Category: Topslakr

Posts by Topslakr

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New House Projects – Network Planning and Setup

EDIT - 11.1.2024 - I have changed many of the equipment choices listed below, which will be another blog post. The equipment from FS has been a total disaster, and the Qotom firewall, while effective, lacked the usability I really wanted in such an important device. The FS wireless equipment is likely to be e-waste, which is horrible, but the Qotom will live on, just in a different role

We’re in the process of moving from our apartment to a house to call our own. It will be somewhere I can drill holes, make improvements, and really nerd-out. The new spot has, if you can believe it, access to symmetric 2 Gigabit internet service for under $100/month.… Click here to read more!

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Books Read: 2022

Having forgotten to make this post at the end of 2022, this post is a little tardy. But, I organize my reading into year based ‘Collections’ on my Kindle, so knowing what was read isn’t too hard to figure out. Figuring our the order in which I read them proving a stiffer challenge!

I started the year with a couple of books on time, and historical time keeping. Firstly, I read ‘Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time‘. Solving the problem of navigation for sailing ships was a tough one.… Click here to read more!

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Books Read: 2023

(I’ll try to get my 2021, and 2022 posts up soon too.. totally forgot to write them!)

Firstly, my reading has really declined this year! Though I continue to work from home, I have struggled this year to find gaps to do much reading. I do most of my reading during lunch, or in little pockets throughout the day. This year however, I did not do a good job of actually taking a lunch at work. Something to be addressed in the new year for sure…

[Links below do point to Amazon, since I’m a Kindle reader, but these are simple, direct links without any tracking, etc.]… Click here to read more!

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RSyslog, ZFS, and Storing logs based on the source in my HomeLab

There are many ways to store syslog data, and nearly all of them are better than what I am outlining here. If you’re looking to learn how to deal with syslog at scale, take a look at Graylog, or the Elk Stack or some other similar tool. There are many free and/or open source options to do this. Many of which I’ve setup and used for my employers.

For me though, I’m not looking to load big piles of data into some database and keep it stored for long periods, automatically indexed and cataloged. I don’t need that.

Instead, I’d like to gather logs from a handful of devices, store them as flat files based on the date, and then just throw them away after a month.… Click here to read more!

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Install Fedora, CentOS, Rocky Linux, and Alma Linux via Serial Console – And VNC!

I have a similar post for doing this with Ubuntu. The process here is similar, but simpler.

You can use this with any Red Hat style ‘Anaconda’ installer, from Alma Linux Minimal, to Fedora’s biggest Workstation installer. There is no need to find a special boot.iso. I have been doing Alma Linux installs on a PC Engines APU4D4 with this method, so I thought I’d put up a quick post.

Firstly, copy the install image you want to use onto a USB disk. To do this, I use the DD command. Be careful, of course, since you need to make sure you’re copying the image to the correct disk.… Click here to read more!

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Install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Via Serial Console

I have a few PC Engines APU units that do not have a graphics adapter, and are designed to be setup via a serial interface.

The first step is to find the mini.iso that is made available on the mirrors. This ~75MB image is the core installer for Ubuntu and it will download the items needed to complete your install as it runs, instead of it being pre-loaded onto a larger ISO image. Ubuntu does not make it that easy to find anymore, but if you know where to look you can find what you need.

Head to the below link, and then navigate into the version of Ubuntu you’re looking to install.… Click here to read more!

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Books Read: 2020

I’m trying to be a bit more on the ball with the reading list this year. It’s not even February 2020, and this post is in draft mode. It’s a start…

After the the Charles Dickinson short story called ‘The Chimes’, which I attempted to read for several weeks, I moved onto something short. A small palette cleanser. I read a short PDF/ebook put out by The Minimalists called Minimalist Rulebook: 16 Rules for Living with Less. It’s a great short read with some practical tips and tools to help get things on track.

Toward the end of last year I watched the pilot episode of Anne with an E.… Click here to read more!

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Installing WeeWx on Centos 8 – The Basics

I’ve long been a weather nerd, and some years ago I finally invested in a personal weather station with all the sensors you could want. Temperature and humidity? Of course! Wind speed and direction? Absolutely! I even have a rain gauge, though I wouldn’t want to brag. And, once all of these items were acquired, my wife and I decided to sell our house; We’ve been very happy in our apartment these past 4 years, but apartment living and accurate weather monitoring are not the easiest of friends.

But, I’m getting a head of myself. Lets get started at the beginning: This post is about taking a ‘Minimal’ install of Centos 8 and getting WeeWX 4.1.1 running on it.… Click here to read more!

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Bash Script – Restarting OpenVPN Connections

I use Sanoid, and Syncoid, to take snapshots of my Centos based ZFS storage system and copy them to replicas. Generally speaking, I use re-purposed Thecus N5550 storage units for the remote hardware. I have a long history with Thecus hardware, and while I’m not a fan of their software, I am a big fan of removing it and installing Linux. I usually take out the 2GB of memory it comes with, and swap it for a pair of 4GB modules. The only down side, especially for systems I install in remote locations, is that I don’t have any out of band management.… Click here to read more!

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Behringer X-Live – Splitting 32 Channel WAV Files and Deleting Silence

*** Work on this continues over on GitHub: https://github.com/Topslakr/x32Live-CleanUp ***

At my church we use a Behringer X32 mixer to run Sunday services and we added an X-Live card, instead of the included USB Audio interface card, so we can record our services, multi-tracked, direct to an SD card. This has saved a lot of recording overhead, since we don’t need a PC, display, etc., but it’s also created some hassles.

The X-Live card works great, but it does lack some flexibility we’d like. For instance, you can record 8/16/32 channels off the board but you can’t really pick which ones.… Click here to read more!