I just started using some docker containers I found on Docker Hub designed for DB backups (e.g. prodrigestivill/postgres-backup-local) to automatically dump from the databases into a set folder, which is included in the restic backup. I know you could come up with scripts but this way, I could easily copy the compose code to other containers with different databases (and different passwords etc).

I would recommend it as it is fairly easy to understand and most Foss services give you an example to use. You can also convert docker run examples to compose (search docker composeriser) although it doesn’t always work.

I found composer files easier when learning it, to digest what is going on (ports, networks, depends_on etc) and can compare with other services to see what is missing (container name, restart schedule etc). I can then easily backup the compose files, env files and data directories to be able to very quickly get a service up again (although DBs are trickier but found a docker image that I can stick on the compose files which backups the DB dumps regularly)

I am born and raised in England to Indian parents so always had some internal tension. Sometimes, I don’t understand my patents culture and sometimes I don’t understand English culture. However, I’ve realised I am who I am, and can take the best bits from both. There are some bits I don’t like so I’m the better for being / having that mix. I married an Irish person who moved over several years ago. Irish used to be the “other” and were screwed over, but now are sometimes considered “white”, so just shows the target moves.

There has always been racism in British society and unfortunately I have felt it pick up since the Brexit vote and Trump’s election (I think it empowered them). However, it is from a small minority of people. In some areas it comes from ignorance, which I can kind of forgive. Others will always see us as outsiders with our foreign names (and my brown skin) no matter what we do. I just think, screw them. I mean, can they trace themselves back before the Normans, the Romans or the Vikings etc? Where do you draw the line exactly?!? England has always been a mix of people and culture so they’re the ones missing out. I’m happy driving my Korean car to a German store to buy ingredients for a Thai green curry. Oh, I’ll grab a French pastry for breakfast, Chilean wine for the weekend and well, you get the idea! Let’s make the most of this multicultural place and ideas, and who cares about bigots who you can guarantee, like a cheeky korma and Belgian beer…

Been using Duckduckgo for a few years now and found it very good, although it’s also on the downward SEO ruined path. Have tried Google occasionally and wow is it juat completely full of crap.

My parents had a Post Office which I effectively grew up in. I remember them having to report things on a desktop and loading these discs. I also remember when they got the Horizon system and how much trouble they were having trying to get it to work.

They moved to the city I was born and raised in just to buy the PO, and both worked full time in it. I feel so lucky they didn’t get caught up in it all. I have asked if they paid anything they weren’t sure about and they said there was nothing, although my mum paused before answering so think there might’ve been something.

It would have ruined our lives completely so all this scandal stuff really hits me hard. I couldn’t even watch the Norman Bates show past 20 minutes as I just got so upset and angry. Fuck all the people involved (at every level) and hope they suffer for all time…

I’d much rather see this than any of the commercial adverts.

It is useful information too. Most people won’t interrupt or help, and partly because they are not sure how. I saw this recently and it did make me think, if I did see something happening I have a better idea of how I can help.

It also creates an environment where you cannot justify not acting because you don’t think you can help, and that we as a society are saying it is not acceptable. If one person challenges harassment that would not have done so before seeing that, I’d count it as a success.

I only use docker images supplied by the devs themselves or community maintained (e.g. Linux server.io) so they essentially tell docker what needs to be installed in the container, not me. It takes the hassle out of trying to figure out what I need to do to get the service running. If they update their app, they’ll probably know best what else needs to be updated and will do that in the image. I guess you are relying on them to keep everything updated but they are way more knowledgeable than me and if there is a vulnerability, it is only in that container and not your other services.

Lots of little things really. Obviously I couldn’t say for certain but they seemed to on top of it without causing us too much difficulty in doing our jobs.

Sometimes things were blocked like if a new email, or questioned after to check it was expected and followed policy. Policies were clear, and there were helpful prompts or warnings.

We were involved in something where we had to copy a sh*t load of files from a shared folder to a hard disk. There were like three automatic blocks that kicked in at different times, which was a pain at first to figure out but because we had a good reason, someone in IT just kept at it to get it done and looking back, that should have raised flags given the size of it all.

They changed from passwords changing every 6 months to no changes but had to be longer and mandatory 2FA. We were told to use keepass for all passwords for things that weren’t SSO for various reasons.

Don’t provide services to others, including your own family, actually especially your own family, until you are quite comfortable with what is going on and what might be causing issues. Focus on helping yourself or keeping whatever other services you were using before just in case.

Trying to fix something at night, with a fuming partner who’s already put up with a difficult to use service, because of your want for privacy even though they don’t care care, whilst saying “it should work, I don’t know what’s wrong”, is not a great place to be 😁.

Overall though, I found it so interesting that I am doing a part time degree in computer science in my 30s, purely to learn more (whilst being forced to do it to timelines and having paid for it).

I have a very comfortable and ‘forget about it’ setup my family are now using. Every now and then I add new services for myself, and if it works out, will give access to others to use, keep it just for me or just delete it and move on.

I have a reason I don’t think is covered. A few programs I have come across that I want to try recommend docker and some only provide instructions for docker. They can spend less time trying to help you with dependencies and installations knowing they’ve included everything you need in the docker file. I don’t have a background in Linux or programming so unless they tell you exactly how to install something, I can struggle. Their installation page is then just the docker compose file with a note on the environment variables you can change.

It’s painful but might be easier to just download the ebooks through other means. Try Openbooks.

It’s really targeted at people who want to stay “off the books” or not pay any taxes, so is what it is. If you’re getting paid cash up front then there’s not too much issue for you.

Technically, you have an employee - employer contact by law automatically, and they legally need to provide you with a letter stating certain terms within x days of the start date. I can’t remember exact details.

They should also be putting you through payroll, deducting taxes (if needed), and paying employers NI. Someone else mentioned the need to pay you minimum wage by law

These are all additional costs to them so if you raise it as an issue with them, I’d say they will cut you out and block you. You’re unlikely to get any authority to really care, especially if they keep a low profile for this purpose.

It might be a good idea to personally tell the tax authority about your earnings (ignoring the employer) and keep track of it. If in a tax year (April to March) you earn less then £5k you won’t pay any NI and less than £12.5k you won’t pay any income tax. It’s quite straightforward to do and if you’re not paying tax then no real cost. However, you could also easily get away with doing nothing, especially if they pay you cash and there’s no real record. Feel free to message me to ask any more questions about tax.

Either try to work out how to pass headers through to get around the service login or give up and find another app. On some services, the service auto logs onto one account so anybody who gets through Authentik sees the same stuff which is fine. I definitely don’t have two levels of login!

I should say I use Plex’s and vaultwarden’s own login systems.

They serve two different purposes. You can have one, both or neither. Sorry if you already know all this below but thought it might be good to explain in detail.

NPM is a proxy provider so passes subdomains to the right service (e.g. service1.url.com passes to service 1 at IP x.x.x.x on port 5050). This allows you to only open one port to NPM but access other services through subdomains. I have NPM in front of myexternal apps so I can access each through a subdomain (e.g. service1.url.com). You could also use it for accessing internally if you setup your internal DNS to pass (e.g. service1.internal) to the IP address and port of your service, and set NPM only to allow access from internal IPs.

Authentik provides single sign on so instead of having different usernames and passwords for every user on every service, you have one set of users and it manages the passwords.

There are at a high level two levels of using it.

Some services have proper SSO integration so you setup Authentik to replace it’s own login system. For instance, with Nextcloud you are going to the Nextcloud homepage but it then goes out to Authentik to do the login process and once passed, Authentik will tell Nextcloud user B has successfully logged in, I vouch for them and here are their details. You can do this for internal and external access. Obviously with Nextcloud you need to login either through it’s own login system or via SSO so even if I go directly to the internal IP and port (and therefore don’t need NPM to access it), I still need Authentik to login so it knows it’s me and not my partner trying to access her account

Some services don’t have SSO integration or have no login required. For instance, I have Stirling PDF which doesn’t need user details or login. However, you don’t want to just allow anyone to access so I have setup NPM to use Authentik as a proxy pass. If I go to stirlingpdf.url.com then it sends me to Authentik to login. You can only ever get to the Stirling app if you successfully log in. You can also set Authentik so that only certain users or groups of users can access certain apps but that’s more than I need.

It does take some effort to get SSO working correctly for each service and it’s only really worth it if you do have multiple users or services that need logins.

You don’t want just NPM unless you trust the service to have a secure login.

Others will probably say, you shouldn’t have anything facing externally. You can setup Tailscale or Wireguard tunnels so you always appear to be on the local network. That way, you don’t need NPM to be open externally. However you might still want it so you can type the address service1.internal instead of 192.168.1.1:8063 each time. You probably also want Authentik to make the login shared.

In terms of network access to get them working, NPM needs to be able to access Authentik internally on your network. You could either put them on the same shared Docker network or in my case, they are both on the same server so share an internal IP. I have opened the individual ports on Docker so they can access each other internally just like I can access both from my laptop. If I’m accessing away from home, I have my domain pointing my home external network ID, port 443 open on my router pointing to my home server with NPM. NPM then “talks” to Authentik through the home network so I login through that but I don’t have to open the Authentik port externally.

In my case, in the NPM settings, instead of using the docker created network for Authentik (like 172.3.1.1 or something that might change), I use the internal IP of the machine (like 192.168.1.1:4443 {if 4443 is the Authentik port}). I also have an NPM entry auth.url.com that points to Authentik which some apps need instead of the internal address. It took some playing around to get it right but once you do, it’s essentially copy and paste for new services.

It will be funny when they eventually decide the AI bureaucracy is the problem like they are blaming the civil service now. Nothing to do with their disastrous unworkable policies (Rwanda), pandering to the extreme elements of their party (Truss) or their complete ineptitude (pretty much everything else)…

One good thing that happened in recent years is the digital push and gov.uk websites. I have to say, getting a driving licence, renewing a passport, finding information on lots of topics has massively improved. Carry on with this, not wasting money on untested technology. Of course, that’s silly for me to say. The money will all go to friends of the party with nothing gained.

Honestly, I am so glad my parents didn’t move to the USA and moved to the UK instead. Me and my sister had several health issues including asthma, food allergies, broken bones playing sports, and as a result several hospital and doctor visits. Considering my parents were self employed shop keepers, I don’t know if we’d be alive, let alone what sort of life we would have had. Then also having to pay for college would’ve been tricky. Having so few work holidays also completely sucks!

We are now both professionals with great jobs, paying lots of taxes and volunteer a lot to try to give back. Would that be possible in the USA - I honestly have no idea! Would we move to the USA - absolutely no way! We’d both actually earn lots more money in the USA in the same role but factoring in health and happiness, it’s not worth it.

When you hear “greatest country on earth” and “the American dream”, I think anybody in Western countries really roll their eyes. It’s not a utopia here in the UK but nobody claims it to be, and stories like this just prove we are better off here.

However, we know the people themselves are great and don’t deserve this position. We feel sorry for you and wish part of your population would travel and see things for themselves to push for changes back home.

In the UK, we are terrified that we will end up in the same position as our out of touch political elite and ultra wealthy would love to copy this.

It never went away but lots of people I know who did all that stopped bothering.

When the range in netflix went down, fees went up and everybody launched different services, I was really thinking of sailing but it was Netflix blocking sharing that was the final straw.