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Topic:

Linux

36 posts
Jan 2009 – Jun 2025

How to move Docker's data directory from /var/lib

I recently had to move Docker's data directory on my home NAS (from the root filesystem to the storage array). I found some incomplete and inconsistent information on the Web about how to do this, so for future reference here's the process I used to do …

Stop using the Raspberry Pi's SD card for swap

Using your Pi's SD card for swap space will, in time, kill the SD card.

Remote logging for easier Raspberry Pi debugging

When something does go wrong, having collected logs somewhere other than your Raspberry Pi's SD card is very helpful.

Raspberry Pi SD cards: fsck them often

If your Raspberry Pi is not using a read-only filesystem, I recommend setting the Pi to run a filesystem check on its root filesystem at every boot.

Mitigating hardware/firmware/driver instability on the Raspberry Pi

Sometimes, through no fault of your own, something deep down will cause your Raspberry Pi to crash. Hard.

Maintaining a solid WiFi connection on Raspberry Pi

The first issue you're likely to hit with a long-running Pi, particularly with a Raspberry Pi Zero, is the Pi dropping off your WiFi network for no apparent reason after days or just hours of operation.

Keep your software up and running on the Raspberry Pi

This post reviews some of the options for keeping a systemd-managed service running persistently on a Raspberry Pi, or really any other Linux system.

Disable or remove unneeded services and software to help keep your Raspberry Pi online

On long-running, single-purpose Raspberry Pis, I like to disable and/or remove some scheduled tasks, services, and other software. This may help with a few different reliability concerns.

Fixing excessive Pi-hole lighttpd access log size when Netdata is installed

Part of the Raspberry Pi Reliability series. Not running out of disk space is an important aspect of keeping tiny Linux machines with limited storage and RAM running reliably for extended time periods. On most Raspberry Pis and similar devices, I keep /var/log in RAM, either with a straightforward …

Reconsidering Netdata

Reconsidering where and how I install the open-source system monitoring tool, Netdata.

Reducing SD Card Wear on a Raspberry Pi or Armbian Device

A guide to reducing SD card wear for a more reliable Raspberry Pi installation.

Small commands, big consequences

My personal favorite Linux CLI gotcha is crontab -e vs. crontab -r.

Redirecting Hacker News traffic away from your site via Nginx configuration

If you wish to redirect traffic from Hacker News away from your site for some reason, placing these nginx configuration directives in your site’s server { block will do this trick. This won’t work inside a location block, at least in my experience. This snippet was last updated December …

Securing my personal SSH infrastructure with Yubikeys

One recently-completed project I mentioned in January’s “Now” post was locking down SSH in my personal computing infrastructure using Yubikeys. In this post, I’ll outline my goals, the strategy I took, and the problems and solutions I ran into along the way.

A lightweight service health check tool written in Bash

cdzombak/lightweight-healthcheck is an easy-to-use (and deploy) service health check tool, written entirely in Bash.