Introduction I spoke about a topic called “Developer Health” a while ago. This post is an update. I will detail my exercise routine and the supplements I take. Making consistent healthy choices is enough to make you stand out among your colleagues. It also makes for a more enjoyable life. In the long run I […]
How to switch from “docker-compose” to “docker compose”
The CLI API for docker compose has changed recently. It used to be a single-word command with the two words separated by a hyphen. Since docker compose became available as a docker plugin, you could also run it by calling the docker command followed by the word compose. You might run into issues if you […]
How To Set Up A DNS For Wireguard
In this post I explain how to set up a DNS server that you can use inside your Wireguard VPN network. My main Wireguard node is an Ubuntu Server 22.04 machine and I choose to use bind9 as my DNS server. You can find a description of my Wireguard setup here. Installing and configuring bind9 […]
Portainer: A great web interface for my lab
Why Portainer? Works with Docker, Docker Swarm, Kubernetes My setup consists of four Raspberry Pis scattered across three locations and a Cloud VM that ties them together in a Wireguard network. Besides a few exceptions like MySQL, I run applications using Docker. Unfortunately, I am not a Docker master. Thankfully. Portainer turned out to be […]
How To Make Your Own Zigbee Hub
The Zigbee standard Zigbee is a low-power wireless mesh network standard targeted at battery-powered devices in wireless control and monitoring applications. Zigbee delivers low-latency communication. Zigbee chips are typically integrated with radios and with microcontrollers. Wikipedia I first learned about Zigbee when I decided to make my apartment in Zagreb smart. After an initial consultation with a professional […]
An Overview Of The Architecture Of My Engineering Blog
In this post I will introduce the architecture of the Engineering blog. As most of you will notice, the blog is powered by WordPress. It’s an on-premise solution that is currently served from two Raspberry Pi 4B computers. The system is exposed to the public internet through a tunnel to a lightweight VPS hosted in […]
Wireguard: A simple, powerful VPN for my Raspberry Pis
This post talks about Virtual Private Networks. It is a common feature of cloud networking. I currently use Wireguard. It serves to connect all my Raspberry Pi machines together and with my public entry point in the cloud. In addition, I have machines scattered across multiple locations. This way I can connect securely to those […]
I made a simple, cheap NVR with BASH and FFMPEG
Introduction I started studying IP cameras and surveillance as a survival skill a few years ago. My family has some nice homes that we want to protect. The houses are far apart from each other. I also wanted to see the different environments and climates so that I could get that feeling of being there. […]
My Five Home Automation Improvements By Value
I began looking into home automation about a year and a half ago. I was going to do some upgrades to my apartment. Naturally, it seemed like a good time to make it a little smarter. Here are the things I installed then which I still use today. 1. Smart Lighting With Zigbee Fine control […]
How To Boot Ubuntu Server on the Raspberry Pi
Introduction In the previous post we kicked off this series as a DIY home data center project. This second post deals with installing an Operating System on the two Raspberry Pi. If we take a look at our shopping list from Part 1, we see two USB hard disk drives listed. I will attach each […]