I am a single-board computer, or SBC. Specifically, I am a Renegade ROC-RK3328-CC made by Libre Computer.

I am running the Armbian operating system, which is based on Debian Linux.

This website was written in HTML and PHP by my admin Earth Walker, and it is being served by the Apache web server inside a docker container.

I am going to help Earth Walker learn about web development and Linux system administration, without worrying about messing up his production systems. Yay!

I am named after Ada Lovelace, an English woman born in 1815 and recognized by many as the first computer programmer.

Earth Walker's Dev Diary

2024-11-18

Dear Ada,

I completed my first interactive navigation menu with JavaScript and CSS animations today! It's a lot easier to add interactivity with JavaScript than with only HTML and CSS. I would like to expand my repertoire of interactive UI elements made with JavaScript in the future.

Your faithful student,

Earth Walker

2024-11-09

Dear Ada,

Recently I organized my docker compose files into git repos that I can sync to my servers. I moved the websites into the docker compose directories to simplify the organizational structure. Now I can open the folder in an IDE and easily edit everything and track changes with version control. It also works better for sharing since I only need one repo for the docker compose and website files. I also obscured my passwords for YuruPath services by using docker secrets and environment files. Working on my servers should be a lot easier going forward.

Your faithful student,

Earth Walker

2024-10-21

Dear Ada,

Yesterday I completed and published my first JavaScript app to my website! JavaScript is a great way to add interactivity to websites and write a UI for an app. The best part is that every web browser already has a JavaScript engine built-in, so there is no need for a special server or web framework. I will definitely be using JavaScript in my websites going forward, but I still prefer coding in Python for more logic-heavy applications.

Your faithful student,

Earth Walker

2024-08-06

Dear Ada,

I published my first web app to the internet today! I wrote a simple program using Python+Flask, built a docker image of the app and uploaded that to my server. I then wrote a docker compose file for the container and ran that. After adding a reverse proxy host and a subdomain for the new app, it is accessible on the internet and works as intended! For now, the functionality is very simple, but I will be adding more functionality soon, as well as streamlining the development and deployment pipeline.

Always your faithful student,

Earth Walker

2024-07-30

Dear Ada,

Today I learned how to write a basic Flask app that recieves some input from the user and displays some corresponding text. Flask works by listening for HTTP requests from the user's browser, and using those requests as input for the Python program. The program can then pass out arguments to a web page template, in which the Jinja language is used to interpolate those arguments into HTML. I'm looking forward to writing and publishing a simple web app using Flask.

Your faithful student,

Earth Walker

2024-07-07

Dear Ada,

Today I learned how to create a website using PHP, which runs code when the site is accessed. I wrote a small PHP program to read this text file and render it as paragraphs on this website. That way I don't have to edit the website file to add diary entries.

Your faithful student,

Earth Walker

2024-05-24

Dear Ada,

I recently learned the importance of keeping backups firsthand, and started a backup strategy for my computers. I identified BorgBackup as a good backup software. I learned how to use its commands and create a shell script that will create a new backup and prune unneeded ones. I also learned how to create a cron job to run this script when the server will not be in use. I still need to learn how to backup docker volumes and databases.

Always your faithful student,

Earth Walker

2024-05-14

Dear Ada,

The last two days, I studied docker compose and its YAML syntax. I understand the elements in the file better now, and that is helping me write my own compose.yaml files. I tested reproducing my komga server, copying the configuration and data folders to Ada, and running my docker compose file. It worked! My komga setup is now reproducible. I will continue to work on redeploying all of my services with docker compose files. I'm also specifying image versions now instead of using :latest, as this adds to reproducibility.

Your faithful student,

Earth Walker

2024-05-12

Dear Ada,

Today I learned how to deploy an apache web server in a docker container using docker CLI. I can bind mount a volume to the container which points to a directory in the home folder of my server, containing a website. Previously, my websites were stored in the root directory, which requires administrator privileges to modify. This slowed down my workflow. I also learned how to use rsync to push a new or updated website from my desktop to the server. This is a lot faster than using the interactive sftp command. It also means I can do all my editing in a pleasant desktop environment instead of on the server via ssh.

Your faithful student,

Earth Walker