmox/index.html
index aed1f450..48587eeb 100644
--- a/blog/running-k3s-in-lxc-on-proxmox/index.html
+++ b/blog/running-k3s-in-lxc-on-proxmox/index.html
@@ -48,4 +48,4 @@ As of 2021/11, it is still defaulting to the 1.19 channel, so I overrode it to 1
 
 NAME                                                           REFERENCE                             TARGETS   MINPODS   MAXPODS   REPLICAS   AGE
 horizontalpodautoscaler.autoscaling/tekton-pipelines-webhook   Deployment/tekton-pipelines-webhook   9%/100%   1         5         1          12h
-
I made sure to install Tailscale in the container so that I can easily access K3s from anywhere.
If I’m feeling adventurous, I might experiment with K3s rootless.

\ No newline at end of file
+
I made sure to install Tailscale in the container so that I can easily access K3s from anywhere.
If I’m feeling adventurous, I might experiment with K3s rootless.

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/setting-up-gitea-actions-with-tailscale/index.html b/blog/setting-up-gitea-actions-with-tailscale/index.html
index 5caa17a4..74a242b6 100644
--- a/blog/setting-up-gitea-actions-with-tailscale/index.html
+++ b/blog/setting-up-gitea-actions-with-tailscale/index.html
@@ -88,4 +88,4 @@
           from: RFD Notify
           body: |
             ${{ github.server_url }}/${{ github.repository }}/actions/runs/${{ github.run_number }}            
-
And voilà:
image
You may be wondering how the gitea runner is allowed to connect to the other hosts using ansible? Well, the nodes are in the same tailnet and have tailscale ssh enabled.
Areas for improvement
One enhancement that I would like to see is the ability to send notifications on workflow failures. Currently, this doesn’t seem possible without adding logic to each workflow.
Conclusion
Gitea Actions are fast and the resource footprint is minimal. My gitea instance is currently using around 250mb of memory and a small fraction of a single cpu core (and the runner is using a similar amount of resources). This is impressive since many alternatives tend to require substantially more resources. It likely helps that the codebase is largely written in go.
By combining gitea with the networking marvel that is tailscale, running workflows becomes simple and fun. Whether you are working on a team or working alone, this setup ensures that your workflows are securely accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.
Check out my gitea instance exposed via Funnel here.

\ No newline at end of file
+
And voilà:
image
You may be wondering how the gitea runner is allowed to connect to the other hosts using ansible? Well, the nodes are in the same tailnet and have tailscale ssh enabled.
Areas for improvement
One enhancement that I would like to see is the ability to send notifications on workflow failures. Currently, this doesn’t seem possible without adding logic to each workflow.
Conclusion
Gitea Actions are fast and the resource footprint is minimal. My gitea instance is currently using around 250mb of memory and a small fraction of a single cpu core (and the runner is using a similar amount of resources). This is impressive since many alternatives tend to require substantially more resources. It likely helps that the codebase is largely written in go.
By combining gitea with the networking marvel that is tailscale, running workflows becomes simple and fun. Whether you are working on a team or working alone, this setup ensures that your workflows are securely accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.
Check out my gitea instance exposed via Funnel here.

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/using-aks-and-socks-to-connect-to-a-private-azure-db/index.html b/blog/using-aks-and-socks-to-connect-to-a-private-azure-db/index.html
index 2893d18d..08c31a5b 100644
--- a/blog/using-aks-and-socks-to-connect-to-a-private-azure-db/index.html
+++ b/blog/using-aks-and-socks-to-connect-to-a-private-azure-db/index.html
@@ -15,4 +15,4 @@ If this sounds more appealing, install using: image=serjs/go-socks5-proxy
 Creating SOCKS5 Proxy (Pod)...
 pod/davegallant-proxy created
-
With the above proxy connection open, it is possible to access both the DNS and private IPs accessible within the k8s cluster. In this case, I am able to access the private database, since there is network connectivity between the k8s cluster and the database.
Caveats and Conclusion
The above outlined solution makes some assumptions:
If these stars align, than this solution might work as a stopgap for accessing a private Azure DB (and I’m assuming this could work similarly on AWS).
It would be nice if Azure provided tooling similar to cloud-sql-proxy, so that using private databases would be more of a convenient experience.
One other thing to note is that some clients (such as dbeaver) do not provide DNS resolution over SOCKS. So in this case, you won’t be able to use DNS as if you were inside the cluster, but instead have to rely on knowing private ip addresses.

\ No newline at end of file
+
With the above proxy connection open, it is possible to access both the DNS and private IPs accessible within the k8s cluster. In this case, I am able to access the private database, since there is network connectivity between the k8s cluster and the database.
Caveats and Conclusion
The above outlined solution makes some assumptions:
If these stars align, than this solution might work as a stopgap for accessing a private Azure DB (and I’m assuming this could work similarly on AWS).
It would be nice if Azure provided tooling similar to cloud-sql-proxy, so that using private databases would be more of a convenient experience.
One other thing to note is that some clients (such as dbeaver) do not provide DNS resolution over SOCKS. So in this case, you won’t be able to use DNS as if you were inside the cluster, but instead have to rely on knowing private ip addresses.

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/virtualizing-a-router-with-pfsense/index.html b/blog/virtualizing-a-router-with-pfsense/index.html
index 22ce79b2..0b110211 100644
--- a/blog/virtualizing-a-router-with-pfsense/index.html
+++ b/blog/virtualizing-a-router-with-pfsense/index.html
@@ -7,4 +7,4 @@
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Virtualizing my router with pfSense
2022-04-02
My aging router has been running OpenWrt for years and for the most part has been quite reliable. OpenWrt is an open-source project used on embedded devices to route network traffic. It supports many different configurations and there exists a large index of packages. Ever since I’ve connected some standalone wireless access points, I’ve had less of a need for an off-the-shelf all-in-one wireless router combo. I’ve also recently been experiencing instability with my router (likely the result of a combination of configuration tweaking and firmware updating). OpenWrt has served me well, but it is time to move on!
pfSense
I figured this would be a good opportunity to try pfSense. I’ve heard nothing but positive things about pfSense and the fact it’s been around since 2004, based on FreeBSD, and written in PHP gave me the impression that it would be relatively stable (and I’d expect nothing less because it has an important job to do!). pfSense can be run on many different machines, and there are even some officially supported appliances. Since I already have a machine running Proxmox, why not just run it in a VM? It’d allow for automatic snapshotting of the machine. There is a good video on this by Techno Tim. Tim has a lot of good videos, and this one is about virtualizing pfSense.
Router on a stick
I had initially made the assumption that in order to build a router, you would need more than a single NIC (or a dual-port NIC) in order to support both WAN and LAN. This is simply not the case, because VLANs are awesome! In order to create a router, all you need is a single port NIC and a network switch that supports VLANs (also marketed as a managed switch). I picked up the Netgear GS308E because it has both a sufficient amount of ports for my needs, and it supports VLANs. It also has a nice sturdy metal frame which was a pleasant surprise.
After setting up this Netgear switch, it shoud be possible to access the web interface at http://192.168.0.239. It may be at a different address. To find the address, try checking your DHCP leases in your router interface (if you plugged it into an existing router). I realized I was unable to access this interface because I was on a different subnet, so I set my machine’s address to 192.168.0.22 in order to temporarily setup this switch. I assigned a static ip address to the switch (in System > Switch Information) so that it was in the same subnet as the rest of my network.
The web interface is nothing spectactular, but it allows for managing VLANs.
The following configuration will:
  • assign port 1 to be the LAN (connected to the Proxmox machine)
  • assign port 8 to be the WAN (connected to my ISP’s modem)
In the switch’s web interface, I went to VLAN and then 802.1Q, and then clicked on VLAN Configuration. I configured the ports to look like this:
vlan-config
Note that the VLAN Identifier Setting has been setup already with two VLANs (1 and 10). More VLANs can be created (i.e. to isolate IoT devices), but 2 VLANs is all we need for the initial setup of a router.
To replicate the above configuration, add a new VLAN ID 10 (1 should exist by default).
Next, go into VLAN Membership and configure VLAN 1’s port membership to be the following:
vlan-membership-1
and then configure VLAN 10’s port membership to be the following:
vlan-membership-10
Now, go into Port PVID and ensure that port 8 is set to PVID 10.
vlan-port-pvid
This above configuration will dedicate two of the eight ports to WAN and LAN. This will allow the internet to flow into the pfSense from the modem.
Setting up pfSense
pfSense is fairly easy to setup. Just download the latest ISO and boot up the virtual machine.
-When setting up the machine, I mostly went with all of the defaults. Configuration can be changed later in the web interface, which is quite a bit simpler.
Since VLANs are going to be leveraged, when you go to Assign Interfaces, VLANs should be setup now like the following:
  • WAN should be vtnet0.10
  • LAN should be vtnet0
After going through the rest of the installation, if everything is connected correctly it should display both WAN and LAN addresses.
If all goes well, the web interface should be running at https://192.168.1.1.
pfsense-dashboard
And this is where the fun begins. There are many tutorials and blogs about how to setup pfSense and various services and packages that can be installed. I’ve already installed pfBlocker-NG.
Summary
It is fairly simple to setup a router with pfSense from within a virtual machine. A physical dedicated routing machine is not necessary and often does not perform as well as software running on faster and more reliable hardware. So far, pfSense has been running for over a week without a single hiccup. pfSense is a mature piece of software that is incredibly powerful and flexible. To avoid some of the instability I had experienced with OpenWrt, I enabled AutoConfigBackup, which is capable of automatically backing up configuration upon every change. I plan to explore and experiment with more services and configuration in the future, so the ability to track all of these changes gives me the peace of mind that experimentation is safe.
Dave Gallant

\ No newline at end of file
+When setting up the machine, I mostly went with all of the defaults. Configuration can be changed later in the web interface, which is quite a bit simpler.
Since VLANs are going to be leveraged, when you go to Assign Interfaces, VLANs should be setup now like the following:
After going through the rest of the installation, if everything is connected correctly it should display both WAN and LAN addresses.
If all goes well, the web interface should be running at https://192.168.1.1.
pfsense-dashboard
And this is where the fun begins. There are many tutorials and blogs about how to setup pfSense and various services and packages that can be installed. I’ve already installed pfBlocker-NG.
Summary
It is fairly simple to setup a router with pfSense from within a virtual machine. A physical dedicated routing machine is not necessary and often does not perform as well as software running on faster and more reliable hardware. So far, pfSense has been running for over a week without a single hiccup. pfSense is a mature piece of software that is incredibly powerful and flexible. To avoid some of the instability I had experienced with OpenWrt, I enabled AutoConfigBackup, which is capable of automatically backing up configuration upon every change. I plan to explore and experiment with more services and configuration in the future, so the ability to track all of these changes gives me the peace of mind that experimentation is safe.

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/watching-youtube-in-private/index.html b/blog/watching-youtube-in-private/index.html
index b0b446b4..70fb2a72 100644
--- a/blog/watching-youtube-in-private/index.html
+++ b/blog/watching-youtube-in-private/index.html
@@ -46,4 +46,4 @@
 
 volumes:
   postgresdata:
-
After invidious was up and running, I installed Tailscale on it to leverage its MagicDNS, and I’m now able to access this instance from anywhere at http://invidious:3000/feed/subscriptions.
I figured it would be nice to redirect existing YouTube links that others send me, so that I could seamlessly watch the videos using invidious.
I went looking for a way to redirect paths at the browser level. I found the lightweight proxy requestly, which can be used to modify http requests in my browser. I created the following rules:
requestly
Now the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lz30by8-sU will redirect to http://invidious:3000/watch?v=-lz30by8-sU
I’m still looking for ways to improve this invidious setup. There doesn’t appear to be a way to stream in 4K yet.

\ No newline at end of file
+
After invidious was up and running, I installed Tailscale on it to leverage its MagicDNS, and I’m now able to access this instance from anywhere at http://invidious:3000/feed/subscriptions.
I figured it would be nice to redirect existing YouTube links that others send me, so that I could seamlessly watch the videos using invidious.
I went looking for a way to redirect paths at the browser level. I found the lightweight proxy requestly, which can be used to modify http requests in my browser. I created the following rules:
requestly
Now the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lz30by8-sU will redirect to http://invidious:3000/watch?v=-lz30by8-sU
I’m still looking for ways to improve this invidious setup. There doesn’t appear to be a way to stream in 4K yet.

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/index.html b/blog/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/index.html
index 17215cd1..a269b307 100644
--- a/blog/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/index.html
+++ b/blog/what-to-do-with-a-homelab/index.html
@@ -10,4 +10,4 @@
 Are you interested in learning more about Linux? Virtualization? Networking? Security?
 A homelab can be a playground to enhance your computer skills, without worrying about breaking anything important.
One of the best parts about building a homelab is that it doesn’t have to be a large investment in terms of hardware. One of the simplest ways to build a homelab is out of a refurbished computer.
 Having multiple machines/nodes provides the advantage of increased redundancy, but starting out with a single node is enough to reap many of the benefits of having a homelab.
Virtualization
Virtualizing your hardware is an organized way of dividing up your machine’s resources. This can be done with something such as a Virtual Machine or something lighter like a container using LXC or runC.
-Containers have much less overhead in terms of boot time and storage allocation. This Stack Overflow answer sums it up nicely.
image
A hypervisor such as Proxmox can be installed in minutes on a new machine. It provides a web interface and a straight-forward way to spin up new VMs and containers. Even if your plan is to run mostly docker containers, Proxmox can be a useful abstraction for managing VMs, disks and running scheduled backups. You can even run docker within an LXC container by enabling nested virtualization. You’ll want to ensure that VT-d and VT-x are enabled in the BIOS if you decide to install a hypervisor to manage your virtualization.
Services
Here is a list of some useful services to consider:
There is a large number of services you can self-host, including your own applications that you might be developing. Homelabbing allows you to have control over your data and services, and gives you the opportunity to be a software, network, and infrastructure engineer all at once.
VPN
Tailscale is a quick way to create a flat network for all of your services. With its MagicDNS, your can reference the names of machines like changedetection rather than using an IP address, or managing DNS yourself. By using this mesh-like VPN, you can easily create a secure tunnel to your homelab from anywhere.
Monitoring
dashboard
Monitoring can become an important aspect of your homelab after it starts to become something that is relied upon. One of the simplest ways to setup some monitoring is using netdata. It can be installed on individual containers, VMs, and also a hypervisor (such as Proxmox). All of the monitoring works out of the box by detecting disks, memory, network interfaces, etc.
Additionally, agents installed on different machines can all be centrally viewed in netdata, and it can alert you when some of your infrastructure is down or in a degraded state. Adding additional nodes to netdata is as simple as a 1-line shell command.
As mentioned above, Uptime Kuma is a convenient way to track uptime and monitor the availability of your services.
uptime-kuma
In Summary
Building out a homelab can be a rewarding experience and it doesn’t require buying a rack full of expensive servers to get a significant amount of utility. There are many services that you can run that require very minimal setup, making it possible to get a server up and running in a short period of time, with monitoring, and that can be securely connected to remotely.
If you’re looking for a steady stream of ideas for your homelab, check out selfhosted.show.

\ No newline at end of file
+Containers have much less overhead in terms of boot time and storage allocation. This Stack Overflow answer sums it up nicely.
image
A hypervisor such as Proxmox can be installed in minutes on a new machine. It provides a web interface and a straight-forward way to spin up new VMs and containers. Even if your plan is to run mostly docker containers, Proxmox can be a useful abstraction for managing VMs, disks and running scheduled backups. You can even run docker within an LXC container by enabling nested virtualization. You’ll want to ensure that VT-d and VT-x are enabled in the BIOS if you decide to install a hypervisor to manage your virtualization.
Services
Here is a list of some useful services to consider:
There is a large number of services you can self-host, including your own applications that you might be developing. Homelabbing allows you to have control over your data and services, and gives you the opportunity to be a software, network, and infrastructure engineer all at once.
VPN
Tailscale is a quick way to create a flat network for all of your services. With its MagicDNS, your can reference the names of machines like changedetection rather than using an IP address, or managing DNS yourself. By using this mesh-like VPN, you can easily create a secure tunnel to your homelab from anywhere.
Monitoring
dashboard
Monitoring can become an important aspect of your homelab after it starts to become something that is relied upon. One of the simplest ways to setup some monitoring is using netdata. It can be installed on individual containers, VMs, and also a hypervisor (such as Proxmox). All of the monitoring works out of the box by detecting disks, memory, network interfaces, etc.
Additionally, agents installed on different machines can all be centrally viewed in netdata, and it can alert you when some of your infrastructure is down or in a degraded state. Adding additional nodes to netdata is as simple as a 1-line shell command.
As mentioned above, Uptime Kuma is a convenient way to track uptime and monitor the availability of your services.
uptime-kuma
In Summary
Building out a homelab can be a rewarding experience and it doesn’t require buying a rack full of expensive servers to get a significant amount of utility. There are many services that you can run that require very minimal setup, making it possible to get a server up and running in a short period of time, with monitoring, and that can be securely connected to remotely.
If you’re looking for a steady stream of ideas for your homelab, check out selfhosted.show.

\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/blog/why-i-threw-out-my-dotfiles/index.html b/blog/why-i-threw-out-my-dotfiles/index.html
index c3f10c46..338c61ff 100644
--- a/blog/why-i-threw-out-my-dotfiles/index.html
+++ b/blog/why-i-threw-out-my-dotfiles/index.html
@@ -114,4 +114,4 @@
   };
 }
 
Save the file and run:
home-manager switch
-
You should see another wave of /nix/store/* paths. The new configuration should now be active.
If you run zsh, you should see that you have starship and access to several other utils such as rg, fd, and exa.
This basic configuration above is also defining your ~/.config/git/config and .zshrc. If you already have either of these files, home-manager will complain about them already existing.
If you run cat ~/.zshrc, you will see the way these configuration files are generated.
You can extend this configuration for programs such as (neo)vim, emacs, alacritty, ssh, etc. To see other programs, take a look at home-manager/modules/programs.
Gateway To Nix
In ways, home-manager can be seen as a gateway to the nix ecosystem. If you have enjoyed the way you can declare user configuration with home-manager, you may be interested in expanding your configuration to include other system dependencies and configuration. For example, in Linux you can define your entire system’s configuration (including the kernel, kernel modules, networking, filesystems, etc) in nix. For macOS, there is nix-darwin that includes nix modules for configuring launchd, dock, and other preferences and services. You may also want to check out Nix Flakes: a more recent feature that allows you declare dependencies, and have them automatically pinned and hashed in flake.lock, similar to that of many modern package managers.
Wrapping up
The title of this post is slightly misleading, since it’s possible to retain some of your dotfiles and have them intermingle with home-manager by including them alongside nix. The idea of defining user configuration using nix can provide a clean way to maintain your configuration, and allow it to be portable across platforms. Is it worth the effort to migrate away from shell scripts and dotfiles? I’d say so.
You can find my nix config here.

\ No newline at end of file
+
You should see another wave of /nix/store/* paths. The new configuration should now be active.
If you run zsh, you should see that you have starship and access to several other utils such as rg, fd, and exa.
This basic configuration above is also defining your ~/.config/git/config and .zshrc. If you already have either of these files, home-manager will complain about them already existing.
If you run cat ~/.zshrc, you will see the way these configuration files are generated.
You can extend this configuration for programs such as (neo)vim, emacs, alacritty, ssh, etc. To see other programs, take a look at home-manager/modules/programs.
Gateway To Nix
In ways, home-manager can be seen as a gateway to the nix ecosystem. If you have enjoyed the way you can declare user configuration with home-manager, you may be interested in expanding your configuration to include other system dependencies and configuration. For example, in Linux you can define your entire system’s configuration (including the kernel, kernel modules, networking, filesystems, etc) in nix. For macOS, there is nix-darwin that includes nix modules for configuring launchd, dock, and other preferences and services. You may also want to check out Nix Flakes: a more recent feature that allows you declare dependencies, and have them automatically pinned and hashed in flake.lock, similar to that of many modern package managers.
Wrapping up
The title of this post is slightly misleading, since it’s possible to retain some of your dotfiles and have them intermingle with home-manager by including them alongside nix. The idea of defining user configuration using nix can provide a clean way to maintain your configuration, and allow it to be portable across platforms. Is it worth the effort to migrate away from shell scripts and dotfiles? I’d say so.
You can find my nix config here.

\ No newline at end of file