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My Smart Home Brain: A Deep Dive into My Home Assistant Setup

Welcome to a tour of my digital command center! For years, I've been running and refining my smart home using Home Assistant, the powerful open-source home automation platform.

Upgrade a Windows 10 Proxmox VM to Windows 11

With the end of life date quickly approaching, I decided it was time to make a post about upgrading a Windows 10 VM to Windows 11.

JDB-NET has a New Look!

Welcome to the new and improved JDB-NET! I'm excited to announce that I've moved on from the old Ghost-powered blog and have replaced it with a brand new site that I've built from the ground up using Flask and a fantastic dark theme from Tailwind CSS.

Level Up Your Network Management: Introducing Our Self-Hosted IPAM & Datacenter Solution

Tired of juggling spreadsheets and disjointed tools to manage your network's IP addresses and physical hardware? I've been there. That's why I built a comprehensive, self-hosted IP Address Management (IPAM) and datacenter visualisation platform to bring sanity back to network administration.

Introducing EchoLog: Your Personal Homelab Journal

Every homelab enthusiast knows the journey is one of constant tinkering, learning, and discovery. But how do you keep track of it all? From a minor configuration tweak to a major server overhaul, remembering every command, change, and breakthrough can be a challenge. That's why I created EchoLog - a simple, beautiful, and self-hosted journaling platform designed specifically for you.

JDB-NET Calendar: Self-Host Your Schedule

In a world where our digital lives are increasingly managed by large corporations, the data we produce, our plans, our appointments, our entire schedule, is often stored on servers we have no control over. I wasn't entirely comfortable with that, which is why I decided to build my own solution: JDB-NET Calendar.

SSL Certificates for OPNsense through Cloudflare

When accessing the OPNsense web interface, by default you'll get a warning about the SSL certificate not being valid. If you have a domain in Cloudflare, then you can use their API with the help of Lets Encrypt to generate a valid certificate.

Self Hosted Docker Image Repo Using Harbor

Harbor is an open-source container image registry that enhances the Docker Distribution project by providing a robust set of features tailored for enterprise needs.

VMs vs LXCs: When to use what

If you're running a Proxmox environment, you've probably noticed it supports two types of virtualisation: Virtual Machines (VMs) and Linux Containers (LXCs). Both are powerful, flexible, and useful in different scenarios, but knowing when to use which can save you time, resources, and a few headaches down the road.

Immich - The Self Hosted Google Photos Alternative

Proxmox Datacenter Manager

If like me you have a lot of individual Proxmox nodes or a lot of Proxmox clusters then this is for you. Proxmox Datacenter Manager allows you to combine all of your Proxmox nodes and clusters into a single web interface. Funnily enough a bit like vCenter from VMWare!

Using Prometheus and Grafana for Advanced Monitoring

In today’s tech landscape, where server uptime and performance are critical to user experience and operational efficiency, effective monitoring tools have become essential. Prometheus and Grafana are two powerful, open-source solutions that together offer a robust platform for real-time monitoring and visualisation. Prometheus provides precise, customisable metrics collection, while Grafana brings these metrics to life with rich, interactive dashboards. This combination not only helps identify and resolve issues before they impact users but also enables data-driven insights to optimise performance and prevent future bottlenecks. If you're managing infrastructure, scaling applications, or just looking to maintain a healthy server environment, Prometheus and Grafana are indispensable tools to consider.

Self Hosted ChatGPT using Ollama

Setting up Ollama AI is a great way to dive into the world of artificial intelligence without the hassle. Whether you want help with content creation, answering complex questions, or just automating some of your routine tasks, Ollama makes AI accessible and pretty intuitive. It’s built for everyone from curious beginners to tech enthusiasts who want to get hands-on with AI in a way that’s practical and fun. If you’re ready to see what AI can really do for you, Ollama is a solid place to start!

SSL Certificates for Proxmox Backup Server through Cloudflare

When accessing the Proxmox Backup Server web interface, by default you'll get a warning about the SSL certificate not being valid. If you have a domain in Cloudflare then you can use their API with the help of Lets Encrypt to generate a valid certificate. Note once you've done this you also won't be required to enter a fingerprint on your Proxmox VE hosts for backing up as you'll be using a valid SSL certificate.

SSL Certificates for Proxmox through Cloudflare

When accessing the Proxmox web interface, by default you'll get a warning about the SSL certificate not being valid. If you have a domain in Cloudflare then you can use their API with the help of Lets Encrypt to generate a valid certificate.

How to Setup an Arr Stack

The Arr stack refers to a group of apps like Sonarr, Radarr and Lidarr that automate downloading and managing TV shows, movies and music. They work together to find and organise your media without you having to lift a finger, making binge-watching a breeze!

Migrate a Hyper-V VM to Proxmox

Install Proxmox Backup Server in an LXC Container

Instructions for installing Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) inside of an LXC container. This is a lightweight way to run PBS that I've used for years.

Backup a Physical Machine to Proxmox Backup Server

The following instructions allow you to do a file level backup of a Debian based AMD64 system that doesn't need to be a Proxmox VM. This can be used for separate servers or even your Proxmox hosts themselves.

Automatic SSL Certs with Certbot and Cloudflare

Here's how you can utilise the Cloudflare API to generate self signed certificates using Certbot and Let's Encrypt. This is completely free assuming you already have a domain registered with Cloudflare.

Setup Postfix to Send to an External SMTP Server

Setting up a local Postfix instance to forward traffic to an external SMTP server can save you hours of setting up an individual Postfix config on each system you have. Each system can send to this instance which then forwards it out to your external SMTP server of choice. A popular choice is Google's SMTP server.

Setup the Rsync Daemon

Rsync is a brilliant package that allows you to quite simply sync files from one system to another. By default it utilises SSH which sometimes isn't convenient for example when automating an Rsync task. Instead you can use the Rsync daemon or module.

Install Apache Guacamole in Docker

This is the best and easiest way to run Guacamole that I've found. I've ran it this way for a long time now, the image is frequently updated and it just works. No mucking about with databases or incompatibilities.

Install Windows 11 with a Local User Account

Previously on Windows 10, you could simply choose 'I don't have internet' and be able to setup Windows using a local user account bypassing all of the Microsoft account stuff. With Windows 11, this is still possible but requires an extra step that couldn't be any further from obvious.

Pass Physical Disks Through to a Proxmox VM

You may wish to pass through physical disks into a TrueNAS VM for example to then setup your ZFS filesystem in the VM. Here is how you do this.

Delete a Proxmox Node from your Cluster

To remove a node from your Proxmox cluster, follow these instructions.

Connect a Proxmox LXC to a VPN Server

Build your own Proxmox LXC Template

Stop repeating the same setup commands each time you make a new LXC. Do it once, then create a template!

Raspberry Pi Steam Link

Stream games from your PC to your TV using a Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi Headless Music Player

Install K3s with Rancher on a Raspberry Pi

The easiest way to run Kubernetes on a Raspberry Pi

Setup Windows Autologon

To login to Windows on startup automatically. This could be to run an application for example.

Install Windows 11 on an Unsupported System

Install Windows 11 on a system with an unsupported processor, no TPM chip, and/or secure boot disabled

Setup an NFS File Share

Setting up an NFS share gives you an easy way to share files between your Linux servers and clients

Setup a Samba File Share

Setting up a Samba file share server gives you an easy way to share files between your Linux server and Windows clients.

Setup a Pi-hole DNS Server

Pi-hole is a Linux network-level advertisement and Internet tracker blocking application which acts as a DNS sinkhole and optionally a DHCP server, intended for use on a private network.

Remove the Sudo Password

If you find yourself running commands with sudo often, you can remove the password prompt for a particular user.

Linux ISO says Load the Kernel First

Sometimes when booting a Linux ISO you get an error message come up that says You need to load the kernel first

Download Spotify Tracks as MP3 Files

Here are instructions for downloading tracks from Spotify as MP3 files. This utilises YouTube Music to download the track by querying the Spotify URL you pass it.

Setup Grafana and Prometheus in Docker

Grafana and Prometheus are great tools for monitoring your servers and alerting you of any issues. This is how you set it all up in Docker which is a nice and easy way of managing them.

Fireshare - A self hosted video sharing platform

I came across Fireshare whilst constantly getting pestered to join Discord Nitro to get around the file upload limit. It ticked all of the boxes. Easy upload, link generation and easy for the viewer to use. I've been using it for at least a year at this point and have shared many clips with friends.

Self Host Your Own Bitwarden Server

Bitwarden is my password manage of choice, self-hosting it is best in my opinion as you get all the features for free

How to Install Portainer

This is the easiest way to install Portainer to setup and manage your Docker containers

How to Install Docker

This is the easiest way to install Docker on almost every Linux system