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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • my router and my reverse proxy (traefik) is able to receive the necessary SSL/TLS certificates however

    From something like LetsEncrypt?
    As an HTTP-01 Challenge? Not an DNS-01 challenge?
    Http challenge means that port 80 is accessible from the public internet (because that’s how LE can confirm it can reach your server via the public DNS records, proof of server ownership).
    DNS-01 is about proof of DNS record ownership, and doesn’t prove public internet access.

    Also, what are you self hosting?
    Does it really need to be publicly accessible? Or just accessible by you and people you trust?


  • If it adds to the content, then it is worth something. So make someone worth something.
    If it doesn’t matter, add a random screenshot of kernel code.

    The “worth something” doesn’t even have to be financial.
    Find a nice image that someone has made which is linux-related, and ask if you can use it & credit the author.
    If no, try someone else.

    If that’s too much work, use a random screenshot of kernel code …

    There are artists out there that have already freely shared some really cool art, that would love to be able to point to publications that they have permitted to use it.
    If you have some budget, pay them. Value the time involved.

    Just not AI filler BS. I’m not going to see some filler AI art and go “oh yeh, I’m going to use that for X/Y/Z”.
    But if I see some cool art, I’m inclined to commission something for an actual use case



  • I moved to endeavouros. First time using a rolling release, and I was struggling with some webdev stuff cause node was on a recent non-lts build and a few other things.
    Not a problem for building, cause I already have that containerised. But things like installing packages was refusing, and obviously couldn’t run dev workflows.

    Until I realised I should just work inside a container.

    I know vscode is still Microsoft (and I’m sure I could get it to work with vscodium), but the dev container workflow is fantastic.
    Absolute game changer.
    And I know I can easily work on a different platform, os whatever. And still have the same dev environment.



  • What?
    You have a product that costs 450 to produce.
    And you add a 50 markup so you are selling at 500.
    Tariffs push that 500 up to 750. Which means a 50% tariff.

    So you remove your 50 markup and sell it at cost in that market. Which means a product at 450 with a 50% tariff will cost 675.
    You don’t make any money on that sale. Fine, it’s a loss-leader. Hopefully you make up the profit of game sales and subscriptions. Which will also be tariffed.

    For a finished product, the tariff is applied to the selling cost. It doesn’t care about the value of the parts or the amount of markup.
    A government isn’t going to pick through a device and apply Country of Origin tariffs on every part, or separate company profit from cost-of-product.

    If a company says a product is worth 500, that’s the amount the tariff is applied to.
    I doubt Nintendo is going to eat the cost of tariffs.
    It’s insane to. They could say “we will still launch at this price”, and have the us government cook up more tariffs or whatever. Then Nintendo is holding the bag, or has to renege on the price.
    It would be smarter to mildly offset the cost. Like you say, knock $20-50 off but stipulate the final cost is subject to import duties.
    I’d love them to say “well, you do you. This is the cost of the console. Your import duties are not out problem.” But I feel (despite their bullshit legal department) Nintendo is more passionate than that, and I think they will mildly reduce the price


  • You need to control a domain, so LE can verify you are the controller of the domain, then LE will issue you a certificate saying you are the controller of the domain.

    For a wildcard LE cert, you need to use the DNS challenge method.
    Essentially the ACME client (or certbot or whatever) will talk to LE and say “I want a DNS challenge for *.example.com”.
    LE will reply “ok, your order number 69, and your challenge code is DEADBEEF”.
    ACME then interacts with your public nameserver (or you have to do this manually) and add the challenge code as a txt record _acme-challenge.example.com. (I’ve been caught out by the fact LE uses Google DNS for resolution, and Google will only follow 1 level of NS records from the root authorative nameserver).
    All the while, LE is checking for that record. When it finds the record, it mints a wildcard certificate.
    ACME then periodically checks in with LE asking for order 69. Once LE has minted the cert, it will return it to acme.
    And now you have a wildcard cert.

    So, how to use it on a local domain?
    Use a split horizon DNS method.
    Ensure your DHCP is handing out a local DNS for resolving.
    Configure that local DNS to then use 8.8.8.8 or whatever as it’s upstream.
    Then load in static/override records to the local DNS.
    Pihole can do this. OPNSense/pfSense can do this. Unifi can do some of this.

    How does this work?
    Any device on your network that wants to know the IP of example.example.com will ask it’s configured DNS - the local DNS that you have configured.
    The local DNS will check it’s static assignments and go “yeh, example.example.com is 10.10.3.3”.
    If you ask you local DNS for google.com, it won’t have a static assignment for it, so it will ask it’s upstream DNS, and return that result.
    And it means you aren’t putting private IP spaces on public NS records.

    Then you can load in your wildcard cert to 10.10.3.3, and you will have a trusted HTTPS connection.

    Here is a list of LE clients that will automate LE certs.
    https://letsencrypt.org/docs/client-options/

    Have a read through and pick your desired flavour.
    Dig into the docs of that flavour, and start playing around.

    If it’s all HTTPS, consider using something like Nginx Proxy Manager (https://nginxproxymanager.com/) as a reverse proxy in front of your services and for managing the LE cert.
    It’s super easy to use, has a decent GUI, and then it’s only 1 IP to point all DNS records to.


  • DNS and domains are just human-friendly IP addresses.

    You only have 1 public IP address.
    So, to access different services you need to use different ports.
    Or run a service on a single port in front of the other services that can understand the connections and forward the connections to the actual services - known as a reverse proxy. In the case of http/https, there are plenty of reverse proxies that can direct requests based on all sorts of parameters, subdomains being one of them.

    If you are just starting out, I’d recommend a docker compose stack and Nginx Proxy Manager.
    Learning containers & docker makes everything easier.
    NPM is a very easy to use reverse proxy with a nice GUI, so you don’t have to configure CertBot/ACME or learn the specific config language of Nginx.

    If you are unsure of domains and all that, you can try it out for free.
    Your computer has a hosts file (/etc/hosts on Linux, I think it’s in system32 on windows). This allows you to tell the computer “for the domain example.com use the IP 10.0.0.200” or whatever you want. You need a hosts file entry for each subdomain.
    What this means is that you can run up a docker compose stack on your computer and point a bunch of sub domains to 127.0.0.1, use self-signed certs, and play around with nginx proxy manager and docker.
    No money spent, no records published, no traffic leaving your computer.
    Zero risk.

    There are loads of tutorials out there on NPM and docker compose stacks. Probably some close to your specific requirements.



  • I was aware of kubernetes 6 months ago, but had never used it.
    I got a 3 node cluster running in a day, and was learning kubernetes.
    The only issues I’ve had were due to hardware failure causing etcd instability, and misconfigured operators generating terabytes of logs leading to pod eviction.

    I don’t know what would signify it being production ready. It had all the levers and knobs I needed. I haven’t yet needed to run a sysadmin debug container to poke around the host OS.
    It’s also great for learning. If you make a mistake, it’s very easy to wipe and reinstall and get back to where you were.



  • Some do?

    https://www.itv.com/news/2024-11-20/why-is-the-use-of-anti-personnel-mines-in-ukraine-so-controversial

    Some mines are designed to have a time limit on them and become inactive after a set period of time.

    However, other mines can remain active and dangerous for many years after the conflict has ended.

    According my linked article:

    US officials says the mines they send Ukraine will be “non-persistent”, meaning they have an internal mechanism to shorten the lifespan of the trigger.

    The mines are designed to become inert after a set period of time ranging from as little as four hours to two weeks, officials said.

    They say the mines use an electrical fuse that requires a battery, and the mine becomes inert when the battery runs out.

    The US intends for Kyiv to use the anti-personnel mines in the eastern part of the country, US officials said, where Russian troops have made slow and steady progress against Ukrainian defensive lines.

    Ukraine has also made assurances they will try to limit the risk to civilians.




  • I consider myself technically apt.

    I was expecting a parcel from abroad so was expecting to have to pay customs.
    Received an SMS that looked fairly legit, from a named SMS number that didn’t set off an alarm bell, asking for additional information. The only red flag that got me were some unusually personal questions, like date of birth. I was close to giving away a bunch of personal details.

    Another one was a “your parking permit is about to expire”. We recently had permitted parking introduced, and I figured I’d messed something up. But thankfully I looked into that via the councils parking permit page, and knew I was months away from an expiry.

    My parents received a “help, I’ve flushed my phone down the toilet and need a new one for work tomorrow. Sorry for the strange number, I’ve borrowed a friend’s phone. Can you send me $$$ to [account details] so I can get a new phone?” from a scammer pretending to be my sister.
    Apparently they made it up to a “this is a new account number, are you sure this isn’t a scam?” prompt in their banking app when they finally decided to try and contact her. She immediately picked up and said “stop, it’s a scam”.

    It doesn’t take much to make you vulnerable to social engineering.
    An expectation of events and something that would normally red flag suddenly doesn’t seem suspicious.
    An emotional manipulation, time pressure, all that stuff, and it’s easy to ignore red flags.

    I always say “if you ever feel pressure, take a moment and analyse the situation”. Time pressure, emotional pressure. And analyse looking for anything that seems odd, then pick at that thread.