Skip to main content

Start Here

By MS

Welcome to IT Random Stuff.

This blog is a personal collection of practical notes about Linux, homelabs, computer security, Docker, firewalls, backups, monitoring, honeypots, old hardware and sysadmin experiments.

If you are new here, this page is the best place to start. The blog is not meant to be a polished corporate knowledge base. It is a practical technical notebook: things tested, broken, fixed, hardened, upgraded and documented along the way.

The main focus right now is simple:

Building, securing and maintaining useful Linux home servers without pretending the homelab is an enterprise data center.

Suggested reading path

If you want to follow the current Linux home server and homelab security series in order, start here:

  1. Linux Home Server Security Checklist
  2. UFW Firewall Rules for Home Servers
  3. Fail2ban for Beginners: Protect SSH on a Linux Home Server
  4. Lynis Hardening Checklist: What to Fix First on a Linux Home Server
  5. Docker Security for Homelab Beginners
  6. Backing Up Docker Containers on a Home Server

This path covers the basics: understand the server, lock down SSH, configure the firewall, run audits, avoid careless Docker exposure, and make sure backups exist before something breaks.

Linux Home Server Security

These posts are about hardening small Linux servers, cheap homelab machines, old workstations, laptops and always-on boxes used at home.

Docker and Self-Hosting

Docker is useful in a homelab, but it can also make it easy to expose random services, forget volumes, lose data, or run containers with too much access. These posts focus on practical Docker use for home servers.

Monitoring

Monitoring is what tells you when the boring server has stopped being boring. This section is for tools that help detect outages, broken services and unhealthy systems before they become bigger problems.

  • Coming next: Uptime Kuma for Home Servers
    A practical self-hosted monitoring guide for checking websites, Docker services, SSH, home network devices and alerts.

Homelab Hardware Builds

Not every home server needs to be new or expensive. A lot of useful homelab work can be done with old workstations, laptops, cheap desktops and retired hardware.

SSH and Password Hygiene

Good security starts with the basics: strong credentials, SSH keys, no shared admin accounts, and fewer lazy shortcuts.

  • Strong Unique Passwords
    Why strong, unique passwords still matter and how they fit into basic security hygiene.
  • Coming soon: SSH Hardening for Home Servers
    A practical SSH hardening guide covering keys, config files, root login, password authentication and lockout prevention.

Honeypots and Security Labs

Honeypots are useful when they answer a defensive question, such as whether something is scanning your network. This blog has covered OpenCanary before, and this area fits naturally with the Linux homelab security theme.

  • Honeypot Deployment on Linux - OpenCanary
    Older notes on deploying OpenCanary on Linux.
  • Coming soon: OpenCanary Honeypot on Ubuntu: Updated Homelab Setup Guide
    A newer defensive homelab-focused OpenCanary guide with updated setup notes and safer deployment ideas.

Older Linux and Sysadmin Notes

Some older posts are still useful as part of the blog’s Linux and sysadmin notebook history.

Best posts to start with

If you only read a few posts, start with these:

What this blog is not

This blog is not a professional security service, not a compliance guide, and not a promise that every command is perfect for every system.

Commands and configurations should be read, understood, tested and adapted before using them on important systems.

Security-related content is intended for defensive, educational and lawful use only.

What is coming next

The next useful topics for this blog are likely to be:

  • Uptime Kuma for Home Servers
  • SSH Hardening for Home Servers
  • OpenCanary Honeypot on Ubuntu: Updated Setup Guide
  • Old Laptop as a Linux Home Server
  • Samba File Share on a Linux Home Server
  • Used Workstation as a Homelab Server: What to Check Before Buying

If you like practical Linux, old hardware, homelabs, defensive security and self-hosting experiments, this page is the best place to return to when new posts are added.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honeypot deployment on Linux - OpenCanary

By MS
What’s a honeypot what what its purpose ? It’s basically a computer or Virtual Machine emulating some services (ex: ssh, ftp, telnet, netbios, https, samba server etc) and accepting, logging and sending warnings of all incoming connections. You can use it as intrusion detection or early warning system but it also might go a little further and allow one to get inside the intruders ”head” since you get to log every interaction. How and where should it be placed? Let’s start with “where”. I usually place them in specific areas to get an idea how/or if the network is tested from outside or inside. So I have about three major areas; behind firewalls, in “sensible zones” where only pre-defined machines should have access and in the “public zone” such as administrative/general network. Placing a honeypot behind firewalls/”sensible zones” will ensure that the firewall is doing its and if you get a hit that means you have a missconfigurations or a serious intrusion. Honeypots placed...
2 comments
Read more

Lenovo ThinkPad X250 on Linux: Tweaks, Undervolting, Battery Life and 2026 Update

By MS
I wanted a cheap, small, serviceable Linux laptop. Something light enough to carry, easy enough to repair, and inexpensive enough that upgrades would still make sense. The Lenovo ThinkPad X250 was a good candidate because it has a 12.5-inch form factor, a proper ThinkPad keyboard, SSD upgrade options, replaceable parts, Ethernet, docking support and generally good Linux compatibility. I found one on eBay for around 130€ : an Intel Core i5-5300U model with 8GB RAM , a 128GB SSD , two batteries and an HD screen with a small bruise. The plan was simple: clean it, repaste it, upgrade the SSD, install Linux Mint, undervolt it and see how useful it could still be. This post started as my original 2019 notes about tweaking the Lenovo X250 in Linux. I have now updated it with a 2026 perspective, cleaner instructions, better internal links and a more realistic look at whether this old ThinkPad is still worth using. Related posts: Linux Home Server Security Checklist Docker Secu...
2 comments
Read more

Strong, Unique Passwords Without Losing Your Mind

By MS
Last updated: May 27, 2026 Password Security in 2026: Password Managers, Passkeys & 2FA for Real People Password Security in 2026: Password Managers, Passkeys & 2FA That Actually Work Most people do not have a weak-password problem. They have a reused-password problem. You can invent the cleverest password in the world, but if you use it on twenty websites and one of them gets breached, you suddenly have twenty compromised accounts. That is how most real-world account takeovers happen in 2026. Not elite hackers brute-forcing your login from a dark room somewhere. Just automated credential stuffing using databases leaked years ago from services you forgot existed. One old forum breach becomes access to your email, cloud storage, streaming services, VPN account, and eventually your homelab dashboard because the same password got reused everywhere. This guide explains how to handle passwords properly today: without paranoia, without enterprise co...
Post a Comment
Read more