Joshua Mein

How a one-line apt config default left every host on my fleet sending email with From: root, why Brevo accepted those messages but Gmail dropped them on DMARC alignment, and the live A/B test that nailed it down to a ...

Why GNOME's built-in VPN panel can't drive Tailscale, how I shipped a small GJS extension to fix that across GNOME Shell 48–50, and the signal-handler re-fire bug that made my toggle behave like a one-shot fuse.

A small bash script that pulls the latest Nextcloud All-in-One image, recreates the child containers, and triggers the update by calling AIO's internal cron PHP directly — turning AIO's manual UI update flow into some...

A complete guide to issuing a Let's Encrypt wildcard cert via DNS-01, deploying it to all Proxmox VE and PBS nodes, handling the PBS fingerprint gotcha that will break your backups, and wiring up email alerts on every...

How I got ComfyUI running natively on an AMD RX 7900 XTX on Windows 11 using ROCm 7.1, without Zluda, with Wan2.1, LTX-Video, and FramePack custom nodes — and the exact steps to replicate it.

How I got zero-shot voice cloning running on a Windows gaming machine with an AMD RX 7900 XTX — using ROCm 7.1 natively on Windows, with an ONNX+DirectML fallback for when you don't want the full SDK.

How I investigated and resolved PBS S3 connection issues, migrated to a closer regional endpoint, and properly optimized backups after a Glacier lifecycle misconfiguration.

How I diagnosed and fixed timeout failures, slow code execution, and WebSocket drops in my self-hosted Open WebUI + AWS Bedrock setup — including custom patches, a Jupyter code execution server, and the trade-offs of ...

When new Gmail labels wouldn't appear in Outlook Classic despite existing on the IMAP server, the only reliable fix was deleting the OST file to force a full resync. Here's the batch script that automates it on every ...

A comprehensive audit of 27 VMs across 3 Proxmox hosts revealed critical storage issues, broken monitoring, outdated operating systems, and years of accumulated tech debt. Here's how I fixed it all in one session.

How and why I migrated all my homelab email alerts — Proxmox backups, Zabbix monitoring, and even an ESP32 door sensor — from Gmail App Passwords to Brevo's SMTP relay.

A deep dive into debugging intermittent 'Model not found' failures in Open WebUI with AWS Bedrock, uncovering cache invalidation bugs, event loop blocking, and blank message issues.

How I took an abandoned MusicBot fork and modernised it with 48 slash commands, a Spotify-powered radio feature, Docker support, systemd hardening, input validation, and a full test suite. 3,640 lines added across 21 ...

How I hardened a remote Raspberry Pi 4 running a UniFi controller to survive on 905MB of RAM, an SD card, and zero physical access — 200 miles from home.

Evernode Node Doctor is a bash script that validates everything needed to run an Evernode node on the Xahau blockchain — system requirements, Docker, networking, SSL, port scanning, account balances, and Xahau WSS con...

This guide documents the process of setting up a Docker environment with Open WebUI and Bedrock Access Gateway on an Ubuntu 24.04 server.

Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) doesn’t natively support S3 storage as a Datastore, but with a little creativity and the help of s3fs-fuse, you can make it work! Here’s a step-by-step guide to mounting S3

Configuring Proxmox Network Interfaces This guide will help you configure a Proxmox host with a newly added dual-port NIC card, switching the management interface and setting up a bridge for additiona

This guide will demonstrate how to configure a script that updates your DNS record in a series of straightforward steps. We’ll begin by installing the necessary dependencies, then proceed to gat

Cloud images are operating system templates and every instance starts out as an identical clone of every other instance. It is the user data that gives every cloud instance its personality and cloud-i

Learn how to build a real-time temperature and humidity monitoring system using a DHT22 sensor, Raspberry Pi, Flask, Prometheus, and Grafana. This project demonstrates data collection, metric exposure

Logical volumes (LVs) in Linux provide a powerful layer of abstraction for managing storage. Their flexibility lets you easily shrink, expand, and manage disk space. However on proxmox sometimes you m

Semaphore a Modern UI for Ansible, Terraform and Bash. Easy to install, easy to setup, easy to use.

This is a guide aimed at new starters that want a step by step guide on how to format a volume on ubuntu 22.04 LTS and mount it to a folder automatically on start-up. I couldn’t find many good guides

Unifi controller memory usage adjusted using system.properties.

Improve SD card lifespan with backups, free space, swap removal, ZRAM.

The post details using Ansible and SSH keys for automated server patching, emphasizing enhanced security, improved efficiency, and scalability. It outlines the high-level steps of the deployment, the

Fail2ban is a Linux security tool that prevents unauthorized access by detecting and blocking brute-force attacks. It scans system log files for suspicious activity and automatically creates firewall

Mesh Wi-Fi systems promise whole-home coverage, but they can fall short in demanding environments. In this post, I'll walk you through a recent project where I replaced a struggling mesh network with Ubiquiti UniFi.

Tailscale VPN offers secure and user-friendly mesh networking. Access Control Lists (ACLs) provide enhanced security by defining precise device access rules. Configure and review ACLs via the Admin Co

Ansible simplifies server management with powerful automation, like a trusty sidekick in DevOps.

A home lab offers IT professionals a dedicated space to enhance skills, troubleshoot, and stay updated with evolving technologies. It provides hands-on experience, exam practice, and a safe environmen

One of the smaller projects which I particularly enjoyed enabled a fire alarm system to interact with the organisations ERP system. This was an integration project where a business stakeholder wanted

SQL, or Structured Query Language, is a programming language designed for managing and manipulating relational databases. It is widely used in the field of database management and is considered a stan