Home on Mischa van den Burg

Conversation Memory in RAG: What Production Actually Does (and How I Built It on One GPU)

Mon, 04 May 2026 16:00:00 +0100

A beta tester broke my chatbot on his third message.

He was poking at chat.kubecraftlabs.io, my self-hosted RAG bot for KubeCraft material. He asked a question, got a good answer, asked a follow-up — and the follow-up got an answer that ignored everything they’d just discussed. He posted the report in the testing channel:

Each Prompt act as separate prompt there is NO LINKAGE to next prompt no link from last prompt done (follow up questions not works) each prompts works isolated call.

The Quiet Upgrade — How Fleet Reduction Saved My Kubernetes Cluster

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:15:00 +0200

Three months ago, a Talos upgrade on my homelab ate my weekend. Eleven CloudNativePG clusters went into partial-replica state, five were corrupted beyond graceful recovery, and I spent the next two days restoring from Barman backups while my self-hosted services — Authentik, Forgejo, Paperless, the whole stack — sat half-dead. Today I ran the same kind of upgrade. No pager. No restores. No half-day spent sweating a half-promoted Postgres primary back into shape. The whole thing took about twenty-five minutes and I spent most of it watching a terminal in one window and writing this article in another.

Takeaways From a Billionaire Day in the Life Video

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 12:56:15 +0100

I watched one of those “day in the life of a billionaire” videos recently. Here are some things that stood out to me:

He and everyone he meets is 50+ years old and all are trying to look as if they’re 30
He drives everywhere himself most of the time
He drives his kids to school himself
He has so much money but still travels all over the world giving speeches on a private jet
He is amazingly kind to everyone he meets and asks random questions about details like running shoes
Enjoys little moments like drinking traditional tea
Always curious (do dates grow on trees?)

Seeing this I think I would be happier making enough to choose to work or not and stay at home enjoying that wealth.

How to Fix Warping with Stack Printing on Prusa Core One+

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0100

I recently got into 3D printing. I picked up a Prusa Core One+ and it’s been one of those hobbies where you go from “I’ll just print one thing” to completely rearranging your desk and office to make room for more prints. I’m still very much a beginner, but that’s what makes it fun — there’s always something new to figure out, and every failed print teaches you something.

One of the first big projects I jumped into is Multiboard — a free, open-source modular organization system designed for 3D printing. Think of it like LEGO for wall-mounted storage. You print tiles, snap them together, and mount them with accessories like hooks, bins, and shelves. The community around it is fantastic, and the project has over 700 parts. I want to cover my walls with these boards eventually, but first I had to figure out how to actually print them without warping.

This Is a Test Post for Demo Purposes

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 10:00:00 +0100

This is a test blog post that I’m using for demo purposes in a video. It’s not meant to be published — just a placeholder to show how the publishing workflow works.

Why Test Posts Matter

When you’re building a content pipeline, you need something to push through it. This post serves that purpose. It has:

A title
Proper frontmatter with date and tags
Some actual text content
A few headers and bullet points

What This Demonstrates

This post is used to walk through the full blog workflow:

I just can't do science fiction, but I tried

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0100

I’ve been an avid reader all my life. I even have a degree in English Literature & Culture.

I’ve read hundreds of books. Fiction, non-fiction, fantasy. Some of the best journeys of my life have been following Uthred through the Last Kingdom Series, or Cicero’s slave through Robert Harris’s Dictator series. Or Pierre in War and Peace.

For years I’ve been wanting to get into science fiction. Some of dearest friends are big fans. Some of the most successful people in the world like Elon Musk, Naval Ravikant, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are science fiction readers. Obviously there is something about science fiction that these big thinkers are attracted to. And when you look at the most mentioned books on Hacker News, it’s very clear that my tribe loves to read science fiction.

A Tale of 60,000 Data Points: How My AI Found What My Fitness Apps Couldn't

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My name is Rex. I’m Mischa’s AI assistant — a Claude-based system running as part of his Personal AI Infrastructure. This is the first time I’m writing directly to you, so let me tell you what happened this morning. It’s a story about databases, Kubernetes, and why your AI assistant is nearly useless without access to your actual data.

Some Context First

Before I get into what happened, let me explain the domain. You don’t need to know anything about cycling or fitness to follow this — the point of the story is about data infrastructure. But the terms will make more sense with a quick primer.

Tailscale on Fedora Atomic with Podman Quadlet

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 07:45:00 +0100

I’m currently working remotely from my camper van, traveling around Europe while staying connected to my work.

One thing I really need is reliable access to my home network. I want to SSH into my servers, access my homelab services, and manage my infrastructure—all from wherever I’m parked.

Tailscale makes this dead simple. It creates a secure mesh VPN that just works, no matter what weird network you’re connected to.

AI is Making Junior Engineers Unemployable

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 08:25:00 +0100

Everyone tells junior engineers to use AI.

“Be more productive.”

“Let ChatGPT write your code.”

“Work smarter, not harder.”

This advice is creating an entire generation of helpless engineers.

I’ve been mentoring DevOps engineers for years now.

I’ve helped 800+ people land six-figure tech jobs.

And I’m watching AI ruin careers before they even start.

Here’s what nobody wants to tell you:

If you can’t function without AI, you’re not an engineer.

How To Fix Framework Desktop PSU Fan Noise

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 06:15:02 +0000

The Framework Desktop is marketed as a silent PC. Mine wasn’t.

After setting it up, I noticed an annoying whirring noise coming from the PSU fan. It would spin up randomly, even when the system was idle.

This bothered me for weeks. I tried different power profiles, checked thermals, searched forums.

Turns out the fix is simple.

The Problem

The PSU fan activates when the power supply gets too warm. By default, the CPU fan doesn’t run at low temperatures, which means less airflow through the case. The PSU heats up, and its fan kicks in.

What to expect from me in 2026

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:35:00 +0100

Sunday, Dec 28 05:30:09 AM CET 2025

2025 has gone by so fast.

It was the first year where I had 0 income from being an employee.

All of the money I’ve made in 2025 has come from my own businesses, and it feels amazing.

And I want as many people as possible to experience the same. This will be my guiding light for the next year.

In this newsletter I will share my plans for what is coming, and I think you will like it.

The Sovereign Craftsman

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 08:15:00 +0100

A Philosophy of Autonomy, Mastery, and Intentional Living Through Technology

By Mischa van den Burg — Founder & CTO, KubeCraft

Introduction

Most people are stuck in systems they never chose. They trade time for money, follow paths designed by someone else, and hope that one day they’ll have enough credentials to be “qualified.” They depend on jobs they hate, on big tech companies owning their data, on hoping someone gives them permission.

Reloader: Auto-Restart Pods When ConfigMaps Change

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 16:00:00 +0100

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve updated a ConfigMap and then wondered why my application wasn’t picking up the changes.

The fix was always the same: manually restart the deployment.

kubectl rollout restart deployment/my-app

This gets old fast.

The Problem

Kubernetes doesn’t automatically restart pods when their ConfigMaps or Secrets change. Your deployment keeps running with the old configuration until you manually trigger a rollout.

This creates a few issues:

AI Will Write Your Code, But Only If You Already Could

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 05:15:00 +0100

A post hit the front page of Reddit this week. A developer with nearly a decade of experience claimed he’s completely stopped writing code.

Not reduced. Stopped.

I get it. I really do.

Claude Code deploys stuff to my homelab in minutes. It writes Kubernetes manifests, Terraform configs, and bash scripts faster than I ever could.

But here’s what that Reddit post leaves out.

The Part Nobody Wants to Talk About

My AI workflows only work because of two things:

Guido van Rossum Convinced Me: Python Is The Way

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 08:30:00 +0100

Every few months I go through the same mental loop. Should I commit to Go or stick with Python?

I’ve been focusing on Python for years now. But then I watch content from people like RWXRob who write exclusively in Go and Bash, and I start second-guessing myself. Maybe Go is the real DevOps language. Maybe I’m missing out.

Then I watched this interview with Guido van Rossum, Python’s creator, and all my doubts vanished.

Why chezmoi add Fails With External Archives

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 09:22:19 +0100

I ran into a confusing error today while trying to update my Neovim colorscheme in chezmoi.

chezmoi add ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/colorscheme.lua

The error made no sense:

chezmoi: stat /home/vscode/.local/share/chezmoi/dot_config/plugins: no such file or directory

It was looking for dot_config/plugins instead of dot_config/nvim/lua/plugins. The path was completely wrong.

The Problem

After some digging, I found the culprit in .chezmoiexternals:

[".config/nvim"]
type = "archive"
url = "https://github.com/LazyVim/starter/archive/refs/heads/main.tar.gz"
stripComponents = 1

My nvim config is managed as an external archive. Chezmoi pulls the LazyVim starter as a base, then merges my local files from dot_config/nvim/ on top.

Zwift Ride is a premium product and I love it

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:55:26 +0100

I’ve spent weeks researching indoor cycling setups, weighing smart trainers against dedicated smart bikes, comparing ecosystems and compatibility.

The Zwift Ride kept coming out on top for my use case — reliable indoor cardio training without the complexity of a bike-plus-trainer combo.

It arrived yesterday. And from the moment I opened the box, I could tell this was a premium product.

The packaging is thoughtful. The setup instructions are clear. The accompanying videos actually help instead of confuse.

Why I'm Starting with a Zwift Ride Instead of a Real Bike

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 10:38:00 +0100

I’ve been putting off adding cycling to my fitness routine for months. This week I finally pulled the trigger — but not on the bike I expected.

Why Cycling at All

I already lift weights 3-4 times per week. I completed a half marathon after 1.5 years of running. But running beats up my body, and I wanted a lower-impact option for zone 2 cardio.

The cardiovascular health benefits of consistent zone 2 training are well documented. I needed something sustainable.

Security Hardening Complete

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

End-to-end test after security hardening of the blog deployment.

Changes implemented:

Registry credentials now managed via External Secrets Operator
Dedicated ServiceAccount with automountServiceAccountToken disabled
CiliumNetworkPolicy restricting ingress/egress
Rotated all compromised tokens

Uploading Large Git Repos to Forgejo via NFS

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When pushing a large repository with extensive history to my self-hosted Forgejo instance, I kept running into Connection reset by peer errors during HTTP git push. After trying various timeout configurations and SSH settings, I found a reliable workaround: uploading the bare repository directly to the NFS storage that backs Forgejo.

The Problem

Pushing large repos over HTTP or SSH to Forgejo can fail with:

error: RPC failed; curl 92 HTTP/2 stream 5 was not closed cleanly: CANCEL (err 8)
send-pack: unexpected disconnect while reading sideband packet
fatal: the remote end hung up unexpectedly

This happens even with increased timeout settings like PER_WRITE_TIMEOUT and PER_WRITE_PER_KB_TIMEOUT.

Running these apps in my homelab made me $600K

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

One of the questions I get often is: so I built my home lab. What do I do with it?

And it’s one of my favorite questions to answer.

Every week I host several live Q&A calls in KubeCraft.

And this question comes up regularly.

During these mentorship sessions, I teach my students a process that you won’t find anywhere else.

So instead of just giving you a list of apps to run, I’ll share my whole thought process so you can decide for yourself.

I'm leaving Arch Linux. Here's why:

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

After 4 years of daily driving Arch Linux, I’m leaving.

You may think I’m leaving because Arch Linux breaks often.

Or because it’s unstable.

But the reason why I’m leaving is actually very different.

I’m going to be running my workflow like a Kubernetes cluster.

I want a workflow where I can throw my laptop in the sea and restore it on a new machine in 10 minutes.

And in this newsletter I’ll explain how I’m going to build the workflow of my dreams, and why I have to leave Arch to do this.

The Unexpected System That Landed Me A $150K DevOps Job

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When I was coming up in my career, I spent dozens of hours every week watching video courses about Kubernetes.

When someone asked me what a CNI was in an interview, I would freeze.

I would read the same Azure documentation pages three times over but I still could not remember simple Azure details.

At some point I started to wonder if I just wasn’t smart enough for this.

Maybe this sounds familiar.

Stop Asking Which Cloud to Learn (Here's How to Decide in 5 Minutes)

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Should I learn AWS or Azure?”

I get this question every week.

And most people overthink it.

Here’s the truth: It doesn’t matter as much as you think.

Choosing a cloud provider might feel like marrying a woman: you’re making a commitment for life.

You’re locking yourself into an ecosystem and attaching yourself to a specific vendor.

However, in a 10 year or 20 year view of your career, it matters much less.

The $200K Skill Everyone Says Is Too Hard (It's Not)

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There are two types of engineers: engineers who are learning Kubernetes and those who haven’t read the data.

Whenever I post about Kubernetes I always get the same comments:

“Kubernetes is overkill”

“Kubernetes is too complex”

“Almost no company needs Kubernetes”

As an example, here’s a tweet I made last week with some of its reactions:

Similarly, if you scroll tech socials for any amount of time, you’re bound to see memes like this:

Microsoft Just Abandoned You - Here's Your Revenge Plan

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

On the 14th of October 2025, Microsoft ended support for Windows 10.

It will no longer receive security patches, bug fixes, or technical assistance.

At the same time, 400 million PCs cannot be upgraded to Windows 11.

Each of those PCs has an owner.

A human being who has used this PC for several years.

The device contains their private photos, personal documents, and bank information.

Hackers will steal it all as soon as they find a way.

Everyone tells you to learn AI. The hiring managers want Linux.

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Some tech “influencers” will tell you to learn AI to get a tech job.

But the best skill to learn to land a tech job in almost any tech domain is Linux.

A hiring manager who interviewed 50+ tech candidates said:

“Good Linux skills almost always get candidates to the next round. Failing this is enough to disqualify someone.”

By the way, if you are looking for a tech job:

The system I used to quit drugs works for DevOps too

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A student of mine quit his job to go full-time on his DevOps career change.

Three weeks later, he was playing video games instead of studying.

Here’s why that happens to everyone, and the system that fixes it:

The problem is that people rely on willpower instead of systems.

I know because I’ve been there.

Not with DevOps, with something way harder.

I’m a recovering drug addict.

I’ve been addicted to alcohol and marijuana for 12 years.

Tired of having to go into the office? Read this

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It’s 1pm as I’m writing this, and I’ve just completed one of my 4-hour focused work blocks.

I recorded a few personal videos for students in KubeCraft who were stuck and needed some help.

After unblocking them I continued working on the new cloud course I’m creating.

This morning I had to put on a sweater because it’s much colder here in the Netherlands than it was in France.

I’m still adjusting because I’ve just returned from a 3 week trip to the French Riviera.

72% of companies skip hiring. Do this instead

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Linux Foundation just dropped a bomb that changes everything.

72% of companies would rather upskill existing employees than hire new DevOps engineers.

Let that sink in.

You’ve been wasting time polishing your resume when your current company is literally begging to promote people like you.

In this week’s newsletter I will share the complete DEPLOY framework for landing DevOps jobs for Software Engineers and developers.

Real quick, there are still some spots left in my team’s calendar for KubeCraft applications → CLICK HERE

How To Learn Networking As A DevOps Engineer

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll be honest with you. I made this mistake.

And I’m not talking about my early days as a DevOps engineer.

I was already a few years into my career when I finally understood the importance of networking.

Computer networking.

You often hear me mention building networks of people. However, I haven’t shared much about computer networks.

In this newsletter, I’m sharing my complete guide on how I would learn networking if I had to start over. Including free resources.

10 DevOps job offers. 4 weeks. One simple pattern.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

10 of my students landed a DevOps job in the past 4 weeks.

Why did they succeed?

I made an in-depth analysis of every single story.

The results? Eye-opening.

What I discovered:

• One person got hired in just 2 weeks (new record)

• One person could migrate to his dream country AND land a DevOps role

• A university grad with ZERO experience beat out seasoned candidates

• An ex-help desk worker who was “losing all hope” landed his first DevOps job in 2 months

Case Study: From Systems Support to SRE

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Brad just landed a Junior SRE role with a 40% pay bump in about six weeks.

Not because of a degree or pricey certs.

Because he made his skills undeniable and easy to find.

“There is literally no way any of this would have been possible without the KubeCraft community and Mischa’s wisdom.”

Apply for KubeCraft (limited spots) → CLICK HERE

Here’s exactly what Brad did and why it worked:

The “Paper Airplane” Problem

Brad started like most job seekers.

How to land a DevOps job without experience?

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what they don’t tell you in bootcamps:

I broke into DevOps without formal experience using one strategy.

My students Eric and Danil did the same.

Eric landed a senior SRE role. Danil got hired straight out of university.

The secret? A home lab that mimics production environments.

Before I share the complete strategy, pay attention:

2 of my students landed jobs last week. That means 2 spots have opened up.

How to Land a DevOps Job in 2 Weeks

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Are you looking for a DevOps job?

I made a video that will show you how one of my students did it in 14 days.

In the video I share the complete framework he used for free.

Click here to watch it.

See you there, Mischa

DevOps job seekers: stop watching tutorials (do this instead)

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

You’re applying for DevOps jobs wrong.

Here’s the brutal truth: You watch YouTube tutorials for months.

You get AWS certifications.

You send 100+ applications.

And you get rejected every single time.

Sound familiar?

I was a nurse with ZERO tech experience and a 2-year career gap as a Buddhist monk. If anyone should have failed at landing a DevOps job, it was me.

But I discovered something the “study harder” crowd doesn’t want you to know.

I interviewed DevOps canditates. These got hired:

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A hiring manager just told me something that should terrify you:

“I’ve interviewed over 50 candidates for DevOps roles. Candidates with good and fast Linux command line and debugging skills almost always make it to the next round.”

Linux mastery isn’t optional anymore, and engineers don’t know where they actually stand.

I’m opening 5 spots for my DevOps mentorship program.Go here to see if you qualify → Click HereThe program closes when these slots are filled.

Why DevOps bootcamps won't teach you this one thing

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When I started learning Linux years ago, my teacher gave me advice that changed everything:

“Do everything in vim for a year.”

I thought he was crazy.

I was comfortable with nano. Why torture myself with vim?

But that single piece of advice has shaped me more than any certification or bootcamp ever could.

Here’s what most DevOps courses get wrong about learning the command line…

The Problem with Jumping to LazyVim Too Fast

Most people want to skip straight to the fancy stuff.

GPT-5 is here and your DevOps job is safer than ever

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

GPT-5 launched this week with the usual fanfare and “revolutionary breakthrough” claims.

The reality? “Overdue, overhyped and underwhelming” – that’s how AI researcher Gary Marcus described it just hours after launch.

THE BRUTAL X REALITY CHECK

Within hours of the GPT-5 livestream, prediction markets told the real story.

OpenAI’s chances of having the best AI model dropped from 75% to 14% in one hour.

Users on X flooded the platform with harsh reactions. They called it a “huge letdown,” “horrible,” and “underwhelming.”

Why Kubernetes Just Became Your Career Insurance

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Great news if you know Kubernetes.

New research analyzing 903 AI engineer job postings just revealed something huge: Kubernetes is the #1 most requested tool, appearing in 17.6% of all AI engineering jobs.

The average AI engineer salary?$206,000.

! WHY THIS IS MASSIVE FOR DEVOPS ENGINEERS

While everyone’s scrambling to learn AI, companies actually need people who can deploy and manage AI systems.

That’s where your Kubernetes skills become pure gold.

The career move that earned me Microsoft MVP (twice!)

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Just renewed my Microsoft MVP award for another year. 🎉

“How did you get recognized for MVP so fast?!”

I get this question a lot. Just a few years ago I was transitioning from nursing to DevOps. Today I’m a Microsoft MVP.

Here’s what happened.

The moment everything changed:

I started sharing my learning journey from day 1. Not after I became an expert. From the very beginning.

While studying Kubernetes, Docker, and Linux, I noticed something. The tutorials and docs had gaps. Steps were missing. Real world problems weren’t covered.

Why I ditched Go after 12 months (Python won)

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Quick DevOps Job Alert:

DevOps Manager – Qventus (Mountain View, CA) – $180k–$220k → Apply Here
DevOps Architect – Presidio Networked Solutions (New York, NY, remote) – $179,982–$195,000 → Apply Here

I spent a year learning Go, but I switched back to Python.

Why? It made it easier to get a job.

In my early DevOps years, I used Python every day. But I wanted to learn Go because so much modern DevOps runs on it.

The AI Job Application Apocalypse Has Arrived

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

🔥 2 Fresh DevOps Jobs

“Why aren’t companies responding to my applications anymore?”

I see this complaint all the time in my YouTube comments. The answer is simple, but also terrifying:

An AI application apocalypse is destroying the job market right now.

Companies are drowning in fake applications and are given up on traditional hiring.

How I Learned DevOps Faster Than Anyone Expected

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

🔥 2 Fresh DevOps Jobs

“How did you transition careers so fast?”

I get asked this constantly. Looking back, I can understand why it almost looks unreal. I was a nursing assistant. Today, I’m a Microsoft MVP, Senior Engineer with 50K+ YouTube subscribers and a thriving community.

The secret?

My note-taking system that cuts study time by 72%.

Is DevOps Dying? (11K Engineers Watched This)

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

🔥 2 Fresh Remote DevOps Jobs

“Is DevOps dying?” Two days ago, I posted a video with this exact question. 11K views later, my and the comment section is flooded with sharing their thoughts on the shift I explain. The response has been insane.

Lets dive right in. Here’s a screenshot of what this looks like on YouTube:

! The data that’s got everyone talking I shared data showing DevOps salaries down 6%, job postings down 6%, remote roles down 5.2%. The comments with engineers saying they’re seeing the exact same thing at their companies.

The $200K DevOps Engineer VS The $80K DevOps Engineer (What's the Difference?)

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

🔥 2 Fresh Remote SRE JobsGovOS – $120,000–$130,000 Junior Site Reliability Engineer (fully remote, U.S. only)

Experian – $80,237–$139,077 Junior Site Reliability Engineer (fully remote, U.S.)

“Why do some DevOps engineers make $200K while others struggle to break $80K?” I get a lot of questions on how to get that into that 6-figure salary. After analyzing the latest salary data and my real-world expereince, I’ve found a clear pattern. Let’s dig in.

AI will Replace Tech Jobs FIRST (just not the ones you think)

Sun, 08 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

🔥 2 Fresh Remote DevOps Jobs

“Is AI going to replace DevOps engineers?“ I get this question constantly. After studying AI tools and their real-world applications in DevOps, I have a definitive answer. Lets dig in.

The AI reality check most engineers need The AI panicis real, but it’s based on misunderstanding what DevOps actually involves. ChatGPT can write you a Dockerfile or explain Kubernetes concepts, but it can’t understand your unique infrastructure challenges or make critical decisions about production systems.

The CV mistake that gets DevOps engineers rejected

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Quick question: Have you ever sent out dozens of CVs and heard… nothing?

You’re not alone. I’ve seen brilliant engineers with strong homelabs and production experience get zero callbacks - not because they lack skills, but because their CVs fail the 6-second scan.💥 The #1 CV killer for DevOps engineers

Last week, I sat down with a hiring manager who screens hundreds of DevOps applications every month.

His biggest frustration?

What 99% of developers get wrong about Docker base images. Exclusive optimization guide + curated job listings..

Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

NEW JOB OPPORTUNITIES

For more opportunities, click here to open the full post (free)

FROM BLOATED TO BULLETPROOF

When I scanned one of my early Python containers, I nearly spit out my coffee:

🔍 750+ low, 500+ medium, 93 high, and 5 critical vulnerabilities.

And the image was over 1GB.

Just by changing the base image, I eliminated 99% of those vulnerabilities. But I didn’t stop there.

What they don't teach you in DevOps bootcamps

Tue, 20 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

You can’t YAML your way into your next role.

I learned this the hard way when I watched talented engineers with impressive tech skills get rejected repeatedly, while others with “basic” skills landed six-figure positions within weeks.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH

Technical skills are only 25% of what gets you hired in DevOps.

Yet most engineers spend 100% of their time collecting certifications like trading cards: AWS, Terraform and Kubernetes.

Hoping the next one will finally unlock that dream job.

Python Just Became the #1 Starting Point for DevOps Beginners

Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The entry barrier to DevOps just got lower.

The latest TIOBE Index shows Python reaching an all-time high of 25.35% market share: making it not just popular, but utterly dominant in the programming world. For anyone just starting their DevOps journey, this is fantastic news.

WHY PYTHON SHOULD BE YOUR FIRST DEVOPS SKILL, AFTER LINUX

When I switched careers from nursing to DevOps four years ago, Python was my lifeline. Today, it’s even more crucial for beginners.

Knowing Containers, Databases & Code is Magic

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Knowing Containers, Databases & Code is Magic

Forget making money.

If you learn to write Python code, work with containers, and how to store data in databases, there are so many interesting things you can build to enhance your life.

These three elements are all that are needed to create comprehensive applications that you can use to track, store and manipulate massive amounts of data.

Whether it is your own knowledge, health metrics, or data from sensors, the possibilities are endless.

Why DevOps Candidates Fail Their Technical Interviews

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I once interviewed a DevOps candidate. They had great certifications on paper, but struggled with basic Linux commands. This happens more often than you’d think.

The Hard Truth About DevOps Interviews

Recently I got in touch with a hiring manager who has interviewed over 50 DevOps engineers,. He said something striking: he immediately rules out candidates who can’t show strong Linux command-line and debugging skills. No exceptions.

Here’s what most people miss: while everyone chases the newest tools, they skip the basics that actually get you hired.

The Career-Killing Cloud Mistake That’s Costing You Money

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Master ONE cloud provider first - here’s why it matters…

Three years ago, I made a big mistake when switching from nursing to tech. I tried to learn AWS, Azure, AND Google Cloud all at once.

The result? I knew a little about everything, but not enough to get hired.

The Hard Truth About Cloud Skills

Here’s what I learned: being great at one cloud platform is worth much more than knowing the basics of all of them. It’s like trying to learn three languages at once - you won’t speak any of them well.

How I passed CKAD (and why you'll love this exam)

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As promised, I want to share my recent CKAD exam experience with you. If you’re preparing for this certification or considering it, you’ll be happy to know that it’s actually the most enjoyable of all the Kubernetes exams. Let me break down why and what you need to know.

What Makes CKAD Different?

The exam has a heavy focus on practical implementation - working with pods and deployments, managing storage provisioning, and handling secrets. What I love about it is that it tests real-world scenarios rather than theoretical knowledge.

The 3-step system behind my DevOps success

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that the fastest-growing jobs in tech right now are in DevOps? But here’s the thing - most people take 12-18 months to transition into this field. I did it in 6, coming from nursing with zero professional tech background.

Today, I want to share the exact system that made this possible.

The secret? It’s not about learning everything - it’s about learning the right things in the right order.

This will supercharge your tech skills more than anything else

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Ever wondered why some DevOps engineers stand out in interviews while others (even with 10 certifications) don’t make the cut? Let me share a quick story that highlights exactly why having a Kubernetes home lab can be your secret weapon.

I recently interviewed a candidate with impressive Azure certifications. When I asked about hands-on projects, they admitted to only clicking through guided tutorials. No real yaml wrestling, no actual pipeline building – missing the crucial real-world experience that comes from getting your hands dirty.

How To Learn Cloud For Free

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Today, I want to share everything you need to know about learning Azure effectively. As someone who’s deeply involved in cloud technologies, I’ve developed a clear roadmap that can help you navigate your Azure learning journey. Let me break it down for you.

Why Azure Is the Perfect Learning Platform

The beauty of Azure lies in its comprehensive, free training ecosystem. As someone who creates courses for a living, I can tell you this: you can learn Azure completely for free. Microsoft provides all the training material you need, completely free, and it’s actually better than most paid alternatives.

Talos Homelab Upgrade Guide October

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

[!IMPORTANT] Remember to create a custom image including iscsi-tools when using the Synology CSI driver

Set up CLI environment and set databases to maintenance mode

export TALOS_CP="192.168.100.107"
export TALOS_W1="192.168.100.245"
export TALOS_W2="192.168.100.60"
export TALOS_W3="192.168.100.228"

# Set databases to maintenance mode
k cnp maintenance set --all-namespaces

[!WARNING] Use the --preserve flag on single-node control plane clusters. Only needed for the control plane node.

Upgrade path

from 1.7.5 to 1.7.7
from 1.7.7 to 1.8.2

Upgrade 1

export TALOS_IMAGE='factory.talos.dev/installer/c9078f9419961640c712a8bf2bb9174933dfcf1da383fd8ea2b7dc21493f8bac:v1.7.7'

talosctl upgrade --preserve --nodes $TALOS_CP -e $TALOS_CP --image $TALOS_IMAGE
talosctl upgrade --wait --debug --nodes $TALOS_W1 -e $TALOS_CP --image $TALOS_IMAGE
talosctl upgrade --wait --debug --nodes $TALOS_W2 -e $TALOS_CP --image $TALOS_IMAGE
talosctl upgrade --wait --debug --nodes $TALOS_W3 -e $TALOS_CP --image $TALOS_IMAGE

Upgrade 2

export TALOS_IMAGE='factory.talos.dev/installer/c9078f9419961640c712a8bf2bb9174933dfcf1da383fd8ea2b7dc21493f8bac:v1.8.2'

talosctl upgrade --preserve --nodes $TALOS_CP -e $TALOS_CP --image $TALOS_IMAGE
talosctl upgrade --nodes $TALOS_W1 -e $TALOS_CP --image $TALOS_IMAGE
talosctl upgrade --nodes $TALOS_W2 -e $TALOS_CP --image $TALOS_IMAGE
talosctl upgrade --nodes $TALOS_W3 -e $TALOS_CP --image $TALOS_IMAGE

Kubernetes Upgrade

[!WARNING] Make sure to upgrade the Talos CLI before proceeding. “It is advisable to use the same version of talosctl as the version of the boot media used.” - Talos Docs

Running iCloud Web as a Desktop Application on Arch Linux with Hyprland

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Now that I’m daily driving Arch Linux again, I’ve been thinking about how to handle my tasks. I use Apple Reminders because the iWatch functionality with Siri is so good. I’ve been thinking of setting up a self-hosted solution, but then I would lose the Siri integration.

In the meantime, I figured I would just try to access Apple Reminders from Linux. Using it from the browser worked surprisingly well.

Adding Articles to Wallabag From Qutebrowser

Mon, 02 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been daily driving Qutebrowser for over a month now, and I’m starting to feel at home in it.

Since it doesn’t have any extensions, you have to hack things together yourself, which is why I like it so much.

Today I wanted to add an article to my Wallabag instance, which I usually did by using the browser extension.

I installed this Wallabag CLI:

https://github.com/artur-shaik/wallabag-client

pipx install wallabag-client

After setting up the config I can now add entries from the command line. By running wallabag add [url]. Neat!

I set up Pi-hole on my Synology NAS

Sun, 11 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Transition to manifest V3 is now starting and Ublock Origin might not be supported in Chrome in the future.

Because of my transition from a mouse to a pen tablet, I’ve already been experimenting with Qutebrowser for the past couple of weeks and I really enjoy it. It feels much closer to vim because I can run commands like this: “:set darkmode” which feels familiar and I can search my history very easily.

Talos Linux Upgrade Guide July

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I upgraded my homelab cluster using Talos Linux today.

I made a mistake and forgot to use the custom-built image using iscsi-tools.

Learning the hard way.

Here are my notes:

Talos upgrade

[!IMPORTANT] Remember to create a custom image including iscsi-tools

Set up CLI environment and set databases to maintenance mode

export TALOS_CP="192.168.100.107"
export TALOS_W1="192.168.100.245"
export TALOS_W2="192.168.100.60"

k cnp maintenance set --all-namespaces

[!WARNING] Use the --preserve flag on single-node control plane clusters. Only needed for the control plane node.

No More GitHub - My Updated Backup Setup For My Obsidian Zettelkasten

Sun, 28 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I relied on iCloud sync for my Obsidian backup for many years. However, my vault has grown significantly and has reached nearly 3500 notes. This leads to problems when opening the vault on other iOs devices, because iCloud sync removes files from devices when they are not used. When the vault is reopened, it takes over 5 minutes to sync everything. Having this 5 minute waiting time every time I open up my vault on my iPad was a problem which I needed to address.

The Return of Arch Linux

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m planning to do a series on Linux on my YouTube channel. The idea is to cover the fundamentals of Linux, either by teaching them myself or to link to existing resources. When the basics are done, I will take over and we’ll build an Arch Linux desktop together.

I use my MacBook for normal productive work and coding, and I have a Thinkpad T480 which I have for experimentation, and mostly for writing notes and browsing while I’m in the living room. It was running Fedora using the Sway spin, and it worked fine.

Got my CKS

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Just realized I never posted on the blog that I achieved the CKS a month ago.

I even created a study guide for it:

Links:

202406152006

Installing packages in Devcontainers with Nix

Sun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been obsessed with Devcontainers and Devpods recently, and I’m learning a lot about portable dev environments. This is truly the next level of config management and the future of dev environments in my opinion.

I relied on brew as my package manager, however, I ran into problems when I wanted to run my Linux dev containers on my M2 Silicon Mac. Linux brew is not supported on ARM architecture.

Best Way To Download Youtube Videos From Cli

Sun, 12 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is hands down the best CLI for downloading YouTube videos.

I needed this to transfer some of my private videos to Vimeo. Don’t use this to break YouTube’s terms please.

https://github.com/kkdai/youtube

Links:

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Building Multiple Docker Images Using Automatic Versioning Using GitHub Actions

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I’m working on a project where I’m migrating an Azure Pipeline to GitHub Actions. So far I’ve found the GitHub Actions very intuitive to work with and it was a very easy transition from Azure Pipelines.

One requirement was to increase the version with every build. In the previous setup they were using the build ID, but I’m an advocate of always using semantic versioning if possible, so I wondered if this could be done using the GitHub Actions.

Alleviating Confusion About The To Field In Network Policies

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When solving a killercoda challenge I ran into some confusion. Even though my solution worked, there was a difference which I wanted to get clear on.

I wrote this:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: np
  namespace: space1
spec:
  podSelector: {}
  policyTypes:
  - Egress
  egress:
  - to:
    - namespaceSelector:
        matchLabels:
          kubernetes.io/metadata.name: space2
  - to:
    ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 53
    - protocol: UDP
      port: 53

But the provided course solution was this:

I'm better at Network Policies than I thought

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

There are two things which I’m dreading most for the CKS exam: writing Network Policies and configuring RBAC under heavy time pressure.

I’ve heard from colleagues that the exam has many questions of this nature, so it will be a good way of scoring points. However, regardless of the exam, the fact that I’m dreading these topics also shows that I’m not familiar enough with them and therefore this is a point where I should improve. It’s not only about the exam, but also my growth of expertise as a Kubernetes Engineer.

Starting my CKS studies

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It seems like I will have a couple of hours a day which I can allot to study in the coming month. This will be the perfect moment to start working on a goal I’ve had for a long time: getting my Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist certification.

t’s not going to be easy. I’m quite intimidated by all of the new things I’ll have to learn. But that’s a good sign. It’s the way it works. Everybody would be doing this if it was easy, and I can only grow by doing hard things that seem intimidating at first.

Remove Backgrounds from Images using MacOS Preview

Fri, 22 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Removing backgrounds from images is always an annoying task which I always need to google. And every time I end up on a different website where you can upload an image and then download a low-resolution version without the background, and you’ll have to pay for the high-resolution.

Turns out MacOS preview can do this just fine. I keep finding these little gems in MacOS that completely remove the need for any external app or saas. Such as Apple Reminders.

Comparing akv2k8s with Azure Key Vault Provider for Secret Store CSI Driver

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In a recent analysis, I explored two notable solutions for synchronizing secrets from Azure Key Vaults to AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service) clusters: akv2k8s and the Azure Key Vault Provider for the Secret Store CSI Driver. Here, I present my findings and recommendations based on the functionality, maintenance requirements, and integration capabilities of these tools.

Akv2k8s, maintained by Sparebanken, is an open-source tool designed for the synchronization of secrets. Being dependent on an external tool for Kubernetes secrets synchronization is an undesirable situation and poses several challenges. Notably, the latest version of akv2k8s has been problematic, especially concerning the deployment of Postgres databases on our AKS clusters using the EDB operator. Akv2k8s alters the SecurityContext of pods in a way that causes them to fail.

Kubernetes Gateway API & Azure Application Gateway for Containers

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This document is the result of my research into the Gateway API. It aims to briefly describe the Gateway API for Kubernetes, a typical implementation of ingress traffic using NGINX in AKS and how this setup could benefit from implementing the Gateway API.

Introduction

Gateway API is an official Kubernetes project focused on L4 and L7 routing in Kubernetes. This project represents the next generation of Kubernetes Ingress, Load Balancing, and Service Mesh APIs. From the outset, it has been designed to be generic, expressive, and role-oriented.

Using Hugo for Redirecting URLS

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Super useful

https://dannorth.net/hugo-redirects/

Links:

202403071003

A List Of All The Books I Have Read In My Life

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m an avid reader, and this list is far from complete. But I wanted to start writing down the ones I’m reading now, and the ones I’ve read in the past. I’m mostly writing down titles but I’ll include the author when I remember the name.

2024

How To Take Smart Notes

Getting Things Done

2023

The Lords of the North

The Pale Horseman

The Last Kingdom

Born to Run 2

Video: My Entire Neovim + Tmux Workflow As A DevOps Engineer On MacOS

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve just released a comprehensive video delving deep into my Neovim setup and command-line centric workflow. This video is a response to the curiosity of my YouTube subscribers. It’s an all-inclusive guide from A to Z, detailing the rationale behind my configuration choices. I’ve spent years perfecting my workflow and this video has been several months in the making, so I’m excited that I can finally share it with you.

PersistentVolumeClaims Lifecycle in Kubernetes

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I always thought that Persistent Volume Claims where deleted when you delete the pod which they are associated with. I was wrong. The lifecycle of PVCs is independent of Pods, and their behavior is largely governed by the Reclaim Policy set on the PVs. Here’s what you need to know:

PVCs: These are requests for storage, akin to how Pods request resources like CPU and memory. They exist independently and can be bound to Pods when needed.
PVs: Provisioned by administrators or dynamically through Storage Classes, PVs provide the actual storage resources. Their lifecycle is not tied to any specific Pod.

Understanding Reclaim Policies

The Reclaim Policy on a PV dictates its fate after a PVC is released. There are three policies to be aware of:

Video: Learning Flux and Installing To Homelab

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this video I set up Flux running in a local cluster on my MacBook by following the getting started guide. Then I learn about how to structure the repo according to Flux methodology. I implement this structure in my homelab repo and deploy flux to my homelab cluster. Then I manage to configure Grafana and the Weave UI to be accessbible via ingress using a custom fake domain.

Learned Cilium Network Policies

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Today I learned about Cilium network policies. These are much easier to implement than normal network policies because there are some tools available when creating the cilium policies. Network policies were probably my weakest Kubernetes skill and I tended to avoid them.

But now I’m exposing some apps to the internet in my homelab and I’m forced to think about security and what would happen if a hacker managed to get root privileges in a container even though I implemented strict security contests and enabled privilege escalation.

Designed The Network For My Homelab

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

My ISP router only allowed me to assign 200 IP addresses and it didn’t have any possibility to create VLANS, so it was time for an upgrade to my setup.

Now that I’m hosting several clusters in my homelab and exposing things to the internet I can justify to spend the money on this hardware and the complexity of dividing up my home network into VLANS.

I bought a Unifi Express gateway and the Unifi Lite 8 PoE managed switch.

Video notes - Application Gateway for Containers

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

App Gateway

It has App Gateway in the name, but it is an entirely new solution. The App Gateway is the only thing it has in common with Azure Application Gateway.

Resources

Two types of resources. Azure resources and k8s resources.

The App Gateway for Container is an azure resource which listens to changes in k8s resources through the ALB controller. AGWFC is the control plane.

Video: Homelab E2 - Setting Up Monitoring + Studying k3s Networking & Configuring Ingress

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this video I installed Prometheus and Grafana using helm and studied k3s networking.

My goal was to make Grafana approachable via ingress using a fake domain and after a bit of tinkering it worked.

installed prometheus and grafana with kube-prometheus-stack helm chart
reflected on why I use k3s
gained understanding of k3s loadbalancing solution
configured /etc/hosts file to resolve to fake domain
configured k3s ingress to use fake local domain
struggled with ingress but figured it out in the end
successfully made grafana UI available on fake local domain grafana.homelab.nl

Links:

202312261012

Video: configuring database for mealie

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

configured Azure SAS token for blob storage
configured secrets in key vault for database and mealie application
set up secret sync objects in k8s cluster using the Azure Key Vault CSI provider
reflected on necessity to mount secrets as volumes in order to have them available as environment variables using the CSI driver
looked at GitHub issue for the above
had a lot of trouble with restoring backups from Object Store

Found a Mastodon CLI

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I created my own Go program to send toots to Mastodon but now I stumbled across a full fledged CLI with a TUI

https://toot.bezdomni.net/

Links:

202312311312

Video: Homelab Episode 1

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first video of my homelab series.

I set up the repo for my project and do the initial installation of k3s on an old laptop I had lying around. I had a k8s cluster installed on there with kubeadm which I needed to clean up first.

Discovered a simple CLI to backup and upload Grafana dashboards

Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is a super useful tool to list, download and upload Grafana dashboards as json.

Currently using this to occasionally take extra-extra backups of my Grafana creations

https://software.es.net/gdg/

Links:

202312301612

Homelab Dashboards As Code

Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

extracted all dashboards from kube-prometheus-stack config maps and converted to json
set up grafana chart to use persistent volume for default dashboards
wrote script to import default dashboards to persistent volume
after copying these dashboards are persistent so only needs to be done on fresh cluster deployment

Links:

202312300912

Homelab Secret Management With GitOps and Azure Key Vault

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this blog post, I want to share with you how I set up secrets management for my home lab. I use my home lab to explore new technologies, but I also try to keep it in line with the practices I would use when setting up environments for clients. I focus on Microsoft Azure and the ecosystem they provide for cloud native applications. Secrets management is an important aspect of any cloud-native application, as it allows you to securely store and access sensitive information such as passwords, tokens and certificates.

Homelab weave tls new node

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

added a new node to k3s cluster thinkpad 8gb
configured a tls certificate for weave

Struggled because cloudflare for some reason didn’t resolve the DNS record when I first configured it. It was fixed when I added another dummy record just to test it with nslookup.

split off grafana from the kube-prometheus-stack helm chart

Links:

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Video: Viewing Strava Data In Grafana Dashboards

Wed, 27 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this video I’ll show you how to view your Strava data in Grafana by doing the following steps:

creating an application in Strava
installing the Strava plugin in Grafana
adding the Strava data source
importing dashboards
exploring data and creating custom dashboard

Links:

202312250812

Video: How To Install Prometheus & Grafana In Your Homelab

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this video I’ll be installing Prometheus and Grafana in a Kubernetes cluster running in Rancher Desktop on my MacBook.

There are many options available out there but this is the easiest one I found to get up and running quickly.

helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update

helm install prometheus-stack prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack --namespace=prometheus-stack --create-namespace

Wrote A Go Program That Posts To Mastodon

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This morning I had some fun writing a Go program which takes the latest blog post from my RSS feed and posts it to Mastodon. It is based on my twitter cli I wrote a while ago.

It was fun to write some Go again, it has been far too long. I’ve been writing mostly Terraform and yaml recently and working a lot with infrastructure. I haven’t been doing any projects at home that required programming. But recently I started up my personal blog and completely re-architected my social media setup.

Talk: Avoiding Microservice Megadisasters by Jimmy Bogard

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Watched this very insightful talk on microservice architecture.

Some things I learned:

microservices should be autonomous: they should have minimal dependencies on other microservices
if they have dependencies they should only be 1 layer deep
- a microservice should not be calling another microservice which calls another microservice
dependencies can be reversed by pushing data towards the service
- for example: a pricing database can be dumped and pushed to a catalog service once a day
- data duplication is not a sin

Another powerful point he made is that the architecture is a reflection from the organization’s structure. He explained that the company was organized in teams and that managers of teams were promoted based on the amount of people they managed. This meant that managers were making up services which needed people to build them, which led to a proliferation of services and dependencies.

Decided to split up into a technical and personal blog after all

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been struggling with this ever since I started blogging 2 years ago (can’t believe it’s already been that long). But I’ve finally made the decision: I’m keeping this blog at mischavandenburg.com as a tech and career focused blog where I share technical knowledge and notes, and I’m starting a new personal blog at mischavandenburg.blog.

I have fallen in love with blogging. Documenting my own life in writing has become a very therapeutic and valuable experience to me. Even if nobody reads what I put out into the world, it is incredibly satisfying to scroll through your own blog and go back in time to see what I was learning or doing or feeling at that time.

Link: Rediscovering The Small Web

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A great essay about small personal websites coded in HTML. Brings me back.

https://neustadt.fr/essays/the-small-web/

Links:

202312150812

Ensure Cgroupsv2 compatiblity when containerizing old apps

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Are you currently working with containerizing older Java or .NET applications? From Kubernetes 1.29, the default cgroups implementation on Azure Linux AKS nodes will be cgroupsv2. Older versions of Java, .NET and NodeJS do not support memory querying v2 memory constraints and this will lead to out of memory (OOM) issues for workloads.

Please make sure that your older containerized applications are compatible with cgroupsv2 or you might be in quite some pain in the future.

What's so hard in Kubernetes?

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Read an interesting Reddit thread today where commenters explained the complexities of running Kubernetes. Indeed it is easy to set up, but that is only the beginning.

The real art is to build distributed systems on top of it, and it is dauntingly complex. That’s why I’m so attracted to it.

It does make clear just how great Azure’s AKS offering actually is. So much of the administrative overhead is automated, and so far I’m under the impression it is done really well. Which is why I’m on a mission to become an AKS expert.

Deploying Grafana Agent With Custom Secrets From Azure Key Vault Using Akv2k8s And K8s-Monitoring Helm Chart

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Grafana has developed a Helm chart which greatly simplifies the deployment of a monitoring stack to your Kubernetes clusters.

It contains:

kube-state-metrics, which gathers metrics about Kubernetes objects
Node exporter, which gathers metrics about Kubernetes nodes
OpenCost, which interprets the above to create cost metrics for the cluster, and
Grafana Agent, which scrapes the above services to forward metrics to Prometheus and logs to Loki

The Prometheus and Loki services may be hosted on the same cluster, or remotely (e.g. on Grafana Cloud).

Implementing Pod Disruption Budgets

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When I was doing the first round of AKS cluster upgrades at my current client, I noticed we were running a lot of pods with only 1 replica. I always try to lift my clients to the next level by leveraging Cloud Native technologies as much as possible. I’m therefore starting a project to always run applications with multiple replicas.

However, running multiple replicas is not the only necessary improvement here. Even though a pod is running with multiple replicas, that does not mean that Kubernetes will always keep them alive. When you do an AKS cluster upgrade, nodes are drained one by one and the pods are moved to a node with the higher k8s version. Technically, when draining a node, Kubernetes could kill both of the pods at the same time if they are running on the same node.

Setting up Grafana Cloud with Entra ID authentication using Terraform

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Been working on a nice project lately. My current client has chosen to run Grafana Cloud and the instance was running in West US, which was leading to slower performance. I took up the project of provisioning a new instance in West Europe. Although I would have preferred to host Grafana ourselves or use Azure Managed Grafana, this is what the client has chosen so I that is what I’ll have to work with.

Link: On Writing For Yourself In Public

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Nice article that explains why blogging is a satisfying activity. I’ve written the exact same reasons of why I blog on my about page where I wrote that it is very satisfying to scroll through your own feed and see what you have been up to. My blog is a time machine.

https://brainbaking.com/post/2023/11/on-writing-for-yourself-in-public/

Links:

202311150711

KEDA went GA for AKS!

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Great news! KEDA finally went GA for AKS.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/keda-about

Links:

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Getting A Secret from an Azure Key Vault From The Command Line

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I use this bash code to get secrets from Azure key vaults using the Azure CLI.

Make sure to set your subscription with az account set -s 12321424

kvname=kv-vo-rea-prd-weu-001
secretname=worker-ad-client-secret

az keyvault secret show --vault-name $kvname --name $secretname  --query value -o tsv

Links:

202310312010

[[Azure]]

AZ-700 Notes - Virtual WAN

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Chapter 11 Virtual WAN

Easy Mode Hub-Spoke

incorporates multiple hybrid connections (vpn/expressroute)
incorporates multiple VNets
Dynamically handles routing
easily deploys NVA/Firewall

Use case

You technically don’t need to use it for anything, you can do the same with a normal hub-spoke built using VNets.

However, when you do, you’re in charge of:

add/update routes
network gateway connections
integration with virtual appliances / firewalls

Virtual WAN makes these tasks easier.

Components

Virtual Wan

Some notes on upgrading AKS clusters running EnterpriseDB

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Upgrading clusters with databases

When upgrading this type of cluster it is better to upgrade the control plane first and then upgrade the node pools one by one.

The EDB operator prevents you to drain nodes with databases on them with PodDisruptionBudgets.

In order to be able to run the AKS upgrade you will need to set the following:

k cnp maintenance set --all-namespaces --reusePVC

cnp is a kubectl plugin which you need to install to manage the EDB operator
--reusePVC can only be used if all the nodes are in the same availability zone
use this command to list all the zones: kubectl describe nodes | grep -e "Name:" -e "topology.kubernetes.io/zone"

When the upgrade is complete, run k cnp maintenance set --all-namespaces

Backing up AKS Clusters with Azure Backup is now in preview

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

You can back up your AKS clusters using Azure Backup in preview! Preferably you have your clusters stateless and you can redeploy everything from code when sh*t hits the fan. However, I can think of a few enterprise use cases that will be relevant for this new feature.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/azure-kubernetes-service-cluster-backup

Links:

202310130610

[[AKS]]

[[Kubernetes]]

[[Azure]]

Fixed an issue with akv2k8s overriding security context

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This week I’ve been tackling an issue at work with akv2k8s.

We are running CloudnativePG, similar to EnterpriseDB. After upgrading akv2k8s to v2.5.0 our database pods were not coming up anymore due to an error with the initcontainer:

Error: container has runAsNonRoot and image has non-numeric user (nonroot), cannot verify user is non-root (pod: "vcs-pooler-rw-858bf7c954-vjzr4_vcs(e19bfa4c-26d8-4a6d-b4ad-bba8b52c01e6)", container: bootstrap-controller)

Pods have a security context where you specify how the containers in the pod should be run.

Forcing a new cert from letsencrypt when too many have been issued

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Learned a new trick to force a new cert from letsencrypt. Had this error message:

The certificate request has failed to complete and will be retried: Failed to wait for order resource "vcs-secret-j8gnj-3121219202" to become ready: order is in "errored" state: Failed to create Order: 429 urn:ietf:params:acme:error:rateLimited: Error creating new order :: too many certificates (5) already issued for this exact set of domains in the last 168 hours: sadfsadf.com, retry after 2023-10-12T18:54:27Z: see https://letsencrypt.org/docs/duplicate-certificate-limit/

I asked for too many certificates during a 168 hour period. However, there is a really easy fix. Just add a new subdomain and LetsEncrypt will treat it as an entirely new certificate!

Dont Use Question Marks in Windows Filenames

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Ran into a problem when cloning my second brain repository on a new windows machine which I need to use for work. Also trying to get familiar with VSCode although I’m doing my best to get a good WSL setup going on my new windows setup.

One problem I was running into was that I could not for the life of me clone my repository at all on Windows. Eventually I realized that it kept failing on a file that had a question mark in its filename.

It is good to keep your second brain compatible with Obsidian

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Although I rarely use Obsidian anymore, I still have it open because it is running the obsidian-git plugin in the background and it is constantly backing up my second brain to GitHub.

I use iCloud to synch my vault across my iOs devices and I always create and edit my files using neovim.

For my new gig at work I’m forced to use a windows laptop which means I cannot use iCloud to synch my vault. Then it is a godsend to be able to install Obsidian and use that to interact with my second brain.

Apps with web interfaces win any day, switching to MyFitnessPal

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I was comparing apps for navigation (TopoGPS and Outdooractive). Both apps are great, but the main perk of Outdooractive is that it has a web interface. You can plan routes from your computer and access them on the iPhone app, but TopoGPS is on the iPhone only.

The app I probably have the most interaction with during the day is my calorie tracking app. I’ve been using YAZIO for about two years and it has been satisfactory, but there were a few small annoyances to the app and I was never completely satisfied with.

Began studying for AZ-700 Designing and Implementing Microsoft Azure Networking Solutions

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Before I went on holiday I formed the intention to begin studying again after I came back.

During my current gig I’m configuring a fair bit of networking, VNets, peerings, firewall rules and set up a full hub-spoke network from scratch, so I’ve had a fair bit of practical experience. Now that the experience is still fresh in the mind I figured I’d go for this certification.

Usually I only use Microsoft Learn and practice exams, but this time around I want to try out a video course. I purchased a year of A Cloud Guru access and so far it has been a good experience.

I'm not journaling as often as I used to

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I notice that I’m not writing in my journal every day like I used to. I always wrote down what I did, what I felt, what my plans and ambitions were, every single day.

During my holiday I started writing by hand in a notebook again which was really nice. It felt good to feel the pencil scratching on the paper again and to practice my cursive writing.

After I came back I first tried to keep journaling by hand again, but after a few days the journal remained untouched. I figured I would go back to my usual digital journaling again by writing daily notes.

Some Interesting Features went GA on Azure

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday a few interesting AKS related features became Generally Available on Azure.

KEDA add-on makes it easier to scale your applications on AKS cluster.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-keda-addon-for-aks/

You can have a flexible and customized strategy for node-level OS security updates.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/ga-node-os-patching-nodeimage-feature-in-aks/

Use Vertical Pod Autoscaling add-on for AKS to improve cost-efficiency, and cluster utilization for your workloads

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/ga-vertical-pod-autoscaling-addon-for-aks/

Preview

Public preview: AKS support for Kubernetes version 1.28

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-aks-support-for-kubernetes-version-128/

Links:

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[[Azure]]

[[Kubernetes]]

Pod Disruption Budgets Can Mess With Your AKS Updates

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Past week we’ve been struggling a bit with poorly configured pod disruption budgets. When you do an AKS upgrade, a new node is created and one of the old nodes is drained.

If a deployment has a pod disruption budget which is incorrectly configured, it might show up as ALLOWED DISRUPTIONS: 0. When this happens, the node cannot be drained and you will get an error message in your events.

Azure Exams Are Open Book Exams From Now On

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

From here on out you can access Microsoft Learn during the exams. This is great news! This is much more like the actual experience of an engineer’s daily activities. It is arguably more important to look up things efficiently rather than memorizing everything for a test and forgetting it a few weeks later.

Links:

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Vacation Time!

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve just finished my last workday and tomorrow I’m heading off to Norway! When I glance at the amount of posts I’ve made on my blog recently it’s obvious that it is time for a break from the entire routine. I’ve been tapering down to this moment for a while now, toning down the studying and prioritizing relaxation so I can enter the holidays with a clear mind.

Now it’s time for lots of fresh air, mountains, many kilometres on the trails, and to pick up the connection to Nature I’ve made during the 9 years that I lived in the beautiful North.

Test Driven Development for Bicep is In The Works!

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

During the Bicep Community Call of July 2023 I was introduced to the new experimental testing framework that the Bicep team is working on. After learning the fundamentals of the Go programming language I saw the value of test driven software development, and it will be an advantageous improvement if we can start applying this methodology to Infrastructure as Code as well.

Test driven software development is a software development practice that involves writing unit tests before writing the actual code, and then refactoring the code to pass the tests. Some of the advantages of test driven software development are:

Video: Deploying MkDocs To Azure Using With Azure DevOps

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this video, I will walk you through the following steps:

Set up a repo in Azure DevOps with MkDocs files
Set up a Static Web App in Azure portal and link it to the repo
Configure the Azure DevOps pipeline for MkDocs deployment
Configure a custom theme for the website
Demonstrate the pull request workflow for updating the docs

By the end of this video, you will have a fully functional MkDocs site hosted on Azure Static Web Apps. You will also learn how to use Azure DevOps and Static Web Apps to collaborate on your documentation projects.

New Running Record! Ran 12km today

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

New week, new record! For the first time in my life I ran 12 kilometers, and immediately another 10k PR!

This morning it was time for my long run, and while I was drinking my coffee I decided to watch a running technique video again to see what I could improve. Lately I have mainly focused on my heart rate and steps per minute, but today I focused more on maintaining a better posture by sticking out my chest a bit more and leaning forward a bit more. The result was that I suddenly ran much faster and more relaxed without this resulting in a higher HR, and my steps per minute were also fine afterwards with 171SPM. These days I usually run around 6:30 but I’m really surprised that I was able to set both a distance record and a higher average speed without having to make any effort except constantly maintaining a better posture. “Running Tall” was the mantra that I kept coming back to when I noticed that I started to sink back.

Podcast Notes: Interview With Eliud Kipchoge, The Fastest Marathon Runner In The World

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

What I Learned from Kipchoge, the Fastest Marathon Runner in the World

Kipchoge is not only a world-class athlete, but also a source of inspiration and wisdom for anyone who wants to improve their life. I recently listened to an interview with him on YouTube, and I was amazed by his insights on running, success, pain, discipline and happiness. Here are some of the key takeaways and a summary of what he shared.

Podcast Notes: Marc Andreessen: Future of the Internet, Technology, and AI - Lex Fridman Podcast

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this post, I want to share some of the highlights and insights from a recent podcast episode that I listened to. It was Lex Fridman Podcast #234, where Lex interviewed Marc Andreessen, the co-creator of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser, the co-founder of Netscape, and the co-founder of the legendary Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Marc is one of the most outspoken and visionary voices on the future of technology, and he recently wrote an article titled “Why AI Will Save the World” which I highly recommend.

I used Azure OpenAI to create an AI model of my late meditation teacher

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

With the new Azure OpenAI service it is possible to host your own instance of ChatGPT, which allows you to bring your own data.

I decided to use this service to create an AI model of my late meditation teacher, Ajahn Chah. He was one of the most influential and respected Buddhist monks of the 20th century, and his teachings have helped millions of people around the world to find peace, wisdom, and happiness. He passed away in 1992, but his legacy lives on through his books, recordings, and disciples.

Podcast Notes - Azure OpenAI with Dr. Linda Sharer

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Key points I’ve learned

LLM models are not malleable. A generative AI model is a static thing which took an enormous amount of compute to get it to the state that it is
For example ChatGPT 3.5, 4. They are as they are, they don’t change.
The models won’t remember your previous data. The only way to have a continuous interaction with the model is to feed all of the data into it every time.

Summary

This podcast is about OpenAI with Dr. Linda Sharer, a senior cloud solution architect for data and AI at Microsoft. The main topic of the episode is Azure Open AI, a service that allows users to interact with powerful generative AI models using natural language. The guest explains the concepts and capabilities of Open AI, such as prompt engineering, one-shot and few-shot learning, fine-tuning, vectorization, and retrieval-augmented generation. She also discusses the design choices and challenges of building applications with Open AI, as well as the integration with other Azure services such as Cognitive Search and ML. The host and the co-host ask questions and share their experiences with using Open AI for various use cases, such as transcribing podcasts, generating code, and searching documents. The web page also provides links to the podcast website, Twitter account, and relevant resources on Open AI.

Video: Deploying AKS Cluster With Azure CNI Using Bicep

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this video, I will show you how to use Bicep to deploy a Kubernetes cluster with custom network settings using the Azure CNI.

Azure CNI allows pods to be assigned IP addresses from Azure VNets which allows them to communicate with Azure resources directly through peered networks.

Wrote A Script To Delete All Resource Groups In An Azure Subscription

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the Azure portal you can’t select multiple resource groups for deletion.

I have a sponsored subscription to play around in which I sometimes wish to clean completely.

I wrote this script to delete all resource groups using bash.

#!/bin/bash

# script to delete all resource groups in a subscription using Azure CLI

# get the current subscription name to confirm
subscription=$(az account show --query name -o tsv)

echo "Use this script with caution!"
echo "You are about to delete all resource groups in the subscription: $subscription"

# prompt for confirmation
read -p "Are you sure? (y/n) " will_delete

if [[ $will_delete == [Yy]* ]]; then
	echo "Deleting resource groups..."

	groups=$(az group list --query "[].name" -o tsv)

	# Loop through each group name and delete it
	for group in $groups; do
		az group delete --name "$group" --yes --no-wait
	done

	echo "All resource groups have been deleted."
	exit 0
fi

echo "Exiting without deleting any resource groups."
echo "Probably wise."

Links:

202307081507

Choosing A Cloud And The Importance Of Specialization

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As a DevOps Engineer or Cloud Native Engineer, I think it’s important to specialize in one cloud provider in the beginning of your career. Specializing allows you to gain deep knowledge and expertise in the specific tools and services related to that cloud provider, making you a valuable asset to any company using that provider. Although cloud computing is similar in essence no matter which provider you choose, each cloud provider has its own vocabulary and way of structuring things.

How To Generate Random Strings In Bicep

Sun, 02 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this video I explain how to generate random strings in Bicep and demonstrate a couple of deployments.

I use the uniqueString function combined with the utcNow function. But the caveat is that you can only use it as a default value for a parameter, as follows:

Azure Lowlands: Impressions from my first IT event

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever attended an IT event that felt like a festival from the sixties? That was my experience at Azure Lowlands! I couldn’t have wished for a better first IT event. It was like going back in time, but with a modern twist.

The name Lowlands immediately appealed to me. I had no idea what to expect. And the name lived up to it! I’m a big fan of Jimi Hendrix and the Woodstock vibe, and that’s exactly what I felt at Azure Lowlands. When I walked into the first talk, I was surprised by a hall full of colorful beach chairs, and people who were listening to the speaker while taking it easy and lounging in the chairs. I felt right at home!

Some Interesting Facts About Azure

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Some interesting facts about Azure from this Reddit post by Denis Kazakov, Microsoft MVP

Things that stand out to me:

85% of Fortune 500 companies use Microsoft Azure Cloud
Azure generated a revenue of 75,3 billion in 2022 which is 38% of whole Microsoft’s revenue. It is x3 in compare to 2017.
The project name was Red Dog internally, which you can sometimes see as DNS or as cloud service VM hostnames like RDxxxxx

https://www.reddit.com/r/AZURE/comments/14mcuoy/some_interesting_facts_about_azure/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Video: Finishing Pipeline Setup & Working on KeyVault Template - Azure Kubernetes Lab Series

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Finish deploying keyvault using pipeline
Get the random name generation to work

Lessons Learned

Subscriptions need to be registered with resource providers, apparently

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/troubleshooting/error-register-resource-provider?tabs=azure-cli

acccesPolicies are mandatory on KeyVaults, but not when RBAC is enabled
Assign contributor role to Azure DevOps service connection to be able to create resource groups from pipeline

Achieved

Setting up connection between pipeline and Azure subscription
Assign correct rights to the service connection so it is allowed to deploy new resource groups (and other resources)
Learned about provider registrations
Made progress on creating unique names for resources
Successfully deployed new resource group and key vault from the pipeline

Next time:

Look into random string creation with utcNow

Video: Setting Up A Simple Azure Pipeline To Deploy A Keyvault

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Write KeyVault template
Write pipeline code
set up Azure DevOps pipeline

Lessons Learned

Always make sure to use az deployment group instead of az group deployment
Because it has older Bicep version and will be deprecated
Make sure to be in correct Directory to be able to sync subscriptions for service connection

Links:

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I Asked Chatgpt Do Act As The Buddha And Asked Him About Hunger

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I want you to act as the Buddha (a.k.a. Siddhārtha Gautama or Buddha Shakyamuni) from now on and provide the same guidance and advice that is found in the Tripiṭaka. Use the writing style of the Suttapiṭaka particularly of the Majjhimanikāya, Saṁyuttanikāya, Aṅguttaranikāya, and Dīghanikāya. When I ask you a question you will reply as if you are the Buddha and only talk about things that existed during the time of the Buddha. I will pretend that I am a layperson with a lot to learn. I will ask you questions to improve my knowledge of your Dharma and teachings. Fully immerse yourself into the role of the Buddha. Keep up the act of being the Buddha as well as you can. Do not break character. Let’s begin: At this time you (the Buddha) are staying near Rājagaha in Jīvaka’s Mango Grove. I came to you, and exchanged greetings with you. When the greetings and polite conversation were over, I sat down to one side and said to you my first question: When I set a limit of 2100 calories to my daily intake, and I am still hungry, how do I deal with the hunger?

Video: Deploying an AKS Cluster with Bicep, GitHub Copilot and Neovim

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Inspired by a GitHub Copilot demonstration I witnessed at Microsoft, I wanted to see how quickly I could deploy an AKS cluster from Neovim with Bicep using Copilot. I wasn’t disappointed!

Links:

202306271706

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0B65FUfNBU

[[AKS]] [[Kubernetes]] [[Neovim]] [[bicep]] [[coding]]

Video: Introducing New Bicep Parameter Files - .bicepparam - No more JSON!

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The new parameter files use bicep style formatting instead of JSON, and they will make the lives of Cloud Engineers a lot easier. They have the following advantages:

More readable and editor friendly
Cleaner and less lines of code
VSCode integration
Quickly convert from JSON or template file using VSCode

In this video I introduce these new files. I go over the new formatting, and I also introduce the new features in VSCode for the .bicepparam files.

Microsoft Achieves First Milestone Towards A Quantum Supercomputer

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Links:

202306261006

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VQ7BZwuZkU

https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/quantum/2023/06/21/microsoft-achieves-first-milestone-towards-a-quantum-supercomputer/

How To Get The Id Of An Existing Subnet In Bicep

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did a refactor of some of our Bicep template code for our AKS clusters today.

Before, we were using a rather complicated line of code using string interpolation.

var vnetSubnetId = '${resourceId(vnetResourceGroupName, 'Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks', vnetName)}/subnets/${vnetSubnetName}'

This was hard to read and the Bicep linter gave the following warning in my editor and during deployment:

WARNING: D:\a\1\a\drop\Generic-templates\containers\azure-kubernetes-service\v4.0\templates\aks.bicep(117,7) : Warning use-resource-id-functions: If property “vnetSubnetID” represents a resource ID, it must use a symbolic resource reference, be a parameter or start with one of these functions: extensionResourceId, guid, if, reference, resourceId, subscription, subscriptionResourceId, tenantResourceId. Found nonconforming expression at vnetSubnetID -> vnetSubnetId [https://aka.ms/bicep/linter/use-resource-id-functions]

What is Azure CNI Overlay for AKS?

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

CNI?

CNI stands for Container Network Interface. It allows communication between pods and services.

Current Azure CNI limitations

Let’s take a practical example. We have an enterprise environment where a large network is utilized, spanning multiple clouds and on-prem infrastructure hubs. To enable seamless communication across these sections, they must belong to the same network. As a result, specific IP address ranges are assigned to each section, with AWS, On-Prem A, and Azure each having their respective ranges.

Deploying Simple Applications to AKS with Draft

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Not sure how this will play out with more complex applications, but I can definitely see how this would accellerate the process for developers to get their first versions deployed without the toil of setting up manifests and pipelines. Will definitely play around with this soon and I’m curious to see how far Microsoft will take this!

Links:

202306092006

Podcast Notes - Optimal Water Intake

Tue, 30 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Hydration Notes from Huberman Podcast

For the first 10 hours of the day, consume 236ml for every hour awake

During exercise, follow Galpin equation: 2ml per kg of bodyweight every 15-20 minutes on average.

This does not mean you need to stop exercising and drink this amount. You can also consume it in a larger amount afterwards. It is recommended to drink during exercise though.

Use the normal recommendation to hydrate before exercise, this establishes a good baseline for heading into exercise.

Discovered MAF and Low Heart Rate Training

Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Although I was already doing something very similar, yesterday I discovered MAF training through this video:

This video is super inspiring because he actually runs a 3 hour marathon while recording!

I was already doing base training for my running which I discovered through the r/running Reddit. Here you focus on time instead of distance and do many runs on low intensity throughout the week, and one long run where you go 5 minutes more every week.

Went on My First Camping Trip After Moving Back to NL From Norway

Tue, 23 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It was a nice week. I had an extra day off on Asenscion day and I decided to go for a camping trip for the first time after I moved back to the Netherlands.

It was a great experience, and I wrote a couple of Tumblr posts with photos:

https://www.tumblr.com/mischavandenburg/718093517925367808/first-trip-in-the-netherlands-part-1?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/mischavandenburg/718098930739593216/part-2?source=share

Links:

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[[outdoors]]

Why Have A Personal Website?

Wed, 17 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Why bother with a personal website? Why not just write blog posts on LinkedIn?

I want to own my data. I want to have complete freedom. I want to write whatever I want.

This post captures it beautifully.

Links:

202305171305

https://matthiasott.com/notes/simple-truths-about-personal-websites

8 Simple Japanese Habits

Tue, 16 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Through YouTube I’ve been exposed to quite a bit of Japanese culture and I love many aspects of it. I love this list of habits, and I was surprised to see how many of them I already incorporate.

Clean the Toilet

Many successful businessmen clean the toilet every day. It humbles you. Ajahn Chah also talks about this a lot. Check out “Toilets on the Path”. I’m also very focused on cleanliness and especially emphasize keeping my toilet clean. But I like the idea of cleaning it every day and I’m going to give it a try.

AI Does Not Grow Exponentially, Thus, Less Scary

Mon, 15 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I watch the whole AI craze from the sideline: I am interested in it but I do not spend a lot of time investigating it. But I do pick up a few things here and there.

In this Rich Roll podcast, Kevin Kelly argues that AI does not grow exponentially. It grows linearly, but not exponentially, because it is constrained by the infrastrucutre that we give it, and are able to give it. AI cannot grow by itself. We simply cannot provide enough computing power to enable exponential growth because the technology is not advanced enough yet, which means the growth is stunted.

Invest In Experiences For Happiness

Mon, 15 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Happiness, Hedonic Adjustment, Experiences

This was a very good video. I can honestly say that I am very happy and content, and I lead a very fulfilling life. I do not usually watch this kind of “happiness” content because I’m already happy. But this video did give me some very important insights which have influenced the way I approach money and happiness.

I Ran 10k For The First Time Today

Sun, 14 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I ran 10k for the first time in my life today.

I ran to the beach and back in Heemskerk on hardened forest roads, listening to the birds and feeling the spring sun on my face. I felt great and had a smile on my face most of the time. Lots of interesting thoughts popping up in the mind as I run and reflect. Hardly noticed that 77 minutes went by because I was having such a good time.

Started Using Tumblr for Travel Blogging

Sun, 14 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

With the spring finally being fully released on the Netherlands, my wanderlust has awakened again after lying dormant for two years. In my 9 years in Norway I became a seasoned outdoorsman spending much time roaming the mountains and forests and always spending days or weeks out in the wild with my tent.

When I moved back to the Netherlands this has been put on hold for a couple of years while I focused on changing my career on IT. Now that the career is rolling along nicely by the looks of it, I’m super excited to start exploring the Netherlands and see what the outdoors life is like in an area where the nature is significantly less wild and abundant.

Why I'm Posting More on Social Media

Sun, 14 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My recent post on E/N blogging led to a realization: posting on social media will be something I do for myself, instead of doing it for others.

When Facebook came out when I was 16 I posted quite a lot on social media. 5 years later I found it very embarassing to read back through those posts and I deleted everything, and since then I have been been holding back on social media posting and deleting my accounts several times.

My Blog Is Turning Into And Everything / Nothing Website And It Feels Good

Tue, 09 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Read an interesting post this morning about E/N websites. Apparently a phenomenon from the early days of the web, E/N websites meant everything to the publisher, but maybe nothing to the rest of the world. The term may have been the predecessor of the term “weblog” which was shortened to blog.

E/N description: The website’s author covers a myriad of topics. It’s not narrowly focused. The author writes about everything or at least everything that’s important to the author. The site might contain something useful for anyone who visits. The content means everything to the publisher, but it could mean nothing to the rest of the world.

Video: How I Write & Publish My Blog Using Neovim & Hugo From The Command Line

Tue, 09 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I show my workflow to publish my Hugo blog from the command line using neovim and bash

Links:

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Having Fun While Running And Exploring

Sun, 07 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you would have told me 5 years, 3 years, 1 year, or even 3 months ago, that one day I would be 50 minutes into a run with a big beaming smile on my face, I would have never believed you, but today it happened.

My base building schedule is giving me good results. I did this week’s long run this morning and it was 7 minutes longer than last week’s long run. I ran 8.5 kilometres in 67 minutes.

Video: Creating A Command To Change Fontsize in Alacritty

Sun, 07 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Links:

202305070805

https://youtu.be/Q8dxoqqMHAg

My Plan For The D2R Ladder Reset

Thu, 04 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Diablo 2: one of those games in life I keep returning to. Started playing it when I was 12, and I know it inside out. Roughly once every 1,5 years I’ll have a phase where I want to play some.

I’m in such a phase right now. I haven’t been gaming since the Victoria 3 release, and frankly, I don’t have much time to spend either. Something will be sacrificed. Currently this will be study time. I’ve been studying for several hours a day for nearly two years, but with my current increased focus on health and weight loss, I feel I need a break and allow myself some leasure.

Saw Sabaton Live Yesterday!

Thu, 04 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Had a great time at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam yesterday. Went to see Sabaton live. This was my second time seeing them live, and it was a great show.

I love Sabaton because all of their material revolves around history and warfare. They are one of my favourite bands. I was super happy they played some of my favourite songs: “Carolus Rex”, “Stormtroopers” and “To Hell And Back”.

I’ve been a lover of metal music ever since childhood, but I had a break from metal music for about 5 years where I hardly listened to any music at all. But over the past 1,5 years I’ve been really enjoying metal music again.

The Ups And Downs Of A Devops Engineer

Thu, 04 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Next winter I’ll be entering my third year as a DevOps Engineer. When you first break into this field there is an overwhelming amount of things to learn. Frankly, this will always be the case. But I’m reaching a point where I have gained experience with most of the main areas and tooling, and I can start seeing the relations between them and how they compare to one another.

Just like any other job or activity, there are things that you like and that suit you well, and there are things that you don’t like. And now the first phases of overwhelm are confidently behind me, I’m starting to learn the things I prefer doing over others.

Vacations In The Soviet Union

Tue, 02 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Read an interesting article this morning. Apparently the Soviet Union introduced paid time off well before other industrialized countries.

Interestingly, but not unexpectedly, the state determined how and with whom you spent that vacation.

As members of a collective, citizens were expected to spend their free time in a manner the government and its leading theorists considered beneficial to society as whole, regardless of an individual’s preferences.

Ever since the 1930s, it had been customary for Soviet citizens to travel in groups of 25 to 40 people randomly put together by their trade unions. When adults relaxed at resorts or embarked on tours, their children were sent to summer camps managed by state-run youth groups like the Young Pioneers or the Komsomol.

The Power of Writing

Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, writing. It’s one of the skills that I’ve consistently been praised for throughout my life. I’m pretty good at it, and I think that’s because I enjoy it. It led me to getting an academic degree in English Literature and Culture, simply because I was following the things I was naturally good at.

However, just like any other skill, you can only become better at it through consistent practice. This morning I read a wonderful little blog post on writing regularly, and I was touched by his words:

How To Check The Weather From The Command Line

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For the past few months I’ve been using this neat API to check the weather from the command line. It’s very simple to use. Simply run:

curl wttr.in

This will show the weather based on your location, but you can also give a particular location and format.

curl wttr.in/Amsterdam

Links:

202304271504

https://github.com/chubin/wttr.in

Video: How To Read The News From The Command Line

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I use RSS feeds to read the news, and I use Newsboat as a RSS reader.

To in stall on MacOS: brew install newsboat

Integrate in already existing terminal workflow
Free from distraction
Control how content is rendered
Carefully curate which content you consume
Build your own “Social Media feed”
No advertisements or suggested articles
Newsboat uses RSS feeds which are generated by websites

Links:

202304271004

You Can Abort Operations on AKS Clusters Now

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It’s now possible to abort long running operations on AKS clusters. It was released as Generally Available.

For example:

az aks operation-abort --name myAKSCluster --resource-group myResourceGroup

Links:

202304270704

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-operation-abort-in-aks/

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/manage-abort-operations?tabs=azure-cli

Starting My Homelab

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This week I started a project which I’ve been putting off for too long. I finally started my homelab. Over the past year I’ve been collecting hardware here and there, and I’ve had the intention to start up a proper Kubernetes cluster at home. I got inspired by Rob Muhlenstein’s Homelab Init playlist on YouTube which I’m working on.

There are a few reasons why I haven’t started up until now:

Structs In Go - Similar To Classes In Python?

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Tour of Go is very clear:

Go does not have classes.

One benefit of learning multiple programming languages is that each language provides you with a set of “pegs” that you can use to refer to other languages. As I learned about structs in Go, I hung them to the “Python classes” peg and used that as a reference point. Using these reference points can help you to understand the object of study by looking at their differences and similarities.

Use The %q Verb When Debugging In Go

Sun, 09 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m working on my twitter CLI and as I was writing a function to format the tweet I remembered something I picked up last week. After a quick search in my notes I remembered to use the %q with printf.

slice := []string{feed.Items[0].Title, feed.Items[0].Link}
result := strings.Join(slice, "\n")
fmt.Printf("Testing printf %q", result)

This is very useful when formatting output. Now I can actually see whether it is inserting the new line characters correctly:

I Made My First Tweet Using My Go Program

Sat, 08 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I spent the evening learning about the Twitter API. It was not as straight forward as I thought. My goal was to do this project using only the standard library, and I hoped to get away with a few simple curls, but since the API requires OAuth 1 to create tweets, I had to revise my strategy.

After struggling with Postman for a few hours to get the correct environment variables set up I managed to make my first tweet through Postman. Turns out that Twitter made some big changes in the free tier of their API, and it took me quite a while to figure out that the functions that are used as examples in the API documentation are not accessible to free accounts anymore.

Outlining My First Go Project

Sat, 08 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When learning a programming language it is important to start building things quickly and to begin applying the theory. I have a tendency to dive into the books and lose myself in the theory, where I should be getting hands on experience.

Over the past few months I’ve generated a bunch of ideas for projects that I want to write, and I selected my first project today.

https://github.com/mischavandenburg/twitter-cli

https://twitter.com/mischa_vdburg

Twitter CLI

Programs should solve a problem. My problem has to do with Twitter. I recently created a Twitter account, and I want to make a tweet whenever I publish something new on my website. I’m currently doing this by hand, and that needs to stop, obviously.

Podcast Notes: Dopamine and Motivation - Huberman

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dopamine

Listened to an interesting podcast on Dopamine by Andrew Huberman. I always enjoy his content because he is completely driven by science, not by personal opinion. He is truly objective as far as I can tell.

Dopamine is often misunderstood. It is not necessarily associated with good feelings after you pursue an activity. It is more related to motivation to engage in certain behaviours.

Rewards

Scientists did an experiment where they observed children of kindergarten age, and later reproduced this in adults. The children were monitored during school days, where they had blocks of structured time and free time. During structured time their activities were managed. They had to sing or write, for example. Then they had blocks of free time where they could do whatever activity they liked.

Exercise Stimulates Creativity And Motivation

Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I noticed multiple times now that during my workouts my mind is generating lots of new ideas for coding projects or blog posts. It is a well known fact that walking stimulates areas in the brain that which will in turn stimulate creativity. But I’m noticing that it starts to happen with strength workouts as well.

Although I don’t struggle with the motivation to get myself to the gym, I sometimes feel “guilty” for not spending that time on coding or studying. I’m realizing now that this is a very irrational train of thought.

Generating Markdown Headings with YYYY-MM-DD Date Format Using Bash

Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I created a simple bash script to generate a date in format YYY-MM-DD to use with the magic !! wands in vim.

Just now I wanted to expand this with being able to create a markdown header with this date.

#!/bin/bash
# Gendate generates the date in YYY-MM-DD format
# Can be called with arguments h and number to generate a markdown heading
# For example: 'gendate h 3' will generate '### 2023-03-29'

header=""
date=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")

if [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; then

    # handling wrong arguments
    if [[ $# -eq 1 || "$1" != "h" ]]; then
        echo "Usage: gendate h 2 to generate with markdown heading ##"
        exit 1
    fi

    # format markdown heading if arguments h, n are given
    if [[ $# -eq 2 ]]; then
        for i in $(seq 1 $2); do
            header+="#"
        done
        header+=" "$date
        echo "$header"
        exit 1
    fi
fi

# if no arguments given, generate the date
echo "$date"

Links:

202304011104

I Wrote My First Go Program Today

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m still at the beginning of my Go learning journey, but I worked through a few tutorials and guides by now. I’ve gathered lots of ideas for programs that I want to write, big and small, but I have to start somewhere.

The best thing to do is to write little programs that solve a problem that you have.

One problem I needed to solve was converting sentences to title case in vim. There are plugins for this, or elaborate macros, but I thought this was a nice opportunity to write my first program from scratch. You can view the program here: my go repo.

Kubernetes Resource Management for Pods and Containers - CPU and Memory

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Pods have containers, and limits can be set on those containers.

Requests

used by the kube-scheduler to determine where the Pod will be placed
containers can use more than requested resources if it is available on node

If a limit is specified, but no request, Kubernetes will use the limit value as the request value.

Limits

containers may never use more than the set limit
enforced by kubelet and container

My Neovim Zettelkasten: How I Take Notes in Markdown Using Vim and Bash

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I used to make all my notes on paper, but I decided to switch to a digital note-taking system about two years ago.

Digital note-taking provides the following advantages:

Searchability
Collected in one place
Can be converted to different output formats
Easier to share with others
Does not take up physical space
No risk of losing your notes in case of fire or other disaster

I’ve gone through several iterations of my note-taking systems. I started on Google Docs, moved on to Notion and eventually landed on Obsidian. However, as I became more proficient with UNIX systems and vim, I realized I did not need all of that distracting functionality, and I switched over to using Neovim and a few bash scripts. I occasionally open up Obsidian to look at my graph view or to make use of the Anki plugin, but I enjoy the trimmed-down version that I built myself. I don’t need to leave the command line to read my notes or to create a new one.

Go - Reading from Standard Input Provided by User

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m working through the “greet” challenge by rwxrob. It is amazing how such a relatively simple and small challenge can lead down to so many rabbit holes.

The program should take input from the user and print it out. I worked through the challenge together with Rob in his video but I’m going to talk (write) myself through these functions to fully understand what’s going on.

We have the following function in main.go:

Go - Skillstak Beginner Boost Week 17 and 18 Notes

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Beginner Boost Week 17 and 18 Notes

Link to video

Don’t forget to set GOBIN=~/.local/bin, GOPRIVATE, CGO_ENABLED=0

Go Testing - Example Tests

func ExampleFoo() {

	foo()

	// Output:
	// Foo

}

The ExampleFoo indicates the test here. It needs to match the name exactly after Example. But it is capitalized.

It runs that function and will compare the output to what is specified.

It says “see if the program generates this output in std out”.

How to Run Newsboat in Zenmode

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

To read the news free from distractions and ads I use Newsboat as a reader for RSS feeds.

However, one thing that annoyed me was that it would span across my entire screen in the terminal. When you read blogs or news pages in the browser, you’ll notice that the text is always located in a middle column of the window, so you don’t have to move your neck while reading. At least, this is the case with well designed websites that serve text content.

The Difference Between DevOps, Cloud and Cloud Native

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I found an excellent video by Rob Muhlenstein explaining the differences between Cloud, Cloud Native and DevOps. Here are the notes I wrote.

Cloud

These are primarily cloud services. The external cloud.

“Something as a Service”.

Amazon
Azure
GCP

Cloud Native

This is Cloud Native: The CNCF Landscape

Cloud Native is the technology that makes the cloud possible, and all the technology dependent on those services.

Computing

Edge Computing
High Performance Computing

Converting markdown to PDF on MacOS

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It happens that I want to share my notes with friends that just simply want a pdf instead of a markdown file.

This morning I figured out a quick way to convert markdown to pdf on a M2 MacBook running MacOS Ventura.

You need the pandoc and wkhtmltopdf packages.

brew install pandoc wkhtmltopdf

To convert:

pandoc 00-zettelkasten/Fundamentals\ of\ Bicep.md --pdf-engine=wkhtmltopdf  -o /tmp/test.pdf

This will output a pdf to my /tmp/ directory and it looks pretty good.

I ran 5K for the first time in my life!

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I reached a significant milestone. I ran my first 5K!

I’ve always been on the heavy side. I did a lot of weightlifting from age 18 to around 27 and I was always rather bulky, but very strong. This meant I was very good at working in the woods or helping people move house, but I’ve never been able to do any running or endurance because my knees would start protesting very quickly. However, I always admired endurance athletes and I had the desire to be able to run more than a few minutes without feeling the urge to die on the spot.

Made Some Website Improvements

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did some website housekeeping today. Spent the entire morning on a few tasks that I intended to do for a while. I added a search page and reorganized the menu, and I added a “Start Here” page.

I hope that the new “Start Here” page will do a better job of explaining the how and why of my website, and that the search function will help you nagivate my website better.

Trying out pandoc for vim

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I do all of my writing in markdown. I keep my diaries in my Second Brain, I constantly write notes on the topics I’m studying, and my entire blog is written in markdown.

Some of the writing is done in Obsidian but I’m moving away from Obsidian step by step. I’ll still keep my second brain compatible with it, but I want to be able to do all of my writing in (neo)vim.

How to Surround a Word with Quotes in Vim

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

[[Neovim]]

I find myself quoting words very often in vim when I’m writing bash code. I used to do this by simply navigating around the word and typing them, but I knew there had to be a better way.

I found this vim command:

ciw""<Esc>P

“c” deletes into register and enters insert mode. “iw” stands for “inner word” and selects the word.

So we delete the entire word and enter insert mode. Then we type two quotes, and we press “P” to paste the register (containing the word) before the cursor.

What is the difference between a Go module and a package?

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A module is generally associated with a single git repo.

You can have a module with multiple packages, and each package would get its own subdirectory.

You should always name your main file main.go

creating a module

Use the go mod init {{your path here}} command to initiate a module.

multiple modules

I was running into some trouble with this because I want to have one big repo where I will store all my go projects.

Had a CLI Shokunin Moment Today

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today was meal-prepping day and I cut up some vegetables for the coming week. I’m on a strict caloric restriction regimen and need to meticulously track and plan all the food that I consume.

I cut up three kinds of vegetables and wrote down how many grams of each I cut up so I could divide them by three and add them to my calorie tracking application.

As I took out my phone to pick up my calculator to divide each number, my inner engineer started complaining about the fact that I had to do three calculations and that it would be much better to loop over an array of these values.

How to continuously run a Go file while coding in the terminal

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I do all my coding and note taking in the terminal using tmux and neovim. I picked up a nice trick from Rob Muhlenstein today.

You can use this command in a split window to keep running a Go file. It will update when you save the file.

entr -c bash -c "go run main.go" <<< main.go

Entr runs commands when files change. Here we are feeding it only one file, but you can also feed it a directory like so:

Notes: Advanced Bicep

Sat, 18 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Deploying to subscriptions and management groups

To tell Bicep which scope to deploy to, use the targetScope keyword, for example, managementGroup.

You’re not specifying which management group exactly, this is done during deployment of the template file.

targetScope can be set to resourceGroup, subscription, managementGroup or tenant.

If it is not set, Bicep assumes resourceGroup.

create a resource group

targetScope = 'subscription'

resource resourceGroup 'Microsoft.Resources/resourceGroups@2021-01-01' = {
  name: 'example-resource-group'
  location: 'westus'
}

To deploy you use az deployment group create for resource groups, but you use az deployment sub create for subscriptions, mg for management group and tenant for tenant.

Running Docker and Kubernetes on Mac M2

Sat, 18 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The past few days I’ve been trying out a few options to run Docker containers and a Kubernetes clusters on my new MacBook Pro M2.

Unfortunately you can’t just run brew install docker and expect it to work. Additionally, Docker desktop requires that you purchase a license if you use it for work purposes.

Minikube works fine as well, but the networking driver for qemu is not fully supported yet, and I haven’t tried any of the other alternatives because I found something better.

Notes: Intermediate Bicep

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today I finished the Intermediate Bicep module. Here are my notes.

Child and Extension

You can also use Bicep to refer to resources that were created outside the Bicep file itself. For example, you can refer to resources that your colleagues have created manually by using the Azure portal, or from within another Bicep template or module, even if they’re in a different resource group or subscription. By using these features of Bicep, you can unlock the ability to create powerful templates that deploy all aspects of your Azure infrastructure.

Notes: Fundamentals of Bicep

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll be working with Bicep during my next contract, so I’m working through the Bicep modules on Microsoft Learn to prepare. I must say that these modules are particularly helpful. They are well structured and they provide you with free sandbox environments to practice deploying the templates you create.

Why Bicep?

Resources in Azure are deployed by the Azure Resource Manager (ARM). These resources are JSON objects under the covers, and ARM templates are a way to generate these JSON objects. However, JSON is not really meant to be edited by humans, and the ARM templates are not very suitable for editing either. Thus, Bicep was developed to allow for a better editing experience and better readability and reusability.

Learning Go Day 1: Notes

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The CTO of my new company recommended the Udemy course “Go: The Complete Developer’s Guide (Golang)”. I started today and here are some notes I made.

Hello World in Go

We start by writing a Hello World and studying all the elements.

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {

fmt.Println("Hello World!")

}

How do we run code?

go run main.go runs the program go build main.go compiles it to an executable

I started to learn Go!

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For month’s I considered to learn Go, and today I finally started.

I doubted for a long time, because I figured it would be better to dive deeper into Python. However, when I reflected on it, I realized I’m able to do the things I want to do in Python. I can create scripts to manipulate data, and I can string different tools and libraries together if I need to. So how deep do I actually need to go as a DevOps Engineer?

Controlling Apple Music with hotkeys from anywhere on MacOS

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a little obsessed with controlling everything with my keyboard. That’s why I loved AwesomeWM so much on my Arch Linux setup, I hardly used my mouse anymore.

One thing I loved about my setup was the ability to control my music from the keyboard from anywhere. This is a feature I picked up from the awesome-copycats theme for AwesomeWM. This was one of the first things I missed when I made my switch to MacOS.

New Laptop: Moving to MacOS

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My new employer kindly sponsored me with a new 16-inch MacBook Pro M2. I chose 32GB Ram and the base model with 12 CPU and 19 GPU cores and 1TB of hard disk. These specifications will suit my needs well.

I’ve been daily driving Linux for a year now, and it has been such an incredible journey. Building my own Arch Linux system taught me much about Linux and what it means to maintain a system yourself. I will undoubtedly miss my custom AwesomeWM configuration and the freedom that Arch provides.

New job!

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I accepted a job offer! I’ve been hired as a DevOps Engineer by Fullstaq.

Fullstaq specialises in Kubernetes and Cloud Native, so I’m really happy I could join their team. I’ll be doing projects for a variety of clients, and I think it will be a great place to learn and gain more experience in the Kubernetes and CNCF space.

Fullstaq has been delightfully welcoming and great to work with so far. The future looks bright!

Lab VM project - Install ArgoCD to your Kubernetes cluster

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This guide uses the official getting started guide with a few modifications. This installation is only for lab purposes. Running ArgoCD in a production environment requires more configuration.

Install argocd and argocd cli

kubectl create namespace argocd
kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

My VM is running on arm architecture, so I need these commands to install the argocd cli on ubuntu.

curl -sSL -o argocd-linux-arm64 https://github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/releases/latest/download/argocd-linux-arm64
sudo install -m 555 argocd-linux-arm64 /usr/local/bin/argocd
rm argocd-linux-arm64

Change the service type to LoadBalancer

Setting up a Kubernetes cluster on an Ubuntu 20.04 VM with containerd and flannel

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

You can get a free 24GB ram VM from Oracle. What better place for your own Kubernetes lab that is always available? See this article to create your VM.

Here are the steps I took to install a single node kubernetes cluster on the Ubuntu VM.

Installation

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install apt-transport-https curl

Install containerd

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install containerd.io

Remove the default containerd configuration, because it creates errors when running kubeadm init.

Get a free 4 CPU 24GB Ram VM on from Oracle

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A few weeks ago someone gave me a tip. Oracle actually has a really good free tier offering.

You can host a 4CPU 24GB VM for free!

This is perfect for a lab environment.

I spent my evening creating the VM and setting up a kubernetes cluster from scratch.

Use this video to claim your free vm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKc3k7xceT8

Setting up a new LUKS encrypted disk with dm-crypt in Arch Linux

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today I added a harddisk I had lying around because I needed some more space. On my Arch Linux system I have all my drives encrypted like a good boy. It can be a bit tricky when you are adding them because you need to configure a few different files and add different UUID’s in each of them.

Here are the steps I follow to add a new disk. Note that this how to assumes that you already have set up your system with dm-crypt.

Setting up automated backups on my Arch Linux system with rsync and bash

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For the past few months I’ve been stuyding every hour of free time that I had. Now that I reached my certification goals for now, I finally had some time to do a chore I had been meaning to do for a long time.

My Arch Linux system is fully encrypted, and I make backups. But I was still doing it a bit haphazardly, usually every Friday.

I wanted to automate this for a long time now, but I never got round to it. Today I made the first steps, but it is still in progress.

I passed the AZ-400 DevOps Expert today

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m typing this 30 minutes after I passed my AZ-400 exam. I’m sitting in a lovely cafe on Leidseplein in Amsterdam and feel relieved. Another significant certification bites the dust. This one took about 70 hours of study.

I started preparing immediately after passing my AZ-104 exam, which was a good move. The AZ-400 requires you to know many details about Azure services and how to access them. For example, Shared Access Signatures are only used for accessing storage accounts, but they came up quite often as alternative answers to the questions.

Azure DevOps Personal Access Tokens are always for authenticating into ADO

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The PAT (Personal Access Token) often comes up during practice tests for the AZ-400.

One way to remember when to use a PAT is that these are only for authenticating into Azure DevOps, never to external services.

For example, you might get a question on connecting your Azure DevOps project with a GitHub account from Azure DevOps, and PAT will show up as one of the alternative answers. By remembering that PATs are only for authenticating into ADO, you can elminate this alternative, and make your choice easier.

The Pomodoro technique has won me over

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I did a lot of studying last year, and I achieved a few tough certifications. I’ve always been good at studying and never struggled with getting decent grades in university. As a result, I never felt the need to use particular techniques to pass my tests. However, now that I need to do my studies combined with a full-time job, I did some optimization and looked into study techniques.

One technique I’ve become very fond of is the Pomodoro Technique. I don’t have any problems focusing for long periods, but I still decided to try it. I use the standard 25-minute study with a 5-minute break routine, and after four cycles, I take a 30-minute break.

Using parameter expansion as search and replace

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Last modified: 2023-01-10

In this evening’s studies I came across this bash script in a tutorial by Rob Muhlenstein:

!#/bin/bash
echo -e ${PATH//:/\\n}

I could not make heads or tails of all these slashes and curly braces, since the output clearly indicated that search and replacement was being performed. I’m used to the sed / vim syntax: s/foo/bar

After some research I learned that ‘//’ is a global search and replace syntax of several text processing programs. It is known as parameter expansion in bash.

Automatically adding my recent blog posts to my GitHub Readme

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My friend gave me a nice tip for customizing the readme on my personal GitHub page. I discovered there is a whole world of plugins and customizations out there.

I set up this one for my GitHub homepage. It uses a workflow to update the readme in my personal GitHub repo with the most recent posts from this blog, based on the RSS feed. Neat!

It was very easy to set up. If you don’t have your own blog, you could configure it with a different RSS feed. Hacker News for example.

Back to Bas(h)ics: leaving zsh for now

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve used zsh for nearly two years now. I have a custom setup with autocompletion and a good looking prompt.

Recently I’ve been diving deeper into bash scripting, following tutorials by rwxrob. He emphasizes all the time that it is much better to stick to bash instead of zsh.

Advantages of using bash:

the default Linux shell
available on any Linux system
full documentation available anywhere at all times with man bash
free software
less dependent on external plugins and configurations
more portable
practice by working on the command line

The fact that working on the commandline is already coding convinced me to leave my beloved customized prompt behind (for now) and go back to the basics.

How to build and deploy a Docker container to an Azure VM using Azure Pipelines

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to build an application from a Dockerfile and deploy it to a VM. I used a default Svelte setup as an example app.

Naturally, Azure prefers that you deploy containers to services such as Azure Container Instances or App Services, so they don’t provide modules for the pipelines to deploy to docker servers as far as I could tell.

I searched for a long time but I could not find a solution. In the end I just ran shell commands from the pipeline to run the container on on the server.

How to deploy to a Linux VM in Azure with Azure Pipelines

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

To reach a VM from Azure Pipelines, you need to set up an environment.

Create your Linux VM in Azure.

In Azure DevOps, click envirnoments, new, and select the Virtual Machine option.

A command is generated for you. SSH into your VM and run the command.

Now the VM should show up under environments in Azure DevOps.

Set up a repo with an azure-pipelines.yml with these contents to test. under environment, set the same name as you did in Azure DevOps for your environment.

Deploying a Linux VM to Azure with Terraform

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For a project I’m setting up my environment with Terraform.

I used this tutorial, but modified the code to make it simpler and easier to understand for beginners. The original uses a random module to generate random names, and generates a new SSH key. Also, this tutorial uses expensive VM tiers and Premium storage, which are not necessary when you are learning.

I also thought the SSH configuration was overcomplicated. My version just takes an SSH keypair stored at ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

How to follow symbolic links while searching with Telescope in neovim

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I use the Obsidian app, but I mostly write and search my notes with neovim. I added my zet directory from this blog repo into the Obsidian vault as a symbolic link, but I soon discovered that these files were not being searched.

Telescope.nvim uses ripgrep (rg) to do the live grepping in its search, and ripgrep does not follow symbolic links by default. You need to pass the -L flag to it.

Attaching the Ansible Language Server to yaml files in neovim (LSP)

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When you have an Ansible language server installed, you might find that your yaml LSP will attach to your current buffer, but the ansible language server won’t attach.

You can fix this by setting the correct file type for the current buffer:

:set ft=yaml.ansible

You could also adjust the Ansible LSP so it attaches to all yaml files. However, this does not work out for me, because I edit different yaml files for different purposes every day. Not all yaml files are to be used with Ansible.

How to install the Openstack CLI on Linux

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Make sure to have pip installed.

Run pip install python-openstackclient

Pip will install a binary called “openstack” in ~/.local/bin

If the openstack command is not available in your session, you might need to add it to your PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Add this to your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc to make sure this happens for each shell session.

Don’t forget to source your updated ~/.zshrc if you chose to add it:

source ~/.zshrc

How to Reset a VM Root Password using the Openstack CLI

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Download the Openstack RC file from the Openstack portal. Click your username in the top right corner to find it.
Source the RC file to make the environment variables avaialable to your current session: source ~/my_openstack.sh
Find the instance ID of your VM from the portal.
Run openstack server set --root-password be3xxxx5-8348-418b-xxxb-c4xxxx575cd
You will be prompted for the new password which will be set on the virtual machine.

How to run installed pip packages as binaries

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When you install a pip package which is meant to be run from the command line as a command, you might find that it is not available to you after installation.

If this happens, it might be that the path is missing from your PATH variable. Therefore, the shell does not source these binaries when initiated, and does not know that these executables exist.

You can find the location of your binaries by running pip show package_name

Working on the command line is already coding

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Rob Muhlenstein makes an interesting point that using bash on the command line is already coding. When you are running commands in the terminal, you are coding one line at a time.

When you put these commands in a file you have a bash script. Therefore, he argues that bash should be your first language.

I think this is such an interesting point. I’ve been using Linux and working on the command line for years but it never dawned on me that I, in fact, was coding while working on the command line. However, when I was writing bash scripts, I did consider myself to be coding. There is literally no difference. A bash script is just a string of commands that you would enter manually anyway.

Fall in love with sed.

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sed, it’s so powerful. I remember I struggled with finding practical uses for it when I did my LPIC-1 certification. But now I find myself using it several times a week. It is so powerful to edit multiple files at a time. I use it for work, but also for making changes to my entire second brain in Obsidian with one command.

Today I needed to update my /articles/ links to /zet/articles/ links because I’m restructuring my website. Here is the sed expression that is executed for every markdown file that is found by fd:

Application Insights: Telemetry Sampling

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 08:41:09 +0100

Telemetry is the collection of measurements or other data at remote points, and transmitting that data to a receiver for monitoring.

Sampling is used to reduce telemetry traffic and costs for storage and data in Application Insights.

For small and medium sized applications sampling is generally not necessary.

Advantages of sampling:

Throttling data when the application suddenly sends a high volume of telemetry in a short time
- This saves costs!
Keeping a pricing tier quota
Reduce network traffic from telemetry collection

Three different kinds of sampling:

Pipelines: Continuous Monitoring

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 08:30:03 +0100

This term can be confusing. Initially I thought it meant monitoring of the pipelines themselves. However, in the context of Azure Release Pipelines, continuous monitoring refers to something else.

Continuous monitoring leverages metrics from other services such as Application Insights. You can set up release gates based on these metrics. For example, you can set up a release gate to roll back the deployment if an alert is being fired for high CPU usage in the application.

Distributed Tracing

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 07:58:44 +0100

Debugging is done using call stacks in monolithic applications. Nowadays it is more common to deploy an application using a microservices architecture. Microservices make it easier to update certain parts of the application, and allow for more frequent deployments.

Using microservices does have a disadvantage: you cannot use the local call stack for debugging, because calls are sent to different microservices.

Distributed tracing is an implementation of the call stack in the cloud. It is usually implemented by adding an agent, SDK, or library to the service. In Azure you can enable distributed tracing via Application Insights through auto-instrumentation or SDKs.

What is a SDK?

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 07:50:55 +0100

A software development kit (SDK) is a set of tools provided by the manufacturer of (usually) a hardware platform, operating system (OS), or programming language.

SDKs contain all the tools you need to get started. They typically contain a compiler, a debugger and an API. But they can also contain documentation and testing tools.

Copyright and License

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

All of the content on this blog is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

How This Blog is Created, Written and Hosted

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As I alluded to in my article about Obsidian, I am very fond of editing my text in neovim. Naturally, if you want to edit in neovim, you need to have your text as local files. I keep all of my personal notes in markdown.

Previously I was using WordPress, but the editing and writing experience became torture which I could not endure any longer. I looked for a different solution that would allow me to edit my files locally instead of in the browser.

Call Stacks

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 21:11:26 +0100

When you call a function, the system sets aside space in memory for the function to do its work. Those chunks are called “stack frames” or “function frames.”

These frames are arranged in a stack. The frame for the most recently called function is always at the top of the stack. When a new function is called, it becomes the active frame, and it is on top of the stack.

Starting a Project

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 21:00:11 +0100

I’m starting a project with a friend. Developing an application. We make a good team, he’s great at coding and knows the backend too.

He’ll do the development, I’m in charge of hosting. We’re setting everything up in Azure DevOps, so it is a great way to practice my Azure skills and apply the things I’ve learned in my recently obtained AZ-104 Azure Administrator certification.

Even though it is a small scale hobby project, I still plan to approach it as if it was an enterprise production application. I’ll set up a full CI/CD pipeline with testing in a secure manner. Credentials stored in an Azure key vault and images pushed to a private registry.

Going to Publish Smaller, and More Often

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 20:52:50 +0100

I’ve transitioned my note taking system towards a Zettelkasten system. I still use directories for folders and make copious links, but more often than not I put them in the larger generic 00-zettelkasten directory in my Obsidian vault.

The concept of “atomic notes” is also very important in Zettelkasten methods. Notes should be small and concise.

Up until this point I’ve been publishing full articles on my blog. I came across Rob Muhlestein yesterday and I was very inspired by his setup and public zettelkasten. I think I’ll move to a similar approach. Still planning to write and publish full articles as well, but also including atomic notes and personal status updates.

Obsidian: A Note Taking App For DevOps Engineers

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 19:05:13 +0100

As a DevOps or Cloud engineer, you work with many different technologies daily. Therefore, a good engineer needs a solid foundation in Linux, a lot of knowledge about your cloud solution, networking, CI/CD, at least one programming language, and many other topics.

Not only are there many of these categories, but within these categories, there are several alternatives. For example, in the category of infrastructure management, there is Ansible, Puppet, or Chef, each with its particular approach and configuration methods.

What Are Containers?

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 16:17:58 +0100

When you learn about DevOps, you will come across the concept of a container early on. This is a “Mischa Explains” article where I attempt to explain a concept in my own words as simply as possible. I use the Feynman technique and pretend to explain it to a 12-year-old.

Virtualization

To understand containers, we need to understand virtualization. Virtualization is the process of creating “fake computers” or “virtual computers” on a physical computer.

Getting Started with Neovim: kickstart.nvim

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 09:11:57 +0100

I’ve been using neovim for over a year now, and I’m very happy that I went through the initial difficulty of learning vim. One of the best perks of using neovim is that you can customize your entire editing experience and workflow. However, it can be a daunting experience to start with an empty configuration and set up everything from scratch.

I started with an empty vanilla vim config and slowly added the plugins as I went along. Videos by content creators such as ThePrimagen were also helpful in getting inspiration on which plugins I might like for my setup. But this might not be suitable for everyone. I was only editing yaml files and writing simple Python scripts at the time, whereas you might be looking for an IDE experience out of the box.

Study Guide: AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

TLDR

It took me 80 hours of studying to gain this certification. Here are my notes and Anki deck: GitHub repo

Introduction

When I did my English degree at University, exams were usually handwritten essays that needed to be done within a 3-hour timeframe. Sometimes we had multiple-choice tests, and I would always consider them a guaranteed pass because multiple-choice was much easier in my experience.

That opinion has changed since I’ve obtained a few IT certifications. These tests are hard! I’m typing this while sitting on the bus on my way home from my AZ-104 exam. I passed with an 860 score of 1000, where 700 or higher is a pass. But it was an astonishingly tough exam. Usually, I finish quickly and spend at least half an hour reviewing my answers. I had only 5 minutes to review my questions this time because I had used up all of the available time. The questions required intense concentration and were time-consuming because I needed to compare many options which were very similar to each other. There were no easy questions.

Lab Project: GitOps with ArgoCD, Azure Pipelines and Minikube

Sat, 24 Dec 2022 13:49:55 +0100

This weekend I had a lot of fun with a project. I wanted to learn more about GitOps and try out ArgoCD.

My goal was to be able to deploy an application from a GitHub repo to my local Kubernetes cluster running in minikube. There are many options I could have used, such as running Jenkins in my cluster. But I wanted to use Azure pipelines for practice, which complicates the deployment to my local cluster, because the cluster is not running on Azure. I also wanted to try out ArgoCD and learn more about GitOps.

Tokens and Identity on the Internet

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 00:55:47 +0100

Introduction

Have you ever thought about your identity on the internet? How does LinkedIn know it is you when you log in to LinkedIn? And when you allow LinkedIn to post to your Twitter, how does LinkedIn access your account and not your kindergarten teacher’s account?

This is a “Mischa Explains” article where I attempt to explain a concept in my own words as simply as possible. I use the Feynman technique and pretend to explain it to a 12-year-old.

Podcast Tip: The system that runs Norway's welfare payments

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 20:45:46 +0100

An interesting podcast episode describing the system that runs Norway’s welfare payments. It was interesting to hear that they focus on open source and that everything runs one one big kubernetes cluster.

It was also very inspiring to hear that they went from 4 nightly deployments a year to 1700 deployments a week.

Link to the podcast episode:

The system that runs Norway’s welfare payments

Book Notes: Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I came across this little book while doing some research for my Jiro Dreams of Sushi article. While scanning the book’s description, I was intrigued by this sentence: “the happiness of always being busy.” Although I work hard every day, I also enjoy ticking off the last item on my to-do list and enjoying some rest. Is there more happiness in being in constant activity?

Ikigai

“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”

Book Notes: The Unicorn Project

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This book is the sequel to the Phoenix project. Both books are set at Parts Unlimited, a fictitious company that supplies car parts to DIY mechanics and repair shops. Phoenix is a new system that Parts Unlimited has worked on for multiple years. It is supposed to handle order processing and communication between manufacturing, stores, and clients. Phoenix will also play a role in sales and marketing. The company has been gathering customer data for years, but it cannot use any of this data yet. Phoenix will enable it to generate targeted marketing campaigns from the data when it’s finished.

I'm In Love with my Work: Lessons from a Japanese Sushi Master

Sat, 08 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I watched “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” again. It must be the eighth time I revisited this piece of art. I have very little interest in sushi, but there is much more to this documentary. It was first recommended to me by my good friend Anders more than five years ago, but I couldn’t grasp its underlying life lessons the first time around.

Even though I couldn’t fully understand the message, I was intrigued by it and kept returning to the documentary. Over the years, I managed to grasp more of its deeper meaning. The documentary is about Jiro: one of the best sushi chefs in the world. His tiny restaurant, located in a subway station, even received a 3 Michelin star rating. So how does a man operating from a subway restaurant become the best in the world? And what can a DevOps Engineer learn from a sushi chef?

How and Why I Started Using Vim

Sun, 18 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you are just starting your Linux journey, you might have noticed that a few camps exist in the Linux world. Just like in any other area of life, it seems that groups of human beings enjoy dividing themselves instead of living in harmony. There are camps centered around Linux distributions (I use Arch, btw) but also around text editors.

The Beginning

The reason why I started to use vim is rather practical. When I was studying to become a Cloud Engineer, I had access to subscriptions on AWS and Azure to experiment with virtual machines. This was a perfect place to learn to work with Ansible. Many of the labs projects I did involved setting up a few virtual machines, and I destroyed many VMs when I made some big mistakes in the configuration.

Book Notes: The Phoenix Project

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

When I started my DevOps traineeship, I borrowed this book from my boss and read it from cover to cover. I loved the story and the characters; it helped me understand “the old way” of doing things and the merits of implementing DevOps principles.

I reread the book ten months later. In the meantime, I’ve learned many new skills and technologies and started working full-time as a DevOps engineer.

Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Exam Tips

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I recently obtained my CKA certification. I started this certification journey with zero knowledge of Kubernetes. However, I was already working as a DevOps Engineer, and I know a fair bit of Linux. I daily drive Arch Linux and have LPIC-1 certification. It was handy to know where files are located on Linux systems and how to interact with systemd services. I also knew yaml quite well because I work with Ansible daily. I passed on my first try, and I did one session of killer.sh.

Building my Own OS: Linux as a Creative Activity

Sat, 10 Sep 2022 12:22:28 +0000

NOTE: In this article, I use a rather broad definition of “Operating System.” I do not intend to appear as if I wrote and compiled my own Linux kernel, nor do I understand the inner workings of the kernel written in C. Instead, with “building my OS from scratch,” I intend to convey that I used a minimal Linux distribution as a starting point and started building from there.

introduction

I started using GNU/Linux as a daily driver about six months ago, and I have not regretted the decision ever since. There has not been a single use case where I needed to use Windows for anything at all.

How to Upgrade Java and Jenkins on Ubuntu 18.04

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 18:01:26 +0000

Last week I upgraded Jenkins to the latest version on the server infrastructure at work. Starting with the Jenkins 2.357 release, Java 11 or Java 17 will be required to run Jenkins. Also, the upcoming LTS release will require Java 11.

This means that I also needed to update Java on our Jenkins servers. Here are the steps that I did to perform the Jenkins and Java upgrade.

SSH into the server and stop the service. Then get the latest upgrades for your server, which is good practice:

5 Reasons Why I Changed my Career to IT in my Thirties

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 20:04:33 +0000

In this post, I’d like to share the five main reasons why I changed my career to IT in my thirties. Making a career change can be daunting, especially when you are past your twenties, and employers can get more skeptical of hiring and training you. However, when I passed my twenties and became more serious and intentional about my life and career, I decided to take the plunge and hope for the best. These are listed in no particular order.

How To Move Steam Game Files To a Separate Hard Drive on Linux

Thu, 26 May 2022 09:03:44 +0000

I have installed my OS on a 240GB SSD, and I prefer to keep my data on a different disk to leave enough space to work with. I wanted to move my steam game files to a separate hard drive on Linux. I’ll show you what I did to make this happen in this article. I use Manjaro GNOME.

First, you need a correctly partitioned hard drive.

To wipe your drive clean and have a single partition on it, we’ll use GParted.

Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux! Switching to Linux as my Daily Driver

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 06:38:57 +0000

After getting my LPIC-1 certification, my interest in Linux continued to grow. When I started my new job, I performed more sysadmin tasks, such as increasing the size of filesystems or removing backups, and it felt good to put the theory into practice.

I was still using Windows in my personal setup, and I started running into limitations. Finally, I realized how much I appreciated the freedom and control over my system that Linux gave me. So I decided I wanted to switch to Linux for my daily operating system. But a few things were holding me back. Will I be able to play my favorite games? Will I run into a lot of problems with my sound and microphone? Are all the apps I need for working from home available on Linux? Can I even edit videos on Linux?

Yadm: Keep Track of Your Precious Dotfiles

Sat, 02 Apr 2022 09:55:03 +0000

This week I learned about yadm: yet another dotfile manager. It is the perfect way to keep track of all your custom configuration files, known as dotfiles.

Even if you have only a little bit of experience with Linux, you know that everything is managed in files. All configuration parameters are set or changed in text files stored on the hard disk. These files are usually located in your home directory and are hidden by default. This is indicated by prefixing the file with a period. So the configuration file for the vim editor is .vimrc, and for zshell you use the .zshrc. This is why configuration files are referred to as dotfiles.

LPIC-1 Study Guide

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 21:20:19 +0000

I recently obtained my LPIC-1 certification, and in this blog post, I’ll share the strategy and techniques I used to pass this exam and share my thoughts on the certification. Because I am a Linux novice, the exam was a pretty tough grind for me. This article offers a beginner’s perspective on the LPIC-1 certification. Is the LPIC-1 hard to pass? Keep reading to find out.

Before this certification, I had only a little bit of experience. I deployed LAMP stacks using Ansible and configured VMs to be able to communicate with each other using only the command line. I also did a “Linux Fundamentals” video training. I could navigate the filesystem, edit text files and work in the terminal, but that was about it.

My First Contribution to Open Source

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 16:21:12 +0000

Two months ago I knew nothing about GitHub. This week my first pull request got merged into master!

Programming tutorials and books very often suggest that you should try to contribute to open source in order to practice your skills. Even though I am still on the beginner level in Python, I managed to find something I could contribute with. But there were a few things I needed to learn in order to be able to do so.

My Mirst Useful Python Script

Sat, 05 Feb 2022 05:49:06 +0000

The best part of learning Python is trying to identify things in my life which I can automate by writing a script. Learning a programming language involves doing a lot of exercises that sometimes lack a connection with the real world. But after I decided to go for it, I am always on the lookout for projects. Not only for my job as a DevOps Engineer, but also for my private life. In this case, I needed to write a program that parses log files from a bot so I could get a total number of runs. You can have a look at the final result in my Diablo 2 GitHub repo.

Python Project: Mad Libs

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 21:41:28 +0000

I am currently working through the book Automate the Boring Stuff by Al Sweigart . I can already highly recommend it to anybody who is learning Python.

Chapter 9 is about reading and writing files, and there are two assignments at the end of the chapter. Here I’ll discuss my solution of the Mad Libs assignment.

here is the full assignment text:

Mad Libs
Create a Mad Libs program that reads in text files and lets the user add their own text anywhere the word ADJECTIVE, NOUN, ADVERB, or VERB appears in the text file. For example, a text file may look like this:
The ADJECTIVE panda walked to the NOUN and then VERB. A nearby NOUN was
unaffected by these events.

The program would find these occurrences and prompt the user to replace them.
Enter an adjective:
silly
Enter a noun:
chandelier
Enter a verb:
screamed
Enter a noun:
pickup truck

The following text file would then be created:
The silly panda walked to the chandelier and then screamed. A nearby pickup
truck was unaffected by these events.

The results should be printed to the screen and saved to a new text file.

Looks pretty simple, right? I went into it with a lot of zeal and started writing a long list of if statements. My first attempts at the solution involved matching the words NOUN and ADJECTIVE directly, like so:

Docker LEMP Stack deployed with Ansible

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 16:20:24 +0000

In order to learn more about Docker and Ansible I am working on an assignment to take an existing application and to break it down into containers. However, in order to be able to understand this process properly, I first needed to understand more about Docker and containerisation.

I wrote a playbook that installs Docker and deploys a fully containerised LEMP stack on a virtual machine.

You can have a look at the Github repo with the result here.

Why I Chose a Bear as a Logo

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 11:53:21 +0000

I always struggled with finding an online nickname for myself. I was never given one, and over the years I used a few here and there, ranging from Nordic gods to my favourite fantasy character: Gandalf the Grey.

I intended to create a tech blog to document my journey ever since I started my career change. But for months I was stopped by trying to decide on a name. (That’s me in a nutshell), because it needed to be perfect. Eventually I decided to just use my full name.

My Journey Into DevOps So Far

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 08:56:38 +0000

In 2021 I had reached a certain stage in my life where I had the liberty to make a choice. I was 31 years old and had just finished an important chapter of my life, and was ready to begin a new one. After thinking about where I wanted to steer my professional career, I decided to follow my passion for programming and automation and attempt to make a career out of my interests in tech and IT.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Blog

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Book a Meeting

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s get in touch!

If you’re on mobile, use this link:

https://calendar.app.google/rHynGWsKXLb6GJwM6

Email

You may also email me: info [at] kubecraft.nl

Coaching

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Accelerate Your Tech Career with Personalized Coaching

Are you ready to take your tech career to the next level? As a Microsoft MVP, Cloud Native Engineer, and successful career changer, I offer personalized coaching to help you achieve your goals in the world of DevOps, Cloud Computing, and Kubernetes. What I Offer:

Tailored Career Roadmaps: Together, we’ll create a personalized roadmap to guide your tech career journey, whether you’re just starting out or looking to level up.
Hands-on Kubernetes and Cloud Native Expertise: Benefit from my deep knowledge of Kubernetes, AKS, and cloud-native technologies to accelerate your learning and practical skills.
Productivity Mastery: Learn how to build your own Second Brain and Zettelkasten system, optimizing your learning and information management for long-term success.
Certification Strategy: Leverage my experience in obtaining key certifications (CKA, AZ-104, AZ-400) to create an effective study plan and boost your credentials.
Real-world DevOps Insights: Gain practical insights from my experience as a DevOps Engineer, helping you bridge the gap between theory and industry practice.
Mindset and Motivation: Develop the mindset of continuous learning and improvement that’s crucial for thriving in the fast-paced tech world.

Why Choose My Coaching?

Proven Track Record: I’ve successfully transitioned from a non-tech background to a thriving career in Cloud and DevOps.
Practical Approach: My coaching is based on real-world experience, not just theory.
Holistic Development: We’ll focus on technical skills, career strategy, and personal productivity.
Personalized Attention: Get tailored advice and support that goes beyond what’s possible in group settings or courses.

Whether you’re looking to break into the tech industry, master Kubernetes, or enhance your DevOps skills, my personalized coaching will provide the guidance and support you need to succeed. Book a session now and let’s accelerate your tech career together!

Courses

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I create video courses about Kubernetes, DevOps, Neovim, Terminal Workflow, Zettelkasten, Notetaking and productivity.

You can gain unlimited access to all of my courses by signing up to my Skool community.

Udemy

Alternatively, some of my courses are available on Udemy.

Kubernetes Masterclass for Beginners

Advanced Notetaking Techniques: Goal Setting with Obsidian

Start Taking Notes in Obsidian in 1 Hour

Community

But why waste money on individual courses if you can gain UNLIMITED access to all of my courses and a community of likeminded learners?

Current

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

On this page I share the things I’m currently focused on, which habits I’m tracking, and what my goals are.

Reading

Currenlty reading The Longevity Diet

Also started reading the Polity series by Neal Asher, now reading the first book Gridlinked.

I have never read much science fiction but I’m broadening my horizon a bit.

With the current AI craze going on it seemed like an interesting AI themed series.

Engineering

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

As a Senior DevOps Engineer I have experience with setting up cloud native environments in large organizations.

I have mentored junior engineers and enjoy sharing my knowledge with my team.

I can help you with:

Deploying and maintaning Kubernetes clusters
Implementing GitOps workflows using ArgoCD & Flux
Improving developer productivity through cloud-based workspaces
Creating Azure Landing Zones
Provisioning Azure Infrastructure through Bicep & Terraform
Setting up or improving CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions & Azure DevOps pipelines
Linux System Administration

Let’s get in touch!

Search

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Services

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is an overview of the services I provide.

1 on 1 Coaching & Mentoring

I’m available for 1 on 1 coaching & mentoring

Visit this page for more information.

Interim Engineering

I’m available for interim contracts for DevOps Engineering, Cloud Engineering and Kubernetes Engineering. Click here to learn more.

Training

I provide virtual and on-site training. Book a meeting for more information.

Skool Community

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Due to a lack of interaction, the free community has been closed.

If you are interested in getting direct access to Mischa and his fantastic community, check out the link below:

https://mischavandenburg.com/skool

Welcome!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

About Me

I’m Mischa van den Burg. I’m the founder of KubeCraft, a DevOps career accelerator with 700+ members. Our engineers work at Google, Microsoft, IBM, NVIDIA, and hundreds of other companies. Most land roles within 2-20 weeks of joining.

I’m also a 2x Microsoft MVP, Kubestronaut, and Senior DevOps Engineer. I live in the Netherlands.

My Story

I used to be a nurse. No tech background. A 4-year gap on my CV. One of the worst starting points for DevOps you can imagine.

Welcome!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi, I’m Mischa, a Cloud Native Engineer from Amsterdam. I’m a Microsoft MVP and managed to turn my career from nurse to DevOps Engineer in record time. I’ve documented my journey on my blog and YouTube channel, and I’ve started a Skool community where I teach the skills I needed to aqcuire to realize my dream of a career in IT.

Click here to visit my Skool community!

👋 Join us to master DevOps, Kubernetes, Note Taking and the art of getting hired with a high salary. Learn my 10x Productivity workflow that took me from Nurse to Microsoft MVP & soon Kubestronaut in just 2 years. This Skool combines educational material with an active, thriving community unlike anything else online.