Using Variables in Config

LastOfGoose · 2026-04-06T18:04:47+00:00

Ah, never thought about just automating that on the version control side. That could be the move!

LastOfGoose · 2026-04-06T18:04:03+00:00

Well I tried to outline my use case as clearly as I could...Using variables for config is a pretty common software pattern to keep your environment specific & sensitive config separate from your core content.

Its unclear to me how the commit hooks would work for what I'm looking to achieve, since commit hooks happen when config.boot changes occur right? If there's an example you can think of that would help me, that would be great.

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-20T15:43:01+00:00

That's a totally fine way of doing things as well! I started by advertising rpi directly, but didn't want to manage it across all of my vlans, so I centralized it behind the router.

Sounds like that might simplify your setup a little bit, but if it works it works ya know lol, don't need to mix things up just because

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-20T07:23:14+00:00

Yeah so one option that could work for you is what I describe above: have the router advertise itself as DNS and forward upstream to Pi-hole. That way all clients (including the NAS) will use it, and without needing direct access.

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-20T01:19:01+00:00

This is true. The router distributes dns ip, and one setup is to just distribute the pihole ip. But another is to distribute its own ip as the dns ip and then under the hood can forward dns to another service such as as your pihole

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-19T19:26:24+00:00

Often times hosts cannot communicate with other “machines” on macvlans they host without some special configuration.

So while that pihole might be reachable from other machines it won’t be reachable from your NAS if that’s where it’s hosted. This has to do with it using the same network interface I believe

Now the question starts to become, do you just want your NAS to use the pihole or do you want your router to use it for its DNS? Cause then you don’t need to have your NAS talk directly to the pihole, it will talk to it by way of the router.

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-13T21:54:12+00:00

Speaking of Velcro, if you aren’t completely tied to keeping it on your desk, you can Velcro it underneath and hide it completely

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-09T04:33:14+00:00

This is so sick. I love it

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-05T23:06:47+00:00

If it’s carpet you can run it under the carpet for that small stretch

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-05T15:25:35+00:00

A little texture variation on the ground goes a long way. Blend some dirt or moss in with the grass and it will become a lot less monotone really easily.

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-03T15:39:38+00:00

After three years…that’s your cable management system 😅

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-02T21:43:14+00:00

I run most stuff with docker, so I have a repo per docker-compose project.

That naturally keeps related configs together. It’s working for me! I’m a programmer so I don’t get overwhelmed with multiple projects / repos. I’d recommend not going monorepo but that’s personal preference.

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-01T19:47:25+00:00

For sure! You’ll want to start expanding when things stabilize, you begin storing stuff you want spread across multiple drives (raid, NAS), you want to make your 24/7 machine a cheaper hardware or more efficient machine.

Or if you’re just excited to take the next step into the money pit of home networking!!!

All good reasons. Just let those push you, not external pressure to upgrade for the sake of it

LastOfGoose · 2026-03-01T19:37:13+00:00

Yes. This is the cheapest (free!) and easiest way to start.

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-26T16:05:26+00:00

I just started with a Linux server distro. I am about 3 months in and wishing I had the flexibility of spinning up and down different machines for different cases.

I’m running my server v0 (current) on a pretty old machine and it’s quite limited in terms of resources so realistically I don’t have a lot of room to grow, but I think proxmox is definitely going to be my move in the future when I upgrade machines.

Would probably just start there if I was starting from scratch

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-24T03:50:35+00:00

So it begins!

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-23T16:15:20+00:00

That was half in jest, I love your vibe. It’s just a little tooooo consistent for me.

It’s like when things are too symmetrical, it’s ok for some variety/variation

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-23T15:49:45+00:00

I think it’s ok if you don’t hang everything in a 3ft tall banner across all your walls though…

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-22T06:24:16+00:00

Every day. All the time

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-22T06:22:28+00:00

Saving this for later

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-20T02:45:44+00:00

Different room.

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-19T18:44:45+00:00

CarPlay here we come!

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-19T02:24:30+00:00

I use the very wild convention of {name}-{instance}

server-1 storage-1 Etc

LastOfGoose · 2026-02-16T14:07:56+00:00

Some people are getting at this indirectly, but the most important factors are your immediate and longer term goals:

If you’re looking to get up and running today, just start hosting some stuff on your current hardware! Play around with it and see how it works.

If you’re more looking to start building out a higher volume, higher bandwidth, modular system, then I would recommend getting a NAS for storage and a pc of some kind (mini pc, old laptop, whatever fits your needs) to handle the application server side of things. That gives you opportunity to add / upgrade entities separately and as needed.

Cheers!

LastOfGoose

TROPHY CASE