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rclone Backblaze B2 Cloud Backup

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 06:00:00 -0400

I’ve discussed using rclone in previous post. Well, since I’m getting close to filling up some storage locally, and hard drive prices are currently astronmically high right now, I figured I would check out affordable cloud storage to send some of my data that I don’t access often to long-term storage using Backblaze B2. And the reason I have chosen Backblaze B2 over Google Drive is that I am slowly migrating all services I use away from Google. One major issue I have with Google Drive is that it doesn’t have the level of encryption that Backblaze has for keeping my data safe.

KVM Windows 11 Virtual Machine Fine Tuning

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 08:30:00 -0400

It is really unfortunate that I have to do this at a university that should be operating system and Office suite agnostic (especially for a degree in Information Technology); I needed to setup a Windows 11 virtual machine just so that I could use the Microsoft 365 Office Suite for some classes now that Microsoft is no longer supporting Windows 10. Some of you, as you read this, are probably saying “Just use LibreOffice”. And I do; I use it frequently when I can. But, if you have used LibreOffice enough you know that sometimes the translations to Microsoft Office format does not always populate correctly.

AWS EC2 Web Server And Let's Encrypt

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 08:15:00 -0400

I started a project that I wanted to test to see if I could do it; mainly for a domain I have owned for many years that is currently not being used, edwardcrosby.com. The idea was to use the free tier version of an AWS EC2 instance (free for only the first year) in their version of a Fedora Server virtual machine called Amazon Linux 2023. I setup that server and then completed the following.

Hugo Site on Netlify

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Well, it’s been a while since I have posted. I realized today that I never posted my transition of moving my self-hosted Hugo generated web site from a Red Hat virtual web server on my homelab to the free-tier hosting on Netlify. This also included finally learning the basics of Git and using a remote Git repository in Bitbucket.

It was a surprisingly easy transition, moving from my local server to Netlify. I think the most difficult part, for me, was learning how to get my local Git repo where my Hugo files existed to Bitbucket. I’m not a developer and anything code related, even if it is the simple use of Git, is a bit of a learning hurdle for me. I simply followed the steps from this site, and other resources from my web search, changed the DNS on my domain from my local WAN IP address to point at Netlify’s, and all was working. I was really surprised how easy it was to migrate. The only difference was I have a different and simplier netlify.toml config than what I found on the site referenced above. Mine looks like this:

Podman Rootless Container Start on Boot

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 05:46:00 -0400

I’ve been a Docker user for years. I’ve never been an expert, I’ve only used it enough to get by in deploying Containers on my home lab for self-hosting services. Recently, I decided it was time to use Podman instead of Docker just so I could learn the differences. The major differences, as I understand it, is that Podman is more secure due to the ability of deploying a rootless container. So, I setup a new virtual machine running AlmaLinux 9, installed all the Podman packages and proceeded with, first, setting up Homarr dashboard using a Docker compose file. I deployed it as usual; this time using the podman-compose command instead of docker-compose using a standard non-root user. From there, I decided to migrate a couple of other containers (Freshrss and flatnote) from a different machine where they had been running as a Docker container to the new virtual machine running Podman and they all started up nicely. What I had found, so far, is that most things translate easily from Docker to Podman. Fair enough, easy enough.

Linux 101 - Part 2

Sat, 10 May 2025 12:16:00 -0400

In part 1 of Linux 101, in my attempt to inform those interested in the basics of Linux, I gave a brief breakdown of why I am doing these post. In this part 2 I will continue to do so by breaking down the different versions of Linux distributions.

In the graphic above, I have a desktop distribution list and a server distribution list. Even though the list, as a whole, is not the full list of distributions available, it is a list of the more common and popular distros at the time of this post. To get a complete list of all that is available, visit the DistroWatch website.

KVM Virtual Machine Template

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 11:00:00 -0400

In a previous post I discussed creating a RHEL or AlmaLinux KVM virtual machine using a Kickstart file and a bash shell script. I’ve recently decided that I wanted an easier approach to quickly creating a virtual machine using a pre-existing template I had created. In my research, I found there are quite a few ways to complete this task but this is the method that works for me, using AlmaLinux, and may also work for you.

Home Network Internet Parental Controls with UniFi Network

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 19:00:00 -0500

I have a young child in my home. As she gets older (she’s turning 9 years old this month) she has more and more exposure to the internet. For any parent, this is a challenge; I need to keep her safe from malicious content on the internet. I have used Ubiquiti network devices on my LAN for many years and have had no major complaints with their products. However, one thing that really isn’t very clear in their UniFi Network web interface, used to manage all my devices, is that you can manage internet use for a specific client. And not many people know this feature. Mainly, I believe, is because Ubiquiti is geared toward small office to enterprise level networks where there is an expectation that an experienced Network Admin knows their products and has the expertise to manage the network.

Linux 101 - Part 1

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 05:00:00 -0500

I love Linux. I am passionate about Linux. I am a Linux geek. I think I have stated that before in this blog but I wanted to state that claim again for this post.

There was a time that I had attempted to run a YouTube channel to help those interested in learning Linux. However, I found that with the limited time that I had between personal life, work life and school life was a very difficult task to maintain. Since I now have this blogging site, I figured I would try to post some of the content from that video series for those interested in learning about Linux. The information I posted mostly came from my personal knowledge but I also pulled information from the Linux Professional Institute’s Linux Essentials and LPIC-1 certification content. Both of those certifications have some very basic information about Linux but also will have more advanced content for those interested in really learning and obtaining certifications for Linux Systems Administration. In fact, if you wanted to, you could go to their site and download their study guides for free. So, to recycle, this post, and future post, will have some of that same basic content from my old channel.

Fedora & Debian Photo Album Kiosk

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:30:00 -0500

I previously posted about setting up a Raspberry Pi with Raspbian 11 as a photo album kiosk. Since then I wanted to test completing the same setup with Debian and Fedora on an x86 machine, just in case my Raspberry Pi died, or if I decided I needed a faster machine and wanted to use my spare Beelink S12. This a great setup if you have a spare machine and monitor lying around for displaying family photos (again, see previously post to see my example). Well, in testing on a virtual machine I came up with these basic steps below.

Beelink Mini S12 Faulty Network

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 15:30:00 -0400

I recently purchased a second Beelink mini S12; mainly because it was such a good deal for $140 USD that I couldn’t pass up. The difference in this model versus the S12 Pro I had purchased for my Jellyfin server (see previous post), is that the S12 Pro is an Intel N100 while the S12 is an Intel N95. Well, it is true that you get what you pay for. The S12 (N95) has a bad wired network interface.

Home Server Monitoring with Cockpit and Landscape

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 17:30:00 -0400

Server monitoring has many levels. From my own personal experience, in the I.T. world as a Systems Administrator, I have used many products for such purposes (e.g. SolarWinds). You can monitor servers for simply their availability status. Or, you can get as detailed as monitoring performance and resource statistics. On my home network, I have tried many solutions from Nagios to Zabbix to Checkmk. All have been solid solutions but, truthfully, a bit of overkill. At the moment, the most basic monitoring I have in place is Uptime Kuma internally that sends notifications to Discord if a server goes down. Externally, since I self-host my own web server (here), I use the free version of UptimeRobot for up time with notifications straight to my email.

rclone Google Drive Cloud Backup

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 06:00:00 -0400

In my backup strategy I have a few tiers of backup for restore scenarios. I have my primary data folder that syncs to my Nextcloud server on my home network using the Nextcloud client. This is so I can sync that same data to multiple devices on my LAN, even while I am off my LAN using my Tailscale network. That Nextcloud instance has a NFS share mounted from my 8TB Synology NAS (one of these days I’ll post about my Nextcloud setup). At the same time I also rsync that same data folder to a separate directory on my Synology NAS and that directory on the NAS, and everything else, also rsyncs to an external 8TB USB drive; all scheduled to be completed twice a week via a crontab. So that I have off-site backup of my primary data folder, I also use a service called MEGA. I’ve been using it for over a year and have not had any issues with it, until now.

Jellyfin and the Beelink Mini S12 Pro

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 06:15:00 -0400

I believe I may have mentioned (but don’t fully recall) in a previous post that I was a Plex user for many years. I had it running on my Intel NUC running CentOS then to AlmaLinux then to Red Hat and it worked well without any issues. For the past couple of years or so, I haven’t been happy with the direction Plex has been moving, like requiring a “cloud” account in order to view my own local media. Also, adding stuff like Live TV and other membership functions that I don’t care about. I just needed something that served up my local media for me to play on all my Roku devices on my LAN. I had tested and played around with Jellyfin about a year ago but I didn’t have a very good experience with it then. Well, over the past few months I decided to give it another chance. When I setup the Minisforum NAB5 (mentioned in previous post), I installed Jellyfin and ran with it for a while. Well, while viewing some high definition movies, I was noticing some crashes of Jellyfin and large skips to a different time frame. Through troubleshooting and research, I discovered that the use of Red Hat 8 on my Minisforum lacked some features that Jellyfin required (e.g. Jellyfin’s version of ffmeg) for proper transcoding. If I had done more research ahead of time by reading Jellyfin’s own documentation before setting up Jellyfin on Red Hat I would have read that their configuration works better with Ubuntu. Fast forward to my discovery of a fellow Jupiter Broadcasting Linux Unplugged podcast listener (412Linux) posting on his experiences with the Beelink Mini S12 Pro and then taking note of how inexpensive that device is on Amazon for less than 200 USD, I decided to purchase the 16GB RAM/500GB storage version for 180 USD. I’ve since installed Ubuntu 24.04 Server, installed and configured Jellyfin based on Jellyfin’s extensive documentation making sure to install the intel-opencl-icd and intel-gpu-tools package from Ubuntu’s repository.

New PC Build

Thu, 23 May 2024 05:30:00 -0400

Finally, after using the same PC build for 9 years, I have built a new desktop PC. Thanks to the community members over at Tom’s Hardware forum, I puchased the parts from this list (as of 05/2024): https://pcpartpicker.com/user/t3kg33k_og/saved/#view=zpXWrH

Even though I am an avid Linux fan, I had no choice but to install Windows 11 because there is one game that I play regulary (when I have the time), and have played for a very long time, that will not work in Steam’s ProtonDB is Insurgency: Sandstorm due to the anti-cheat software it uses is only compatible in Windows. For all my other games on Steam, and as my daily driver, I use Fedora Plasma in a dual-boot configuration.

Minisforum NAB5 New VM Host

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 05:06:00 -0400

I found such a good deal on a new computer a few weeks ago that I had to pull the trigger. I had been shopping for an inexpensive mini-PC that I could setup as a new KVM/libvirt virtual machine host to replace my Intel NUC and found the Minisforum Venus Series NAB5 on Newegg on sale for 359 dollars USD. Normally, I purchase used computers on Ebay, most of the time for under 200 dollars USD; the two Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 you see in the diagram below I purchased for less than 100 dollars USD (my leon machine had some roles at one time but have been migrated to other servers). My Intel NUC is just getting too old and doesn’t have the required resources I need for virtual machines, that was the main reason I purchased something new that had more resources.

Ghost Blogging Busting

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 08:15:45 -0400

I moved from Ghost blogging plaform self-hosted on one of my servers at home using a Docker compose file to the simplified use of a static site generator that is Hugo. There was quite a bit of a learning curve being that I am not a developer but YouTube and other resources on the internet were instrumental in helping me set everything up. Now, I just have Hugo installed on my Fedora workstation and a RHEL 8 web server for posting all the files that Hugo generates.

This Site's RSS feed

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 08:15:45 -0400

~~I just discovered the Ghost CMS (this blogging platform) automatically comes with an rss feed to plug into your favorite feed reader. Here it is: https://www.androidsdream.net/rss/~~

EDIT - 04/01/2024: Since moving from Ghost to Hugo, this site’s rss link is different now than from what it used to be on Ghost. You can now find an icon in the left panel for the link.

Server Install Post-Configuration

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 08:15:45 -0400

As mentioned in last post when I complete a server install of either Red Hat or AlmaLinux, I have a post install shell script that completes some configuration setups. Hopefully someday I will get to writing an Ansible playbook to complete the same steps instead of using the shell script. I already have an Ansible playbook that configures my Fedora desktop and laptop when I complete a fresh install (I’ll share in a later post) so it’s just a matter of completing some of the same steps in the server Ansible playbook.

Virtual Machine Automated Install

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 08:15:45 -0400

As you may have seen in my last post, I have a Red Hat virtual machine host running on an Intel NUC. This virtual host has a couple of functions for my virtual environment: To setup virtual machines for permanent services (e.g. proxy server, web server, Home Assistant, etc.) and to setup a virtual machine for temporary testing. It seems that more times than any others that I have use cases for setting up a temporary virtual machine for some testing. As you may have also seen in my previous post is that I prefer the Linux operating system. There was a time that I used CentOS, but then that changed to AlmaLinux (for reasons, if you know the history of CentOS). However, when I found out that one can sign up for a Red Hat Developer account (https://developers.redhat.com/products/rhel/download) that allows for 16 free RHEL subscriptions, that settled the move from AlmaLinux to Red Hat. I use and support Red Hat in my day job, so why not use it at home too, was my thought. Don’t get me wrong about AlmaLinux. I love that operating system and consider it to be the best alternative to Red Hat.

Home Network

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 08:15:45 -0400

Before I move forward with discussing events on my network and any cool new items I discover that I may want to post on this blog, I figure I would give you an idea of what I have setup as of today as a frame of reference. One thing that I have discovered over the years, though, is that my home lab is very dynamic. The visual diagram below depicts a very basic setup of my LAN. A few things it does not display is the separate (segmented) VLAN I have setup for all my IoT devices, a number of wireless devices that I have on my default VLAN (Roku, smartphones, tablets, printers, etc.) and the Tailscale network running on some of my nodes. In regards to the Tailscale network, just know that a few of the devices displayed below have services running that are only available on my Tailscale network (e.g. Nextcloud, Rustdesk). I am sure there is room for improvement and there are probably a few things I am doing wrong. But I am learning something new almost every day and that is why I find my LAN can be so dynamic.

Raspberry Pi Kiosk Photo Album

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 08:15:45 -0400

A while back I had purchased an Eyoyo 7 inch mini HDMI monitor to use on my physical servers on my home network. I usually setup headless configuration on my servers but I still need to be able to see what I am doing when I install the operating system (I haven’t had the time yet to configure automated install) or troubleshoot an issue. Well the monitor has been sitting on my home office desk, most of the time, doing nothing. I also had a Raspberry Pi 3 sitting around doing nothing so I decided it was time to setup a makeshift photo frame for my desk. I ended up following the usual guides found everywhere for configuring Raspberry Pi OS in kiosk mode and partially how to setup the feh utility for the image viewer in this guide. In the article I followed the steps to disable screen blanking. I figured out, though, that I needed to add the following:

Expectations

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 08:15:45 -0400

If you’re here and haven’t read my About page yet, you should expect post on this site will mostly be focused on technology, most of it probably Linux related, my passion. I can’t guarantee that there will be frequent post, but I will try to fit one in every now and then outside of school (currently working on my B.S. in I.T.) and family time.