My November ‘25 Week 2 in Review
This week, I am prioritizing intentionality and learning, balancing deep focus with homelab expansion.
Intentionality and Burnout Prevention (November 10)
I decide to take things slow and intentionally. When I say slow, I do not mean avoiding work, but rather being very aware of what I am doing. I focus on not letting my feelings, whether they be fear or happiness, drive my next moves, as I recognize that this approach can very easily cause burnout
Diving into DNS and Debugging (November 11)
I spend a considerable amount of time learning about DNS, specifically setting up a custom configuration. I decide to use AdGuard for my DNS. Getting AdGuard to work on my host machine turns out to be a pain, and I encounter a few issues. The main conflict stems from my custom network setup for my virtual machines (VMs).
Unbeknownst to me, Libvirt by default creates something called dnsmasq, which resides on port 53 and serves as a DNS resolver for my virtual machines. Since AdGuard also wants to use port 53 by default, there is a conflict between the ports. I initially struggle to disable dnsmasq for Libvirt because the custom network used by my VMs requires DNS to function
My goal is to configure AdGuard on the host machine so all my virtual machines can connect to the AdGuard DNS. After hours of researching, debugging, and messing with commands, I find the solution: instead of deleting dnsmasq for Libvirt, I simply disable DNS for the virtual machine custom network. Now, my AdGuard Home is up and running and is connected to all my virtual machines
New Tools for the Homelab (November 13)
Most of my day is spent working, but after getting home, I spend a bit of time installing PostgreSQL and n8n.
I plan to learn n8n, as the topic has been brewing lately, and as an avid tinkerer, I want to see what automation benefits it can add to my homelab. The setup for both tools is quite easy and does not take up much of my time. I obtain a community free license for n8n, and though I am currently unaware of the limits or benefits it provides, it is definitely worth exploring.
November 14
If you are seeing this post, Hi, I am Samad; you can also call me thein3rovert, my personal nickname. Maybe sometimes I will explain why I gave myself that name.
Today I sign up for Bear Blog! If you are seeing previous posts, I had to get them from my daily journal. I also change the publish date to today, even though I publish them all today.
This evening I finally get to play with n8n. I create a simple workflow that creates an issue into Linear based on a prompt. I mainly want to use n8n for automation in my homelab. I haven't had the time yet to plan what sort of automation I want to use it for, but I am glad I at least have it running.