Pyssel

Having some Linux servers up and running I checked out  monitoring tools like Nagios, Zabbix, Cockpit or Prometheus. For small setups, home labs, or lightweight environments, those solutions can feel like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. In this post, I’ll show you how to build a   lightweight monitoring agent   using nothing more than a Bash script, MQTT, and Node-RED. The script collects key metrics from your server — disk usage, memory consumption, CPU load, and available package upgrades — then publishes them to an MQTT broker. From there, Node-RED visualizes the data in a clean, real-time dashboard. The result? A simple but powerful monitoring system that works across multiple servers, scales with your needs, and gives you instant visibility into the health of your infrastructure. And the best part: you control every piece of it.

For a long time I have checked for a good solution to reach my servers at home. My  thoughts   now have finalized in the VPN solution Zero Tier(ZT) where I reach Ubuntu desktop with "RDP" and Ubuntu server with "ssh". The ZT solution also works great with the Home Assistant(HA) browser access and the HA Mobile App. Until now I have used remote.it but ZT will manage all of my network resources as if they were on the same LAN . The Ubuntu desktop installation is running a Linux KVM with HA and an Ubuntu server Lite as  guests .  Setup here .

It's almost become a sport to revive old Macs..... 😉 This short post will address some obstacles found during install of a new OS. The Mac Mini:s WiFi controller wasn't found ! The MacBook Air didn't manage to do a USB boot with Ubuntu !

Updated 2025-06-23 ! I have got some questions installing, just,  Signal K (SK) so will do a summary with links. Signal K is the hub to receive data, from different devices in different data formats, and send it on to different equipment, or databases, in different formats. Most common for standard marine equipment are the old NMEA 0183 and the newer NMEA 2000 protocol which is also handled.  Besides the SK "hub" function developers  have  created  plugins  for different purposes. This is due to that  SK is open-source ! Sharing is caring ! In this post you can check the devices I'm using connected to the SK server and also my setup.

After testing Home Assistant (HA) for a while, I’ve realised it could improve my home automation, despite that I'm using Apple HomeKit. When I tested HA with Node-RED and some other "Add-ons", on a Raspberry Pi 3 (RPi), I found that its resources wasn’t enough. The following setup could be any computer but I recently bought an Apple Mac Mini M4, replacing my 2018 (M18) model, so the M18 was really a great candidate for my HA setup. The preferred method running HA is through the  HA Operating System (HAOS), which makes your "life" easier. 😉

Updated 2025-05-20 ! I have done several posts Blogging about how to keep an old MacBook Air(MBA), mid 2011(A1369), with SSD disk "alive". I have used the fantastic software package OpenCore Legacy patcher to upgrade the Mac to the latest Mac OS.  A while ago i tested Mac OS  Sequoia (15.3), on the mentioned Mac, but I had to admit that it was to much for the 14 year old companion. I really like the Mac and everything works, after a battery change , so it ended up with installing  Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS  or if you want the latest scroll down and get Ubuntu 24.10/25.04. Ubuntu on  Mac Mini (2018) and MacBookAir (2010)  ?

Updated 2025-05-18 This post is for both Windows and Mac users !   I have been running Linux, Raspberry Pi OS , since several years but almost just the Lite version (without Desktop). But when my old MacBook Air "gave up" , with Mac OS, it came naturally to use Ubuntu Desktop since it's also based on the Debian Linux distribution and the most used Linux distribution. So it ended up with installing Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (UOS) or the later 24.10 !

Updated 2025-01-23 ! With my project to keep a MacBook Air 2011(MBA) alive , Ubuntu installed, i searched for a solution where my iCloud drive(iCD) was  continuous synced with my MBA. This must work both ways so even a file change made on MBA should be replicated to iCD. rclone now, 2025-01, works with iCloud !! Setup below !! Before "rclone" was working with iCloud I solved my sync between iCD and MBA with Syncthing (ST). Check below. ST doesn't sync with iCloud so the work around here was to use my MacMini, Mac OS, as the "Middle man". It's always on and synced with iCD.