HPC System Administrator sharing practical guides on Linux, Kubernetes, and homelab infrastructure.https://merox.dev/https://merox.dev/blog/homelab-tour/https://merox.dev/blog/homelab-tour/A full breakdown of my infrastructure in 2026 — Proxmox cluster, Talos Kubernetes, GitOps with Flux, Oracle Cloud VPS, Tailscale mesh, and a full DR plan.Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/synology-backup-oracle-cloud/https://merox.dev/blog/synology-backup-oracle-cloud/A short, no-dependency way to get an encrypted offsite backup onto an Oracle Cloud Always Free instance — replaces a Synology HyperBackup setup that needed a working DSM instance just to restore.Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/how-ai-fed-my-anxiety-without-asking/https://merox.dev/blog/how-ai-fed-my-anxiety-without-asking/How AI quietly consumed my focus, patience, and mental space — and what I did about it.Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/authentik-sso-homelab/https://merox.dev/blog/authentik-sso-homelab/Replacing scattered logins with Authentik on Oracle Cloud. Google login everywhere, proxy auth for Guacamole, OAuth2 for Portainer, and a K8s outpost for cluster services.Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/homelab-ai-agent/https://merox.dev/blog/homelab-ai-agent/How I settled on five dedicated OpenClaw agents — news briefing, infrastructure monitoring, backup verification, dashboard automation, and an orchestrator — running securely as a dedicated user with a custom command center dashboard.Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/homelab-update-routine/https://merox.dev/blog/homelab-update-routine/A practical guide to keeping a multi-node Proxmox cluster, Talos Kubernetes, Synology, pfSense, and Docker services updated — rolling upgrade strategy, Renovate automation, and a cadence that doesn't consume your weekends.Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/pfsense-boot-troubleshooting/https://merox.dev/blog/pfsense-boot-troubleshooting/Three separate failures from a single accidental reboot — CAM disk detection delay, serial console locking the keyboard out, and NIC enumeration mismatch. Documented as it happened.Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/npm-axios-supply-chain/https://merox.dev/blog/npm-axios-supply-chain/A compromised maintainer pushed poisoned axios versions containing a cross-platform RAT.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/proxmox-gpu-passthrough/https://merox.dev/blog/proxmox-gpu-passthrough/Step-by-step GPU passthrough on Proxmox VE 8 — IOMMU groups, VFIO binding, NVIDIA driver quirks, ROM dumps, and Tesla P40 for AI inference workloads.Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/moltbot-proxmox-deployment/https://merox.dev/blog/moltbot-proxmox-deployment/Deploy OpenClaw (formerly Moltbot/Clawdbot) on Proxmox in an unprivileged LXC — setup, security hardening, and post-breach recommendations.Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/merox-erudite-theme/https://merox.dev/blog/merox-erudite-theme/A fork of astro-erudite v1 with comments, analytics, SEO schemas, and an enhanced homepage — built for production blogging.Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/migrate-from-minio-to-garage/https://merox.dev/blog/migrate-from-minio-to-garage/How to replace MinIO with Garage as the S3 backend for Longhorn backups — setup, bucket config, Kubernetes secret, and HelmRelease update.Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/ssh-hardening/https://merox.dev/blog/ssh-hardening/Practical SSH hardening for production Linux servers — key-based auth, sshd_config, 2FA, host-based auth, fail2ban, and log monitoring.Mon, 06 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/longhorn-backup-restore/https://merox.dev/blog/longhorn-backup-restore/How to restore Kubernetes applications from Longhorn backups — scale down, remove empty PVCs, restore volumes, create PVs/PVCs, and bring everything back up.Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/smb-cifs-active-directory-authentication-linux/https://merox.dev/blog/smb-cifs-active-directory-authentication-linux/How to integrate Linux SMB file servers with Active Directory using SSSD, Samba, Kerberos, and realmd — tested on RHEL 8 and OpenSUSE 15.6.Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/ccna-career-boost/https://merox.dev/blog/ccna-career-boost/Follow my complete journey from networking beginner to CCNA certified professional - including study methods, practical labs, challenges, and how this certification opened doors to cybersecurity opportunities.Fri, 02 May 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/windows-11-ubuntu-25-04-dual-boot-guide/https://merox.dev/blog/windows-11-ubuntu-25-04-dual-boot-guide/Step-by-step guide to dual booting Windows 11 and Ubuntu — partitioning, installation, GRUB, and common fixes.Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/wordpress-to-hugo-setup/https://merox.dev/blog/wordpress-to-hugo-setup/Why I moved from WordPress to Hugo, and how the site runs today — GitHub Actions, GitHub Pages, and Cloudflare.Mon, 07 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/google-hub-visit/https://merox.dev/blog/google-hub-visit/A deep dive into Google's Warsaw HUB, exploring its work culture, amenities, and high-tech environment. During my business trip to Warsaw, I had the unique opportunity to visit Google's impressive officesMon, 17 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/3-2-1-backup-strategy/https://merox.dev/blog/3-2-1-backup-strategy/A practical guide to the 3-2-1 backup rule — what it means, how to implement it, and how to actually recover when things go wrong.Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/k3s-cluster-in-2025/https://merox.dev/blog/k3s-cluster-in-2025/Rebuilding my K3s cluster from scratch with Ansible — VM provisioning via Cloud-Init on Proxmox, HA across three nodes, and full automation.Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/first-steps-in-it-career/https://merox.dev/blog/first-steps-in-it-career/How I went from skipping university classes to landing my first sysadmin job — the CV, the interview, and the questions they asked.Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/run-ai-at-home/https://merox.dev/blog/run-ai-at-home/Running Ollama, OpenWebUI, and Stable Diffusion on a CPU-only homelab server — installation, configuration, and integration.Fri, 16 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/dell-r720/https://merox.dev/blog/dell-r720/How I integrated a Dell PowerEdge R720 into my homelab — fan control via IPMItool, firmware updates, Proxmox migration over NFS, RAID storage, and UPS integration with PowerPanel.Sat, 13 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://merox.dev/blog/tailscale-site-to-site/https://merox.dev/blog/tailscale-site-to-site/How to set up a Tailscale site-to-site L3 connection between a pfSense homelab subnet and a Linux cloud VM subnet.Sat, 06 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT