MAKING AN ADS-B AIRPLANE TRACKER
This is the first hardware based project I’ve shared, but this is how I built my ADS-B Tracker. What’s ADS-B and Why Track It Most (not all) airplanes are required to broadcast their position as they fly around. This is intended for ATC and other planes primarily, and is another data point in a complex system used to keep these things from running into each other. These signals can be received on the ground, though, and are what power a number of different flight tracking sites to let you track specific planes, activity around an airport, neat or interesting aircraft you might want to go spot, etc.
Read moreRAMBLINGS ON SHITTY CONSUMER INTERNET
This is a post that’s largely going to be me complaining about shitty cable internet that I’ve lived with since its inception. Making the change myself, and now seeing others complain in forums has really soured me to most of the connectivity options out there. I won’t name the specific company, but a lot of this complaining will be focused around my experience with them and the myriad of issues I faced, both technical and non-technical.
Read moreOPNSENSE MONITORING WITH ZABBIX
One thing that is a key asset in any environment is reliable, thorough monitoring. Once as you add more redundant layers to your infrastructure, automated monitoring is frequently the only way to tell if something has failed, short of manual checking. When setting up monitoring for my OPNSense routers, though, I wasn’t super thrilled with the default options. There’s an SNMP template available in Zabbix, but SNMP set up on OPNSense didn’t seem straightforward, and I especially didn’t want to risk exposing this data to untrusted networks my router may sit on.
Read moreUSING UNIFI PROTECT ACROSS VLANS AND VPNS
After Ubiquiti’s recent security faux pas, I started to question the best way to access my Unifi Protect cameras. By default, the Unifi Protect uses your Ubiquti account to log in, and disabling remote access breaks this. This can be bypassed with a little work, and if you’re using OPNSense, it’s pretty easy. Motivation I won’t comment on the recent security issues Ubiquiti had with their Unifi services, which includes the protect line of gear.
Read moreCLEANING UP FIREWALL RULES
One project I recently invented for myself is cleaning up my jumbled mess of firewall rules. The issue is that as time has gone on, I’ve created more VLANS, which has led to more rules that I’ve never really formally organized. It finally reached a tipping point, and after some experimentation, I found a new system that improves my security and makes things much more simple. My Problem The main issue here is that I have a lot of VLANs in my network.
Read morePREPARING FOR YOU HOMELAB'S DEMISE
Trigger Warning: This post talks generally about human mortality and loss of your home. One ting I’ve recently started considering is how my Homelab can survive if I’m not around. At first, everything in the lab was pretty low value so losing things wasn’t a huge deal. Recently though, I’ve started archiving family photos and other important things that need to survive after me. I’ll outline the considerations and situations I took into account, then I’ll share some of the tools I used to plan.
Read moreUSING HTTPS IN YOUR HOMELAB, AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
When you have a homelab, you’re going to start having a number of internal websites and services you use. You’ll learn to live with HTTPS warnings when navigating to these sites, but these warnings can still be a problem. What if we wanted to have valid HTTPS everywhere? HTTPS Primer HTTPS encrypts your traffic so things that intercept it (routers, attackers, etc) can’t decode it, and it does this even with an invalid or self-signed certificate.
Read morePLEASE DON'T SELL SPACE IN YOUR HOMELAB
Hanging out in subreddits like /r/homelab, /r/servers, and /r/datahoarder, I see this question asked too many times: I have extra space in my home server, how can I sell this for other people to use? My answer (and a lot of other people’s answer): don’t. We’re Really Not Trying To Ruin Your Dreams If you come across this post, or if this was sent to you, know that we aren’t doing this for the sole purpose of ruining your day.
Read moreMY THOUGHTS ON LASTPASS AND THEIR RECENT BREACHES
If you’ve poked your head outside in the last few weeks, you’ve noticed that LastPass had a security breach where customer vaults were exposed and downloaded. I’ve been hanging around in /r/lastpass and seeing the mixed reactions has been interesting. Why I’m Leaving I’m leaving LastPass, and had been looking at solutions for the last few months. While the security problems are the last nail in the coffin, I’ll share why I’m leaving besides the breach.
Read moreTHE COST OF HOMELAB BACKUPS
If you ave a homelab, you’ve probably collected a few TB of data that needs backed up. Recently in /r/datahoarder and /r/homelab I’ve seen a lot of posts that ask about backups. I’ve talked about my strategy in the past , but I figured I dive a bit more into offsite backups. If you’re not familiar with why you should be keeping backups or some general rules of thumb, I have some information over here.
Read more