Blog Posts - 2024

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How to factory restore a ZimaBoard
December 22, 2024 5 min read
I've recently been playing around with ZimaBoard, a single board server running Debian and CasaOS. It's a cool little machine, but I accidentally broke something and had to factory reset. It's not a simple option in a some settings menu, the process involves flashing an image on the ZimaBoard, so I wrote down the steps I took.
Setting up a reverse proxy for HTTPS with a custom domain using Nginx Proxy Manager, Pi-Hole and Cloudflare
October 17, 2024 15 min read
I've used a reverse proxy to access my self-hosted apps and services for years, but I recently re-did everything from scratch and decided to write it down. When done, you'll be able to access your apps and services through a custom domain, with unique sub-domains for each app or service, with full HTTPS and accessible only locally.
How to use Pi-hole from anywhere with Tailscale
September 25, 2024 7 min read
Tailscale is my new homelab toy. I've been using it to access my media on the go, to connect to a VPS for sharing my Plex library with family, and now for on-the-go adblocking on my phone, tablet and laptop -- here's how.
How to expose Plex to share your library with others from behind CGNAT using Tailscale and a free Oracle Cloud instance
September 3, 2024 25 min read
I wrote before about sharing my Plex library via Cloudflare Tunnel, but that is technically against their TOS and liable to get your account in trouble. So I switched to using a free-tier Oracle VM, securely connecting it to my home network via Tailscale, and exposing Plex via reverse proxy on the VM. It works like a charm!
How to expose Plex to share your library with others from behind CGNAT with Cloudflare Tunnel
July 15, 2024 15 min read
Exposing Plex to share your library with other users normally involves port forwarding from the router, which is very insecure and not recommended. If your home network is behind CGNAT - very common with most ISPs nowadays -- you can't even port forward if you wanted to. Here's how I did it in a fairly secure way that limits access by using Cloudflare.
Comprehensive guide to setting up Tailscale to securely access your home network from anywhere
June 25, 2024 17 min read
Accessing self-hosted services from outside the home can be a challenge, especially when dealing with CGNAT and having to forward ports from the router. It can be complex to manage and potentially dangerous to your home network's privacy and security if not done right, but Tailscale makes it easy to set up encrypted peer-to-peer connections between devices across different networks. In this guide I will explain how I use Tailscale as a VPN for secure remote access to my home network.
Setup Watchtower to auto-update Docker containers with notifications
May 31, 2024 8 min read
I'm running almost 30 containers on my home server at this point, and I'm extremely lazy when it comes to updating them. Watchtower is a lightweight set-it-and-forget-it solution to auto-updating containers, and it even has built-in notifications. Here's how to set it up using either Pushover or Discord.
Setup X-plore File Manager on Android to transfer files to an SMB share
March 26, 2024 4 min read
I've wrote before about file managers for Android before, recently I found X-plore which makes it very easy to transfer files back and forth between Android and SMB network shares, once you understand how the UI works. Here's to connect X-plore to an SMB network share so you can transfer files between devices.
How to resolve Git error insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database
March 17, 2024 2 min read
When working on a GitHub repo from different Linux hosts, I encountered an "insufficient permission" error when using git commands. Here is the solution that worked for me from StackOverflow.
Using MergerFS to combine multiple hard drives into one unified media storage
March 11, 2024 6 min read
My situation was simple -- my server's media storage was filling up and I wanted to add more drives, but without having to keep track of which drive specific files were for Plex. How to pool multiple hard drives together when they're all different brands, models and capacities? Enter mergerfs, an open source union filesystem that essentially merges multiple drives into one mount point.
Set up Home Assistant Supervised on a Libre Computer Sweet Potato SBC
March 3, 2024 4 min read
Home Assistant is an open source home automation solution that gives you local control over your smart home. It can also be run on Libre Computer's boards, but I ran into some issues following the official instructions from Libre, so here's how I got it working.
Merging sites and changing hosts
February 28, 2024 9 min read
Something a little different. Not a guide, just thoughts and opinions about a recent controversy over Netlify, and a decision about the site I made as a result.