AJ's Blog

This is a personal blog focused on computer software and hardware. Most projects are implementing software and hardware for a homelab. What is a homelab? I would say a homelab could be a single computer or dozens of computers connected in a network. You can also integrate with computers in the Cloud.

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Recent Posts

Managing containers with Portainer

09-19-2021

updated: 2024-02-01 Portainer CE is a web application that you can use to manage containers running on systems that have docker installed. Today we will be deploying Portainer community edition to manage some containers. Portainer runs as a container and you configure it to manage an existing docker installation. Portainer is also compatible with some additional container platforms which I may explore at a later date. portainer_logo Requirements As of this post, Portainer can be deployed on the following:

Docker Containers

09-12-2021

updated: 2024-01-13 All these Virtual Machines have gobbled up the RAM and CPU cores on my systems. Now I’m going to take a look at a different way to run software: Docker. docker_logo Docker and containers Docker is an open-source project for automating the deployment of applications into containers. Docker containers can run anywhere, on your laptop/desktop, on a server, or in the cloud. Containers can run natively on Linux and Windows.

Pandoc converter

09-05-2021

There is a useful software application out there called Pandoc which is a Haskell library for converting from one markup format to another through a command line interface. Pandoc can convert between markdown, HTML, and proprietary formats like Microsoft Word. Installing The official site for pandoc includes instructions to install on multiple platforms such as Windows, Linux and macOS. https://pandoc.org/installing.html Example See the following example of converting a markdown file to an HTML file:

Getting started with Ansible

09-01-2021

ansible Ansible is an open-source software that uses python to provide an automation language. It uses YAML declarative files known as playbooks to describe tasks that are executed by Ansible. Ansible can configure computer systems, deploy software, and automate IT tasks at scale. Ansible does not require software to be installed on managed systems and utilizes protocols such as OpenSSH and WinRM to connect to systems. The official documentation has more detailed information on how to get started.

Creating Linux virtual machine templates with Packer

08-14-2021

packer You could set up each virtual machine by mounting the installation iso image to your virtual machine’s virtual disk drive and proceeding through the installer. In fact this is what I recommend for new users, but I will be using a software known as Packer to create Linux templates that I can use in VirtualBox or even other hypervisors. Templates can be found on my public github repo.

Vagrant Installation/Demo

08-10-2021

Vagrant is a software from HashiCorp that provides easy to configure and replicate virtual machine images. Vagrant integrates with existing hypervisor software to quickly deploy VM templates from the Vagrant community or templates that you create. vagrant_logo Installation Prerequisites In order to proceed, you need a hypervisor software such as VirtualBox. I have a previous post regarding virtual machines and setting up VirtualBox. Windows 10 I will be installing vagrant with Chocolatey.