a_fancy_kiwi

tldr: I'd like to set up a reverse proxy with a domain and an SSL cert so my partner and I can access a few selfhosted services on the internet but I'm not sure what the best/safest way to do it is. Asking my partner to use tailsclae or wireguard is asking too much unfortunately. I was curious to know what you all recommend.

I have some services running on my LAN that I currently access via tailscale. Some of these services would see some benefit from being accessible on the internet (ex. Immich sharing via a link, switching over from Plex to Jellyfin without requiring my family to learn how to use a VPN, homeassistant voice stuff, etc.) but I'm kind of unsure what the best approach is. Hosting services on the internet has risk and I'd like to reduce that risk as much as possible.

1. I know a reverse proxy would be beneficial here so I can put all the services on one box and access them via subdomains but where should I host that proxy? On my LAN using a dynamic DNS service? In the cloud? If in the cloud, should I avoid a plan where you share cpu resources with other users and get a dedicated box?

2. Should I purchase a memorable domain or a domain with a random string of characters so no one could reasonably guess it? Does it matter?

3. What's the best way to geo-restrict access? Fail2ban? Realistically, the only people that I might give access to live within a couple hundred miles of me.

4. Any other tips or info you care to share would be greatly appreciated.

5. Feel free to talk me out of it as well.

To preface, I’m currently rewriting a personal webapp to use MySQL instead of storing everything in hundreds of JSON files. I’m currently in the testing phase of generating tables with the data from the JSON files, destroying the tables, adding more columns and data, repeat, all to make sure everything is working as intended.

My issue is that occasionally I’ll create too many columns and then I get an error saying something about the row being too large? I’ve also noticed that if I change the parameters of what data is allowed to go in the column, I can generate more columns. I know there is some relationship between number of columns, the data that can go in a column, data size, and row size but I don’t know what’s going on. I’d appreciate it if someone could broadly go over how row length(?) can affect number of columns.

Thank you

I've been interested in building a DIY NAS out of an SBC for a while now. Not as my main NAS but as a backup I can store offsite at a friend or relative's house. I know any old x86 box will probably do better, this project is just for the fun of it.

The Orange Pi 5 looks pretty decent with its RK3588 chip and M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 connector. I've seen some adapters that can turn that M.2 slot into a few SATA ports or even a full x16 slot which might let me use an HBA.

Anyway, my question is, assuming the CPU isn't a bottle neck, how do I figure out what kind of throughput this setup could theoretically give me?

After a few google searches:

• PCIe Gen 3 x4 should give me 4 GB/s throughput
• that M.2 to SATA adapter claims 6 ~~GB/s~~ Gb/s throughput
• a single 7200rpm hard drive should give about 80-160MB/s throughput

My guess is that ultimately, I'm limited by that 4GB/s throughput on the PCIe Gen 3 x4 slot but since I'm using hard drives, I'd never get close to saturating that bandwidth. Even if I was using 4 hard drives in a RAID 0 config (which I wouldn't do), I still wouldn't come close. Am I understanding that correctly; is it really that simple?

PSA

After updating to TvOS 17, my Sonos Beam sound bar started making weird crackling sounds and music sounded tinny. Turns out, I had to change the audio format in the Apple TV settings from Stereo to Dolby Digital 5.1 for the issue to be fixed.

Not sure what I had that setting set to before but I’m leaning toward the idea that the update reset the audio format back to default settings. If you are having sound issues after updating, that might be the issue.

My garmin has it set up like this:

Z1 = 50-60%
Z2 = 60-70%
Z3 = 70-80%
Z4 = 80-90%
Z5 = 90%+

As of right now, I’m seeing my Z3 improve but improving Z2 is going to take me a while. I can have a conversation in Z3 using the Garmin percentages.

I’ve also seen other forums/websites have different percentages. Ex.

Z1 = 68-73%
Z2 = 73-80%
Z3 = 80-87%
Z4 = 87-93%
Z5 = 93%+

If I used this method, then my Z2 is the one that has been improving this whole time. This one ‘feels’ right to me when I’m running but I’ve only been running for a few months at this point (was running last year but got sick a few times and had to basically start all over) so maybe I just need to stick to it and the garmin method will start to make more sense.

So I was just curious how everyone has their percentages set up. What do you all actually train at?

a_fancy_kiwi

I'm relatively new to MacOS and I frequently find myself needing to copy a file to my clipboard so that I can paste it somewhere else. Every time I click the share icon, I'm disappointed to see no "copy to clipboard" extension.

This is most frustrating when editing a screenshot or opening up a file in safari.

Anyone have a recommended app for this? I found this one but haven't tried it yet

I occasionally find myself reinstalling home assistant and every time I do, I get stuck on two steps because I forgot the commands and didn't write them down from the last time. I'm writing them below mainly for myself but also for anyone else who may get stuck. For future reference, I'm using Ubuntu 23.04 with Virt-Manager.

Before you begin the installation of the provided qcow2 image, you might want to resize that image from 32G to whatever size you want. ex:

qemu-img resize haos_ova-10.3.qcow2 +68G

Next, you might want to make a network bridge device. Navigate to your netplan folder and backup the yaml file that's in there (your file may be named differently)

cd /etc/netplan

cp ./01-network-manager-all.yaml ./01-network-manager-all.yaml.old

Edit the yaml config.

nano ./01-network-manager-all.yaml

Change the renderer to networkd and add the bridge device (br0). Your ethernet device may not be named enp12s0, make sure to use your ethernet device name. If you are on wifi, look up a netplan wifi config and make adjustments as needed.

network:
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    enp12s0:
      dhcp4: true
  version: 2
  bridges:
    br0:
      dhcp4: yes
      interfaces:
        - enp12s0
      parameters:
        stp: true

save the file. generate and apply the new netplan. WARNING - If you are hosting this on your own network, it's possible the Ubuntu host IP could change. If you were doing these steps over SSH, you might need to find the new IP and reconnect. Static IPs can be set in the netplan config but I usually just do it from my router settings afterwards which is probably why the IP changed.

netplan generate

netplan apply

Now just go through the installation process and when you select your network device, make sure you select "Bridge Device" and the device name is "br0"

Edit 12/15/23 - well, I rebuilt my server again. I used regular Ubuntu desktop this time and I for the life of me I couldn’t get networking to function properly. I ended up buying an Ethernet card and passed it through to the VM

What advice and/or product recommendations would you give a beginner? What websites do you buy your parts from? What software do you use?