I first got started on the network run from the attic switch to the 2nd floor den — back in October of 2021. I finished it a year later, so it’s about time to get this blog post published 😛

I’ve written before about how I deploy this blog using Drone.io. It works well, and does exactly what you’d expect.

Lately I’ve started looking into reducing complexity in homelab systems that I use — and using “a Continuous Integration platform for busy development teams” felt a bit overkill for this tiny blog.

So I switched to something simple; GNU Make.

I’ve set up a local Arch repository, a dynamic reverse proxy cache using nginx — and a local “build server” for AUR packages, using aurutils.

Here is how, and why 👇

Mona and I got married in January 😃 We had a small civil ceremony — and dinner with our kids, parents, best man, and maid of honor.

Afterwards we were driven to Plaza Hotel in Oslo, where we spent the weekend ❤️

I’ve previously implemented a series taxonomy in Hugo, but it only supported a single series per post and used intersect which is kind of slow.

Here is my improved implementation of a series taxonomy in Hugo 👇

We recently moved the twins into their own bedrooms, after sharing a room for nine years — it was finally time for some privacy 🙂

With their own rooms; they also got their own computers — a life long dream 😉 Those computers needs network, proper network, not Wi-Fi.

In November last year — I started building a DIY security alarm system, using a Raspberry Pi as the controller. My plan was to make a self-sustained system, using proper alarm hardware — like PIR sensors and sirens.

Integration with Home Assistant would be an add-on, not a requirement. I wanted the system to be as redundant and fault-tolerant as I could make it.

This is a pretty long story, with some twists and turns — let’s get into it 👇

We recently put up a wall in our previous family/play room — to make another bedroom, with a hallway outside. I might want an access point in that hallway at some point.

So I repurposed a telephone outlet and conduit, to run a CAT6 cable from the hallway down to the patch panel in the basement.

I stumbled onto NextDNS recently — it’s like a cloud hosted Pi-hole. I tried it for a few days, but this post isn’t about that.

Reading about the different block lists in NextDNS, and digging deeper into DNS ad blocking gave me motivation to change my current setup — and that is what this post is about 🙂

Searching for a tool to keep track of IP addresses; I stumbled onto Netbox — and was blown away by what it could do 🤯 I could put everything there: racks, servers, patch panels, Wi-Fi access points, power distribution, network runs. Everything!