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
09-21-2025
If you are not familiar with Grafana Loki, it is an open-source system for aggregating application, system, and other log files for querying and potentially configuring alert notifications when something goes wrong. Check out a previous post where I set up Loki in my homelab.
There are multiple ways to install Grafana Loki. I have in the past run it on a Debian based Linux VM. While building a new server for my logs and metrics, I spun up Loki as a Docker container on my Mac Mini. It is very straightforward to set up a single container for Grafana Loki using Docker Compose, the container includes a default config file for running local. If you are not familiar with Docker or containers, check out a previous post to get started.
09-14-2025
Home Assistant is an open source tool for managing IoT/smart home devices on your network and also cloud based home services. You can create automated workflows using this software such as turning on lights when something happens or turning off all lights when you leave home.
I have used Home Assistant on and off for over 5 years. It supports all of my smart home gadgets ranging from light bulbs to bluetooth sensors. I have chosen not to integrate any of my locks, doors, or security system even though it supports them. I just do not like the idea of a compromised software that can unlock my house and open my garage.
09-03-2025
In my homelab, Proxmox is the main operating system that I use for servers. It is Debian Linux with some extra packages related to virtual machines and managing virtual machines. If you are not using Proxmox, I recommend checking out a previous post that introduces Proxmox and how to install it.
I am performing an in-place upgrade of a Proxmox VE 8.x node to 9.x.
If you are following along, before you begin, create a verified backup of all your VMs and containers. An upgrade failure without a backup can result in data loss.
05-02-2025
Updated: 2025-07-19
In a previous post, I started using Grafana Alloy to collect logs from my systems. You can also use this project in Kubernetes with a Helm chart. If you are not familiar with Kubernetes, check out a previous post that provides a high level overview.
Install on Kubernetes
If you are using Kubernetes, the chart can be used to install and configure Grafana Alloy to collect logs from containers.
To deploy Alloy on Kubernetes using Helm, run the following commands in a terminal window:
05-01-2025
As of April 2025, Fedora 42 is available. Compared to the previous release, Fedora 41, this is a quite important release because well 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything. That’s an old reference to scifi literature.
This release comes with updates like GNOME Desktop 48. This introduces v-sync triple buffering to animations in the desktop. There is also a new installer for Fedora that uses a web UI. I believe this will show up if you use a Fedora workstation live image to boot and install.
04-19-2025
Promtail was a project I used as part of the Grafana Loki log collection ecosystem. It was deprecated as Grafana now recommends using the Grafana Alloy project to help collect telemetry data. Promtail made it relatively easy to collect logs from containers and files on a *nix system. I also used the Kubernetes helm chart to collect pod logs in Kubernetes and forward to Grafana Loki.
My last post about Grafana Loki was upgrading from v2 to v3. Now that my Loki server is upgraded, I am migrating my installations of promtail to use Alloy instead for log collection.