Podman on ZFS

Posted on Wed 03 January 2024 in linux

When running rootless podman on a ZFS mount, it defaults to the vfs storage driver. And while this works, it causes a huge waste of disk space by duplicating files for every layer. Using overlay solves this when running rootfull, but this is currently not supported on ZFS. It should …


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Configuring WLED to wipe-on the LEDs on startup

Posted on Wed 22 November 2023 in electronics

WLED is an open source project for controlling LED-strips. I wanted my LED strip to "wipe on" when powering on, similar to the first half of the "Wipe" effect, but staying on after that. These are my notes.

Searching around for similar idea's, I found a usermod for a stairway …


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Specs of the SK6812 LED strip

Posted on Thu 31 August 2023 in electronics

I was considering a SK6812 strip for a project of mine, but I found it very hard to find information online about the power consumption. So I ordered a test strip to do the measurements myself. The SK6812 is an individually addressable LED strip. I got the RGBW variant, where …


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Kerbal Space Program Grand Tour

Posted on Wed 05 July 2023 in games

I wanted a challenge, so I decided to try a "Grand Tour" of the Kerbolar system in Kerbal Space Program. A "Grand Tour" is a single mission where you visit all bodies in the Kerbolar system. The definition of "visit" varies from fly-by to manned landing, depending on how challenging …


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Flight Simulator bush trips

Posted on Mon 12 June 2023 in games

Microsoft Flight Simulator provides "bush trips": a set of VFR flights across an area with nice scenery. When flying these bush trips, you have to rely on the description only, as no navigation aids are available. To me, as a non-native speaker, the descriptions aren't always very clear.

So I …


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In Search for a new Monitoring Solution

Posted on Sat 07 January 2023 in linux

I'm currently running all of my monitoring through Prometheus, backed with InfluxDB for the long-term storage of selected metrics. But recently, I've been limited in functionality when creating graphs in Grafana. And although I like Prometheus, it looks like my use-case is outside the domain of Prometheus.

Use Case

I …


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Rootless podman on Debian Bullseye

Posted on Tue 03 January 2023 in linux

My home server already uses LXC-containers. I use them to keep services isolated, so that I can upgrade my mail server without causing issues to my Nextcloud setup. But these containers contain a full OS inside them. And while this works, it's a bit of work to upgrade a handful …


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The Unifi Protect G4 Doorbell

Posted on Sun 12 June 2022 in reverse-engineering

I've been dragging my feet for years to get a video doorbell. I wanted a doorbell that "just works" as a doorbell, even if the WiFi is down, and I didn't want my video footage to be stored in the cloud, but only accessible when on the local network, either …


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Reverse engineering the Mitsubishi heat-pump WiFi adapter

Posted on Sat 04 June 2022 in reverse-engineering

Recently we had a heat pump (A/C, air conditioner, AirCon) installed. The indoor units came with the usual IR remote, but they also had a built-in WiFi module along with a smartphone app to control them from anywhere. I'm not a big fan of connecting home appliances to clouds …


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Backups

Posted on Wed 04 May 2022 in sysadmin

Recently I was rethinking my off-site backup strategy. Ever since Amazon AWS launched their Glacier Deep Archive storage tier, it looked really interesting for backup use-cases. For starters, it's super cheap to keep your bytes around: $1.01376/TiB/month in most regions as of this writing. I haven't found …


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