All posts
Build a Manual with Starlight #1: From Install to Your First Doc
We set up the skeleton of a team documentation and product manual site with Astro's Starlight, walking through everything from getting Node.js ready to creating a site with create astro and bringing up your first doc on the dev server.
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) #24 Troubleshooting 3: Control Plane (apiserver/etcd/scheduler Down), etcd Recovery
The twenty-fourth post in the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) series. Taking the fact that control plane components run as static Pods as the starting point of diagnosis, we organize how to narrow down causes by symptom — from an apiserver down that leaves kubectl unresponsive, to an etcd down, to a scheduler/controller-manager down. We get hands-on with inspecting containers directly via crictl and journalctl, and with fixing manifests so kubelet restarts them.
Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) #19 Ingress and NetworkPolicy
The nineteenth post in the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) series. It covers Ingress, which routes external traffic at L7, and NetworkPolicy, which controls Pod-to-Pod communication with a whitelist, from a hands-on exam perspective. We will build everything from host/path routing and pathType, IngressClass, and TLS through to the podSelector-based default deny pattern, with YAML examples.
Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) #17 Falco behavioral analysis, audit logs (Runtime)
The 17th post in the Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) series. As the core of the final domain — Monitoring, Logging, and Runtime Security — we cover the rule structure of Falco, the syscall-based runtime threat-detection tool, along with writing custom rules and reading its output, then move on to the Kubernetes API audit log: policy levels and stages, apiserver flag configuration, and log analysis — all framed around the tasks that show up on the exam again and again.
Hardware Intermediate #1: Reading Performance Metrics — Turning Slow into Numbers
If Hardware Basics gave you the mental model of the four resources, the intermediate series starts on the operations floor. It uses utilization, saturation, and errors as the three questions for reading metrics, and explains what load average and %wa really mean as signs of hardware behavior.
How Backups Actually Stay Safe: The 3-2-1 Rule
What a backup really is, how it differs from sync, and why the 3-2-1 rule became the standard — explained without code. From external drives and NAS to cloud backup, automation, and restore tests, all at a level a non-developer can follow.
How Do Google Drive and iCloud Stay in Sync? Cloud Storage and Conflict Copies
What actually happens while a photo taken on your phone shows up on your laptop. Change detection, uploading only the modified pieces, the conflicted copy that appears when two devices edit the same file, and why sync is not a backup — explained for non-developers.
Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) #8: Exam Tips and Common Mistakes
A condensed recap to read one more time right before you walk into the KCNA exam. We cover time management for 60 questions in 90 minutes, the question formats people most often trip over (multiple response, double negatives), pairs of easily confused concepts (Deployment vs StatefulSet, CRI vs CNI vs CSI, HPA vs VPA, and more), techniques for narrowing down the options, a compact per-domain checklist, and a final pre-exam check for online-proctored sessions.
Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) #16: RHCSA automation 3 — storage (LVM), filesystems (NFS)
The sixteenth post in the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) series. We automate the storage portion of RHCSA hands-on work with Ansible. We walk through carving partitions with parted, building a VG with lvg and an LV with lvol, then formatting with filesystem and handling both fstab and the live mount in one shot with mount — plus adding swap, mounting NFS remotely, and the storage system role alternative, all from an idempotency angle.
Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) #13: SELinux in depth — contexts, booleans, troubleshooting (audit2allow)
The thirteenth post in the Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) series. We cover switching SELinux between enforcing/permissive and making it permanent, the structure of file and process contexts and applying policy-correct labels with semanage fcontext and restorecon, the booleans you flip with getsebool and setsebool -P, how to open a non-standard port with semanage port, and the troubleshooting flow that traces denial logs with ausearch, sealert, and audit2allow to build policy. We work through the most common RHCSA situation by hand — a service blocked by SELinux.
LLM App Development #5: Getting Structured Output
Going beyond narrowing output with a prompt by enforcing it with a JSON schema. With a Pydantic model and messages.parse, you receive a validated result and plug it straight into code.
AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate (SOA-C03) #8 Domain 3-2 Deployment: Systems Manager Operations Automation
The eighth post of the SOA-C03 series covers Systems Manager, the core tool of the deployment and automation domain. It covers how to manage config and secrets with Parameter Store, apply patches in bulk with Patch Manager, maintain a desired state with State Manager, connect securely without keys via Session Manager, and also covers Run Command and Automation.