Category: Uncategorized

I was trying to upload this photo of my dog to test out some things and hit an issue with https-portal and the wordpress docker images. I thought I’d share my fixes since it wouldn’t let me upload anything over 1MB.

The https-portal has a limit of 1M, so you need to add the CLIENT_MAX_BODY_SIZE environment variable to whatever size you want, I went with 500M so I added that to my docker-compose file.

The wordpress container has a php.ini limit of about 2M as well, so you need to modify the uploads.ini file to be:

file_uploads = On
memory_limit = 500M
upload_max_filesize = 500M
post_max_size = 500M
max_execution_time = 600

That should do it. Finally to tie it all together if you’re using docker-compose you’ll need to add a volume section to copy that file into docker:

volumes:
 - ./uploads.ini:/usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/uploads.ini

Hope this helps someone!

Trying out the activity pub plugin for wordpress, curious if and how it works!

Plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/

A couple of weeks ago I had the unfortunate problem of my freezer’s auto-defrost not kicking on an the coils freezing completely. This led to my fridge not cooling down past 60. I had to take apart my freezer for the first time to de-ice the coils to get it working again. Then I got the bright idea of using some of the spare temperature probes I have and a spare Pi to monitor temperature. So I wired up a Pi and created a dashboard for monitoring temperatures in Grafana out of a postgres database.

Wiring was really simple, I just followed this guide to wire multiple probes up: https://www.hackster.io/vinayyn/multiple-ds18b20-temp-sensors-interfacing-with-raspberry-pi-d8a6b0

Code looks like this: https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2491465

A couple of minutes in grafana and I get some cool graphs like this:

Continue reading “Fridge and Freezer Temperature Monitoring”

Most areas cancelled their planned festivities this year due to COVID-19. But looks like LA took it into their own hands. Looks cool from a drone, probably less cool from the ground, and annoying for dogs. But still pretty neat!

I recently did two things. 1) Upgrade the firmware on my Ubiquiti Access Point and 2) Replaced my router with PFSense running on an old Xeon-based machine I had. This led to a big problem when trying to get my access point to work, it just wouldn’t connect to the controller. It failed to be adopted by the controller so it couldn’t get its configuration. TLDR: The solution was to remove the device when it was turned off, turn it back on and then adopt the access point from the controller interface

I might have a bit of a unique setup. I only have the Access point and use a Linux server to run the software that manages it instead of the hardware they sell. So that might have caused problems. Overall I’ve been incredibly happy with the alien space-ship looking access point. I’ve never had to reboot it to get it to work and it gets pretty good coverage for being under my couch. Plus I dig the PoE single cable connection for when I eventually get into the attic to mount it to my ceiling. So if you’re looking for something good and relatively cheap, I do recommend it. Its about $80 on Amazon: Click here.

Troubleshooting steps:

1. Unplug and plug back in… No dice.
2. Hold reset button with paper-clip for 30 seconds… No dice.
3. SSH to the device to set-inform-url… No dice.
   This one was interesting though. You can run: ssh ubnt@<ip of device> with the password ubnt to get to a busybox shell. From there you can run: set-inform http://ip-of-controller:8080/inform and see if it connects.

At this point I considered reflashing the firmware, but didn’t want to go through all the steps of setting up a tftp server, etc. to boot the image correctly. As a last-ditch effort I just unplugged the access-point, logged into the web console and deleted/forgot device, and plugged it back in. And sure enough it worked. So instead of trying even step 3 above, it makes sense just to forget the device and set it up after step 2 above.

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Just verifying this works. Grabbed a photo from my Sony A6300, tapped to my Pixel 3XL, and uploaded from there.

I am fortunate in my area that I have multiple high-speed internet providers. Verizon laid a bunch of Fiber that they sold to Frontier and GTE laid some cable internet in the 90s, which became Adelphia and finally Spectrum. Due to the needs of wall-street, one of the numbers they look at is subscriber growth, so they have insane promotional pricing to attract new customers and different pricing for established customers. So those of us fortunate to have multiple providers do what I call the ISP shuffle. It boils down to calling your current provider, saying you want to cancel with the hope they’ll reduce your bill to the promotional pricing level, and if not cancelling and switching for 6 months. I haven’t done this, but saving ~ $45/month sounds like it might be worth it. Pinching pennies is fun.

So let’s check the current promotional pricing for Frontier FiOS:

And what I’m currently paying:

So saving $45/month for 2 years is an extra $1080 bucks in my pocket. Time to do the ISP shuffle!