Deploy to server with GitHub Actions

Using GitHub Actions to deploy on push is pretty simple. There are a few requisites: In your repo create the file .github/workflows/deploy.yml with the content below. Then in Github go to Settings, Secrets and variables, Actions and define repository secrets for REMOTE_HOST, REMOTE_PATH, REMOTE_USER, SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL, SSH_PRIVATE_KEY You can ignore the Slack one if you are […]

Install MySQL 8.0.40 on AlmaLinux 8

At the moment MYSQL only goes up to 8.0.36 on AlmaLinux 8 and I needed to install 8.0.40 – grabbing the official rpms and doing it manually was the only way that worked. Install net-tools, grab the rpms, install, start the server again and enable it at startup – note that your /etc/my.cnf will probably […]

Install Uptime Kuma on Amazon EC2 (Amazon Linux)

Uptime Kuma is an excellent free server monitoring system. I needed it running on EC2 – a fairly straightforward install from source as long as you have all the right pieces of the puzzle – which include the process manager for nodejs: cd ~ec2-usersudo dnf install -y gitsudo dnf install nodejsgit clone https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma.gitcd uptime-kumanpm run […]

GL.iNet GL-AR300M16-Ext with Tailscale and Samba (micro NAS with VPN)

I wanted to create a small, cheap device that I could put on my parents’ and in-laws’ networks so that they could have a small local backup and so that I could have a secure entry point into their home network for support issues. I already have an online backup from their devices set to […]

Fix banding from electronic shutter (silent shooting) and LED lights

Recently I used my new Sony mirrorless camera under LED lighting in silent shooting mode (electronic shutter) and the photos had horrible banding – dark stripes across every image. There’s lots of info on this online (it turns out) but to prevent it you need to shoot slow enough for the frequency of the lighting. […]

Install MeshCentral agent on Alpine Linux

To install in Alpine Linux you need a specific installer that doesn’t need glibc so download that from your MeshCentral server (replace meshcentral-server.com with your server url): # wget –no-check-certificate https://meshcentral-server.com:446/meshagents?id=33 If it has downloaded and included the query string in the filename then remove it # mv meshagents\?id=33 meshagents And set that file to […]

Add custom icons to MeshCentral (part 3 – styles)

Carrying on from part 2 (night mode), if you copy the stylesheet style.css from C:\Program Files\Open Source\MeshCentral\node_modules\meshcentral\public\styles (in my installation) to our custom directory (- in this case C:\Program Files\Open Source\MeshCentral\meshcentral-web\public\styles) and make a few adjustments, it’s a little prettier. These are the sections to change: .DevSt {padding: 15px !important;background: #333;border-radius: 10px 10px 0px 0px;margin-top: […]

Add custom icons to MeshCentral (part 2 – night mode)

Following on from part 1 I have updated the icons for night mode, if you edit config.json (in C:\Program Files\Open Source\MeshCentral\meshcentral-data in my installation) and update the domains section to use night mode and hide the header and footer (see code below) and then use the icons linked to here then it works well in […]

Add custom icons to MeshCentral (part 1)

MeshCentral is great, but the icons are a little Windows 7. Luckily, the author Ylian Saint-Hilaire has added a simple way to change them. Go to your MeshCentral installation folder and navigate to \meshcentral-web\public\images – this might look something like this: C:\Program Files\Open Source\MeshCentral\meshcentral-web\public\images Then place the icons in the images folder. I have zipped […]

VPS Benchmarks update: Amazon EC2 and Lightsail, Azure, Contabo, DigitalOcean, Google, Hostworld, Linode, OVH, UpCloud, VPSServer, VPS.net, Vultr

This is an update to the original 2020 benchmarks post with a new Provider Contabo (the only slight difference is that this provider is based in Postsmouth in the UK, everyone else on the list has a London presence) and also DigitalOcean’s new option for Premium processor and storage, which yields much better results. The […]