AJ's Blog

Store Metrics with InfluxDB v3

Modern time-series data demands modern solutions. Whether you’re monitoring server metrics, tracking IoT sensor data, or analyzing application performance, InfluxDB v3 Core combined with Telegraf provides a foundation for an Observability platform. In this post, we’ll walk through setting up a complete monitoring stack using Docker Compose, querying data via HTTP API, and understanding the migration path from older InfluxDB versions.

I have not used InfluxDB a lot in my homelab but I have used it at my job to store custom business application metrics. Once you have millions of metrics to keep track of, a single database and disk will become a bottleneck. If you are not familiar with Telegraf and InfluxDB, check out a previous post for an introduction to these tools and InfluxDB version 1 (open-source version).

Set up a fully featured editor with LazyVim

I have used vim and vi for a long time after I needed to learn a command-line only text editor for my first job deploying and managing server racks. Eventually I started using neovim as it was easier for me to customize than learning vimscript. Since neovim uses Lua for configuration, it was easier for me to learn the syntax. I only customized a few features though because I do not like spending a lot of time reviewing config files just to get beyond the “80 percent” of use cases I need in my editor.

Modern Command Line Tools

If you spend a lot of time in a terminal, GNU coreutils are probably part of your muscle memory. Commands like ls, cp, mv, rm, and cat have been around for a very long time. They are found on small embedded computers and the BSD version lives on all macOS systems. The reason they have been around so long and so widely used is for their reliability.

Still, many people do not spend a lot of time in a terminal especially now with so many apps available to make interacting with a computer easier with buttons and interfaces. In 2025 and 2026 I see a resurgence of terminal based workflows as many people rush to try out new agentic AI coding tools that were first released as terminal based applications. By far the most popular in 2026 is claude code.

2026 Blog CI build updates

I have not touched the CI / CD pipeline in Gitlab that deploys this blog in several years. It was set up with a project that is now deprecated: Kaniko. The project built a Dockerfile (container image) without requiring root access or the docker socket mounted somewhere to build a container. In the years since I set up this blog, other projects have become available to build containers. I ended up switching to the buildkit project which I believe is directly from the company behind Docker.

ZShell in 2026

To close out my weekend, here is a post about setting up ZShell in 2026. In case you are not familiar with a shell:

What is a shell?

The shell is a program that translates human readable words (commands) and converts them into binary data that the Operating System kernel can interpret. The shell can interpret commands entered from the keyboard or a file commonly referred to as a script. Shells mostly follow standards set by the Unix operating system of the past. On modern Operating Systems like macOS and GNU + Linux, the shell allows you to control your computer and control other computers remotely.

Orbstack

This is a quick weekend post looking at a tool (just for macOS unfortunately).

When it comes to running containers, docker is the most widely used tool with millions of container images available on the public Docker hub. If you are not familiar with containers, check out a previous post to get an introduction. Running containers on macOS is not the best experience compared to even a simple Linux server like a Raspberry Pi. In the past, I have explored other options such as Colima.