Alex Kretzschmar - Page 4

SSH Tips and why ProxyJump is awesome

What would we do without SSH? I must use it hundreds of times a day for all sorts of tasks. Connect and control any server anywhere in the world? Yes please! In this article I will outline a few tips and tricks I've accrued over the years to make SSH even better. SSH Keys Keys are an absolute fundamental for using SSH. They mean you don't need to use passwords to login to your remote systems and are much more secure. The gold standard for many years has been the rsa key type but more recentl

openshift

Configure Unbound DNS for Openshift 4

A little while ago I wrote a post over on openshift.com about installing Openshift 4 on VMware. Some of you reading it have asked me how I configured the DNS in my particular set up so this post aims to outline that for you. My current firewall software of choice is opnsense, a fork of the popular pfsense project. Both of these projects share a lot of DNA, including their usage of the DNS server unbound. Note this post was written to compliment the openshift.com blog post and was tested agains

linux

Send a Pushover notification from Linux

How can you make a Linux system notify your phone when it reboots?

ansible

Secret Management with docker-compose and Ansible Vault

Secret management with docker-compose doesn't have to be an enigma.

linux

Remove Ubuntu MOTD spam at login

For some reason lately the spam from Ubuntu at login via MOTD (message of the day) seems to have gotten worse. Here's how to remove it.

home assistant

Roborock S5 zoned cleanup with Valetudo + Home Assistant

And with that you should be able to hit the button on the Lovelace card and dispatch the Robovac to wherever you please! Clean-up on Aisle 5.

zfs

Combining ZFS with other filesystems using mergerfs

Use ZFS to store your most critical data without breaking the bank for your less important files.

pihole

Using Pihole with pfsense or opnsense

Pihole is a network wide ad blocker. Using DHCP we can tell every device on your network to automatically and transparently use Pihole for DNS. But what if you have custom DNS entries in your firewall? I use OPNsense but this process largely transposes to PFsense as well. When your laptop makes a DNS request, it is sent to Pihole. Pihole performs a lookup and if it can't find the requested address, forwards that request on to the next DNS server in the chain. If OPNsense has that DNS record in

apple

The State of the MacBook Pro in 2020

A spec bump update such as this, in a chassis design that is 4 years old does not inspire huge amounts of confidence that this machine is where Apple are spending their time, love and R&D $$$.

terraform

Store Terraform secrets in YAML files with yamldecode

In May of 2019 Hashicorp released Terraform 0.12. This release completely changed the way in which variable interpolation was performed and whilst some backwards compatibility was kept, there were some breaking changes. Most notably, the way in which functions and interpolations were called with no more "${}" required. Here's the problem statement. I want to use Terraform to create VMs on Digitalocean using the token that doctl stores in ~/.config/doctl/config.yaml. Using that same logic it mad

self-hosted

Self-Hosted launches a Discord server

Yes, that's right! The Self-Hosted podcast has launched a Discord server!

3d printing

3D printed COVID-19 Face Shields

Imagine what we could do for healthcare workers if everyone with a 3d printer did a few masks a day each. It would be amazing. So let's do this.

unifi

How to adopt a Unifi AP with a remote controller

A fresh out of the box Unifi Access Point has no idea what to do with itself. It starts scanning the local LAN for any controllers to 'announce' that it is here and needs configuration. But what about when your controller isn't on the LAN? Mine is running on a DigitalOcean droplet, for example. We need to tell the AP where the controller resides in order for the announcement to be successful. It's actually a relatively straightforward thing to solve but requires a few steps which I'll outline b

home assistant

Home Assistant External Reverse Proxy Setup with nginx

I run nginx as my reverse proxy of choice from the folks over at linuxserver.io with automated Let's Encrypt functionality. It plugs neatly into the 20 or so containers I run on my primary server VM and the thought of migrating over the in-built Home Assistant plus reconfiguring all my configs made me go weak at the fingertips. My fully Ansiblised home infrastructure is open sourced at github.com/ironicbadger/infra including all my reverse proxy configs I was running into an issue for a while

ssh

sshuttle - A stupidly simple "VPN" over SSH

This simple tool is incredibly useful and allows me to route my DNS requests through an SSH tunnel enabling circumvention of firewalls, geo-location content blocks and even protects your traffic from the casual coffee shop packet sniffer.

drones

FAA Remote ID Proposal

This post highlights a critical issue surrounding the future of remote controlled aircraft flight in the United States. This proposal affects ALL RC PILOTS. Drones, Planes, Helicopters. Anything that flies and is unmanned over 250g.

opinion

Brexit Day.

And so with Brexit day upon us I feel a tremendous sadness that my fellow countrymen would rather rebuild the empire (which was built on murder and slavery by the way), take back potato picking jobs that nobody in the UK wants to do anyway and for what?

year-in-review

2019: My Year in Review

I started putting a list of each years primary achievements on Facebook a couple of years ago and it's a nice tradition. 2019 has been one helluva year for me personally, here's a recap. * Prusa Mk3 arrived * Our first Hockey game at the Carolina Hurricanes * Built my first DIY smart LED strips * Bought a Table Saw * Bought a Pickup Truck (Clifford, the Big Red Truck) * Catherine acquired a new Yamaha Clavinova Piano * Huge tree felled in our front yard * Talk accepted for LinuxFest Nor

home assistant

Backing up Home Assistant

HASSIO is probably the easiest way to run Home Assistant. It's a pre-packaged appliance aimed at a few key devices such as Raspberry Pi and so on. Being an appliance has pros and cons. The primary con is that installing software and advanced system configuration is not possible, though this is conversely also the primary advantage! You spend time with Home Assistant not administrating the system. Bad things happen and backups are your last line of defense in the event of hardware failure, theft

home assistant

Getting a Xiaomi API Token for a Roborock S5 to link with Home Assistant

On Black Friday the Roborock S5 was discounted heavily enough that I bought one. I gave the Home Assistant Xiaomi Mi Robot Vacuum integration a look over before I did and browsed some reddit posts suggesting it was supported. Approximately 6 hours of frustration later, I finally got my API token. Here's how... Being no stranger to API keys, Personal Access Tokens and what have you I didn't really think that getting the token required for Home Assistant to connect with the Robot Vacuum could pos

golf r

3D Printing a custom Vantrue S1 dash cam bracket for a Golf R

The bracket uses a tiny bit of hot glue just to ensure the camera boot has a nice tight fit in the slot so that it doesn't vibrate around too much in there. The footage that came out the other end is remarkably smooth and stable and the bracket attaches with no screws or other adhesives.

home assistant

Home Assistant Smart LEDs using WLED and ESP8266

WLED library gets native Home Assistant API integration. This post walks you through everything you need to get up and running.

apple

Switching to iOS

I just got back from the Apple Store where I returned $2781.72 worth of merchandise.

photography

My Photography Workflow

I received a tweet asking me about my photography workflow and whilst this is something that is constantly evolving I thought it might make sense to at least capture what I’m doing at the moment and share it with the world.

golf r

Custom lighting coding with an OBDEleven on a 2019 Golf R

I'd highly recommend anyone with a VAG car to get this OBDeleven Pro device. VCS used to cost $$$ thousands and require a laptop. But here all you need is an Android device, what's not to like?