Insights
Insights & Education
Practical knowledge for building, securing, and scaling your agency. These are the technical workflows and strategic insights I use daily as a technical partner.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
Nginx Security Hardening: The Pragmatic Agency Guide
A no-fluff walkthrough of the Nginx hardening I apply on every server we manage. Covers TLS, security headers, rate limiting, and what to skip. Written for agencies, not enterprises.
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Operations & Automation
AI WordPress Automation With DeepSeek, n8n, and Baserow
How I run AI WordPress automation in production: a self-hosted n8n + Baserow + DeepSeek stack that drafts posts at 2% of GPT-4 cost without SEO penalty.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
2FAuth: The Self-Hosted 2FA Manager I Actually Trust
How I deploy 2FAuth as a self-hosted 2FA vault: the Docker stack, the proxy in front, the backup discipline, and why I keep it behind a VPN.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
Authentik: One Self-Hosted Login for All My Apps
How I deploy Authentik as a self-hosted identity provider: the Docker stack, the Postgres and Redis pieces, the SSO flows, and when SSO is overkill.
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Open Source Solutions
BookStack: My Self-Hosted Wiki for Client Handovers
How I deploy BookStack as a self-hosted documentation wiki: the Docker stack, the proxy, the backup discipline, and why it beats Notion for agencies.
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Operations & Automation
Code-server: Self-Hosted VS Code in Your Browser
How I deploy code-server for a portable VS Code in the browser: the Docker stack, the proxy in front, and the workspace-backup rule that saved a week of work.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
CrowdSec Installation and Server Protection on Ubuntu
How I install CrowdSec on every fresh Ubuntu server: package repo, firewall bouncer, the collections worth running, and the console wiring that closes the loop.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
CrowdSec for WordPress: Bouncing Bad IPs at the App Layer
How I wire CrowdSec's WordPress bouncer to the LAPI on the same server, what bouncing level to pick, and the failure modes I've watched it catch in production.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
Cryptgeon: Self-Hosted Secret Sharing vs PrivNote
How I deploy Cryptgeon as a self-hosted secret sharing service: the Compose file, the TTL defaults I trust for client onboarding, and the proxy in front.
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Cloud Infrastructure
CyberPanel: My OpenLiteSpeed Stack for Agency WordPress
How I install CyberPanel on a fresh Ubuntu box, harden the LiteSpeed admin, enforce TLS 1.3, and turn on the LSCache crawler for agency WordPress hosting.
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Open Source Solutions
DocuSeal Self-Hosted Document Signing: My Agency Setup
How I deploy DocuSeal as a self-hosted DocuSign alternative: the Compose file, eIDAS reality, audit-trail storage, and when paying DocuSign actually wins.
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Cloud Infrastructure
Enhance Control Panel: My Agency-Grade cPanel Alternative
How I install Enhance control panel on Hetzner: the multi-server topology, the Cloudflare guardrails, and when the operational tax is worth paying.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
The Human Element in Cybersecurity: What No Firewall Fixes
Most breaches I see start with a person, not a packet. Here's the human-layer playbook for routers, DNS, passwords, and the social engineering no firewall stops.
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Open Source Solutions
Immich Self-Hosted Photo Backup: My Production Setup
How I run Immich as a self-hosted Google Photos replacement: the Compose stack, Caddy in front, sizing reality, and when paying Google is still the right call.
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Operations & Automation
IT Tools: Self-Hosted Dev Utilities, No Privacy Trade-Off
How I deploy IT Tools self-hosted as the JWT decoder, hash generator, and JSON formatter that never sees the public internet, plus the reasons I stopped pasting tokens into random websites.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
Kasm Workspaces: Self-Hosted Browser Isolation Done Right
How I deploy Kasm Workspaces for browser isolation on a single VPS, the Caddy proxy in front, and where remote browsers actually beat RDP and VDI.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
Linux Server Security: SSH Keys, Sudo Users, UFW
The Linux server security baseline I run on every fresh VPS: SSH keys, a non-root sudo user, password login disabled, and UFW locked to the right ports.
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Operations & Automation
Listmonk Self-Hosted Newsletter: My Deployment Guide
How I ship Listmonk for clients who want a Mailchimp replacement they actually own, plus the SMTP relay choices that decide whether the campaigns land.
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Cloud Infrastructure
Mailcow: My Self-Hosted Email Server vs Google Workspace
How I deploy Mailcow as a self-hosted email server: the Compose stack, the DNS records that decide deliverability, and when I tell clients to stay on Workspace.
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Operations & Automation
Mautic Self-Hosted Marketing Automation: My Honest Guide
How I deploy Mautic for clients who refuse to ship lead data to HubSpot, plus the SMTP traps that make most self-hosted setups quietly fail.
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Operations & Automation
MeshCentral Self-Hosted Remote Management for Agency Fleets
How I deploy MeshCentral self-hosted to replace TeamViewer for agency client SLAs: the Docker stack, the proxy, and the agent install rules I never break.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
Mistborn: Self-Hosted Wireguard + Pi-hole + Firewall VPN
How I deploy Mistborn as a self-hosted VPN platform: the one-line install, the Pi-hole adlists I trust, the DoH switch, and where it beats raw Wireguard.
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Operations & Automation
n8n Self-Hosted Workflow Automation: Production Notes
How I deploy n8n self-hosted for agency clients: the Docker stack, the proxy in front, the credentials trap, and when it beats writing a Lambda.
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Open Source Solutions
Nextcloud AIO Self-Hosted Installation: My Production Setup
How I deploy Nextcloud AIO as a self-hosted Google Workspace replacement: the Compose file, the proxy in front, sizing reality, and when to pay Google instead.
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Open Source Solutions
Penpot Self-Hosted Design Platform: My Agency Setup
How I deploy Penpot as a self-hosted Figma alternative for design teams: the Compose stack, the Caddy proxy, sizing reality, and when Figma still wins.
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Open Source Solutions
Perfex CRM Self-Hosted Installation: An Honest Agency Guide
How I deploy Perfex CRM self-hosted on a CyberPanel VPS: licensing reality, the PHP/MySQL stack, the operational tradeoffs, and when it beats SaaS on TCO.
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Open Source Solutions
Plausible Analytics Self-Hosted: My Production Stack
How I deploy Plausible self-hosted analytics for agency clients: the Compose file, the Cloudflare Tunnel in front, SMTP that actually delivers, and the costs.
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Cloud Infrastructure
Portainer + NPM + Vaultwarden: My Default Self-Hosted Stack
How I deploy Portainer, Nginx Proxy Manager, and Vaultwarden together: the Docker stack, the gotchas, and the operational rules I'd tattoo on a junior engineer.
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Agency Growth & Strategy
Self-Hosted Agency Stack: FOSS-First Foundations
The opinionated entry point to my self-hosted agency stack: the philosophy, the phased build order, and a deep-dive link for every tool in the archive.
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Open Source Solutions
Stirling PDF: Self-Hosted Replacement for ilovepdf.com
How I run Stirling PDF as a self-hosted alternative to ilovepdf.com and Adobe Acrobat for agency document work, with Compose file and Cloudflare Access.
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Operations & Automation
Uptime Kuma: My Self-Hosted Monitoring Setup
How I deploy Uptime Kuma for client environments: the Docker stack, the proxy in front, and the notification traps I keep watching agencies fall into.
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Open Source Solutions
Vikunja Self-Hosted Task Management: My Production Setup
How I deploy Vikunja as a self-hosted task manager for an agency: the Compose stack, the Nginx reverse proxy quirk, mail config, and when to skip Trello.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
WireGuard Easy: My Self-Hosted VPN Front Door
How I deploy WireGuard Easy as a self-hosted VPN: the Compose file, the config trade-offs, and why wg-easy is my default for client-scale tunnels.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
Wirehole: Wireguard + Pi-hole + Unbound on One Compose Stack
How I deploy Wirehole as a self-hosted VPN: Docker Compose on Ubuntu, the Unbound version pin that bites everyone, and where it beats raw Wireguard.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
WordPress Admin Recovery: Reset Password or Create Admin
How I recover a locked-out WordPress admin: a clean WP-CLI path when SSH still works, and a SQL-only fallback through phpMyAdmin when it doesn't.
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Cybersecurity & Hardening
WordPress Server Security: A Comprehensive Hardening Guide
The full WordPress server security pass I run on every production site: server baseline, WordPress hardening, headers, 2FA, and the plugins worth their CPU.