Docker Better 'docker stats' output (with Name) Problem: The docker stats command isn't great - it gives you container ID vs name, which when you have a pretty small deployment like me (~20 containers) you usually know what services you're
Docker Ghost (blog) migration to 1.0 Introduction: It's been some time since Ghost 1.0 was released, and I've been putting off this day for a while. Essentially the migration strategy I was trying to use wasn't working in
Linux HAProxy 'home' Load Balancer Introduction: I've done a few posts in the past about using nginx as a reverse proxy / loadbalancer, however I thought I'd look into HAProxy as a possible alternative to some of the issues
Cisco Import Certificates into Cisco IOS Router (SSL VPN) Problem: So I've made a few posts on automating SSL VPN with LetsEncrypt etc etc, however what if you're already using some way of generating certificates? Be it LetsEncrypt or otherwise. Essentially these
Alexa Windows PC Wake up / Shut down - Automated Problem: I've just got an Amazon Echo. As the previous post suggests I've got it talking to Jenkins, so anything that can be done in Jenkins Alexa can now call, which is rather
Docker Amazon Echo - Integration to Jenkins Problem: So if you've ever dealt with an Amazon Echo (Alexa) you'll probably know that it's pretty awesome. There's all sorts of things you can do. As far as I could tell there
Cisco Cisco IR829 Tinkering Introduction: The IR829 router is a rather interesting beast, it has 4G, wireless, GPS, an accelerometer, water resistant, fanless, gigabit switchports + WAN and vehicle ignition system features. It's also got the ability to
Python Netmiko Python package on Alpine Problem: For a current project I was looking to use netmiko to administrate a Cisco router - and given my natural affinity for Docker I'm planning to use a container to run the
Linux Reset VMware vCenter root password Problem: The vCenter appliance requires a complex password for the root user, which of course you'll forget after 5 minutes if you're just spinning something up for test purposes. Naturally what then happens
Docker Shorten & Alias 'docker ps' output Problem: The default 'docker ps' command has a rather verbose output. This (especially for me) is due to the sheer number of ports associated to containers. As a result, I need a super
Sky Fiber Broadband with a Cisco Router (897VA) Problem: I've written a post previously of how to get sky ADSL broadband working with a Cisco router HERE however this particular implementation just got upgraded to Fiber (or VDSL). So, I've had
Linux Ghost blog account recovery Problem: Naturally I'd never be so silly to forget my own password....however Billy is not so sensible and forgot his password. For some reason (I've not even bothered to look) the forgot
Boiling Water: Kettle vs Microwave Introduction: Now this is a rather unusual post, however I consider myself scientific and myself and a couple of colleagues (to those of you who know me reading this - I am of
Misc Online email obfuscation Problem: This blog has been a great place to brainstorm and share my ideas and activities with the world however it's always bugged me slightly that I've had no way to get feedback
Nginx Correct IP in nginx logs behind reverse proxy / load balancer Problem: So I finally got a log solution I like working properly. Logs in the load-balancer are correct in terms of their external IP. The problem is when I look at the webserver
Linux Nginx Reverse Proxy based on user-agent Problem: I run a 'load balancer' at home. The first thing I hear when I tell people this is something along the lines of 'what on earth are you running if you need
Linux Replacing cron jobs with Jenkins Problem: I've got quite a few servers kicking around, in various different locations and usually doing various different things. Across all of these servers there's always cron jobs set up to do small
Linux Automating IOS WEBVPN LetsEncrypt SSL Certificates Problem: In a previous post I addressed the problem of getting an SSL certificate from LetsEncrypt onto a Cisco IOS router. The problem we face now is that these certificates expire frequently, and
Linux Cisco IOS SSL WebVPN with LetsEncrypt Problem: A while back I wrote a post on SSL VPN for IOS routers here: http://blog.dchidell.com/2016/03/21/cisco-ios-ssl-webvpn/ This post goes into detail of using the Certificate Authority
Linux Fixing "'no matching key exchange method found. Their offer: diffie-hellman-group1-sha1" on Mac Problem: This is going to be a lovely short post. Here's the issue: dchidell@dchidell-mac:~$ ssh admin@1.1.12.40 Unable to negotiate with 1.1.12.40 port 22: no matching
Docker Handy Docker Scripts Introduction: Here we go, yet another docker post! I'm going to keep this one short and simply use it as a repository to store some bash scripts I've written to automate some docker
VMware vCenter 6.0 Appliance Multi-NIC Introduction: Occasionally it's useful to connect vCenter to multiple networks simultaneously. Often this requirement comes from in-band (IB) vs out-of-band (OOB) networking where some provisioning or automation tool requires access to vCenter. The
Docker Automating Docker with Python Introduction: Ok I've gone docker mad, I love it! Everything of mine is now running on docker (at least everything I can). Naturally the next step is to bring some level of automation
Docker Working with Docker Introduction: I'm rather a keen advocate on Virtualisation technologies and anything that can be used to abstract resources into a pool to be used where needed. As a result of this interest, I
VMware vCenter 6.5 REST API w/ Python Introduction: So one of the new features in vSphere 6.5 is the REST API introduced into vCenter. This is particularly interesting to me as I've always liked automating things but have been