blog.fidelramos.net

Pre-establishing SSH master connections for Ansible, or using OnlyKey with Ansible without losing your mind

Fidel Ramos — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I use an OnlyKey as a hardware security device for a variety of purposes:

Common passwords are one keypress away, they get typed automatically.
As 2FA in my password manager (KeepassXC), by applying HMAC on the password.
SSH connections.
GPG encryption and signing.

OnlyKey

SSH connections are handled through the …

Announcing Reflex, a Pelican theme

Fidel Ramos — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I'm happy to announce the public availability of my Pelican theme: Reflex. It is published on PyPI, which should be the best way for most users to install it.

When I first started this blog I decided on Pelican because I had lots of experience with Python, so it would …

Self-hosted Home, Part 1: Design and Planning

Fidel Ramos — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Those who have been paying attention to the blog know that I bought a house and have been planning its full renovation. As a computer nerd what excites me the most is the opportunity to implement my dream smart home, networking and home server.

I have a clear idea of …

New Year's Resolutions for 2026

Fidel Ramos — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Another year has passed, and what I originally didn't plan to turn into a tradition has become one I never miss: publishing my resolutions for the new year. I always fail at some of my resolutions, but I like the effort of reflection and keeping them in mind throughout the …

Periodic script to back up installed OS packages

Fidel Ramos — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A while ago I switched to yadm for managing my dotfiles. One of its features I have been enjoying is its bootstrap support. I have been adding idempotent setup operations

My latest addition is a script that creates backup files with all installed OS packages. In case of disaster if …

Responsible education in computing

Fidel Ramos — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My oldest daughter is turning 7 soon, and I have promised her a gift: her first computer. I'm secretly hoping that she will develop an interest in computing similar to my own. Not because I want to reproduce my childhood in her (although, of course, I would like to share …

2025 Resolutions Review

Fidel Ramos — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We are about (okay come on, already past) halfway through the year, so it's a good time to assess progress on my resolutions for 2025.

Now with self-hosted comments

Fidel Ramos — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A few days ago I received an email from a reader and fellow blogger, to let me know that he was following my blog and also gave me a shout out about my New Year's resolution to write at least one article every month of 2025, and that I was …

New Year's Resolutions for 2025

Fidel Ramos — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A year ago I posted my resolutions for 2024. I did it with no intention of making it an annual tradition, it was more to get it off my chest. However some friends recently made me reflect on the resolutions I have kept and those I haven't (that social pressure …

New Year's Resolutions for 2024

Fidel Ramos — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I have been reflecting on life for several months, perhaps I am going through my particular midlife crisis.

This year 2024 I want to do my part to correct what is in my power (and worry less about what is not in my power), hence this list of New Year's …

My homelab setup

Fidel Ramos — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to my homelab!

If you don't know what a homelab is, it refers to running servers from your home. What is a server? It's basically a computer that is always on, connected to the network, often with no display or input. For a longer explanation take a look at …

Migrating to fish shell

Fidel Ramos — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I'm a heavy shell user. As a programmer I enjoy the power and flexibility of the shell, so I always keep multiple terminals open (just one keystroke away thanks to Yakuake).

I have been using Bash for as long as I have been a GNU/Linux user, that's 24 years …

Replacing Nginx with Caddy in Docker Compose

Fidel Ramos — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The main server in my homelab runs a bunch of services, but the heart of it is a Docker Compose configuration, several of them exposed to the Internet via a reverse proxy webserver.

Before I was using three Docker images to run Nginx, proxy traffic to other services and have …

Automating Python code quality

Fidel Ramos — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this article I explain what I mean by code quality and how it benefits developers.

In the first half I discuss general concepts and workflows that apply to most software projects. Even if you are not writing Python code you might learn something from it.

In the second half …

Public record: my BTC bet with tripu

Fidel Ramos — Sat, 06 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

On the back of the bet on the future relative prices of Bitcoin and US dollars that Balaji and Medlock settled publicly on 2023-05-02 (confirmation by Balaji; confirmation by Medlock), today tripu and I agree on the following terms of a bet:

The object of the bet is whether Bitcoin …

Privacy-respecting self-hosted Web Analytics

Fidel Ramos — Fri, 27 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It all started with a desire: I wanted some basic analytics for this blog to know how it's doing, which articles are popular and which are the main referrers. But therein lied the conundrum: I am a privacy zealot, very much against extensive online tracking (just look at the browser …

My free-software photography workflow

Fidel Ramos — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In this article I present a step-by-step walkthrough of my photography workflow. I won't go through all the details of every piece of software I mention, they have their own manuals and documentation for that, I will highlight the operations I do.

My main goals are:

Full ownership of all …

Web browser add-ons I use

Fidel Ramos — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This article lists the web browser extensions I use and why. I will keep it updated from time to time.

Currently I use Brave as my main web browser, and is the one I recommend to everyone. It offers a great experience by default, with features such as a built-in …

Nextcloud CardDAV and CalDAV discovery with DNS records

Fidel Ramos — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I use a self-hosted Nextcloud instance to hold a lot of my personal data, and that includes my contacts and calendars. Recently I had to reinstall DAVx5 on my phone, and I was surprised that the Nextcloud account was failing to be added.

The DAVx5 error logs showed that it …

Unlocking a LUKS-encrypted partition on boot with an USB drive

Fidel Ramos — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The use case I wanted to solve was this: I have a headless server with a LUKS software-encrypted hard drive, and I want to be able to reboot it without having to input the password on a keyboard. The solution I implemented is to create a LUKS keyfile on a …