Danb Blog

Shivam Mathur's "node-docker" Images are Awesome for PHP CI

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 18:48:27 +0000

Today I had a scenario where I needed to expand the testing of a PHP project across two dimensions: PHP versions and PHPUnit versions. Of course, this explodes the amount of test runs somewhat.

February 2026: What I've Been Working On

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 02:00:00 +0000

Trying to keep up this practice of reflecting on the past month of work:

BookStack

This month I’ve still had trouble migrating to Codeberg, although my attempts may have got a little further.

Your BookStackApp project was assigned as a project for my Software Architecture course

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:11:22 +0000

Below is an email I received in December 2024, but this is just one example of various encounters I’ve had where students have been led to contribute to the project by their tutor. I don’t mind spending time to help assisting contributions from those that have a genuine interest in the project, as that can help foster a longer term contributor relationship which is healthy for the project overall, but these contributions are often done with the core intent of passing course requirements.

My Sovol SV08 3D Printer Setup in 2026

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 16:59:00 +0000

As of writing, my 3D printer is a Sovol SV08 with a bunch of mods applied. Here’s what my setup currently looks like:

January 2026: What I've Been Working On

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:23:57 +0000

Going into 2026, I thought it’d be a good habit to take note of my work each month to reflect on any progress I’ve made, and to take note of things I’ve enjoyed. This may be a habit I quickly drop, but let’s give it a try!

Epson Printer: The administrator password you entered was not recognized

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000

I recently purchased a new Epson EcoTank ET-2860. When setting the printer up for Wireless use via the mobile app, the printer asks for an administrator password.

The guidance, including a little slip of paper provided with the printer, states you should use the number that’s printed on a “Password” sticker, found when opening the front printer flap.

Pressure to Follow Process

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 21:20:00 +0000

Every so often I get an email from large businesses or organisations asking me to spend time filling a questionnaire to provide the information which they need for their procurement process. This is ultimately asking me to do their work for them, work that only exists to fit their process. Being sent from very large organisations, they probably expect businesses to jump into action and bend over backwards to win their custom. They are used to a one-sided dynamic where they have weight.

Online Shopping Email Notifications

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 15:30:00 +0000

Ordering something online in 2026:

Shop: You left some items in your cart.
Shop: Your order has been received, awaiting payment.
Shop: Payment received, your order is confirmed.
Shop: Your order has been packed.
Shop: Shipping has been booked.
Courier: We’re expecting your parcel.
Shop: Your order has been dispatched.
Courier: We have your parcel.
Courier: Your parcel has left its country of origin.
Courier: Your parcel has entered your country.
Courier: Your parcel has passed customs.
Courier: Your parcel is at your local delivery hub, for delivery tomorrow.
Courier: Your parcel is out for delivery.
Shop: Your parcel is due for delivery today.
Courier: Your parcel has been delivered.
Shop: Your parcel has been delivered.
Shop: Confirm you have received your parcel.
Courier: Rate your delivery service.
Shop: Rate your product.
Shop: Don’t forget to spend the ShippyShopPoints™ your earned with your last order.

I’m surprised the UK government hasn’t banned this with all the droughts they believe these emails cause.

My HomeLab Setup in 2026

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 19:52:00 +0000

Since my last home-lab tour in 2023 my home-lab has evolved quite a bit, so going into 2026 I thought I’d document the current state. Here’s what it looks like:

Linux Label Printing with the Phomemo D30

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 16:34:28 +0100

I was looking to buy a new label printer, and found the modern consumer market is mainly comprised of cheap bluetooth-based thermal printers which are then managed via an app. In theory this is great, but in practice these printers usually require specific questionable applications to be used, often with sign-up/in requirements and widely scoped permission needs. Therefore the use of a specific app is a disqualifier for me.

Reporting to the CMA: Google Android Developer Verification

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 14:55:07 +0100

Recently Google announced a further push of its developer verification, in which it states that all apps on “certified Android devices” will be required to have developer verification. This includes apps which are distributed via other means like F-Droid or manual download, so goes far beyond the scope of their own distribution platform.

OPNsense & Dnsmasq: Responding with specific DNS servers

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 04:15:30 +0100

Recently I replaced my router with an OPNsense mini-PC. One little thing I had trouble with was how DNS was provided to connecting devices. In my environment I have a local Pi-hole system to handle DNS, so I wanted clients to use this, and therefore have DHCP tell devices to use a specific IP for DNS.

An Impromptu Introduction to ZFS Drive Replacement at 1am

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:45:30 +0100

Last night at 1 minute past midnight, just before heading to bed, I received the following notification from my main production Proxmox system:

SMART error (Health) detected on host: chonk

Experience with UK Medical Cannabis for Ankylosing Spondylitis

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 18:13:00 +0000

Over the past year I’ve been looking into alternative options to help treat my Ankylosing Spondylitis, and in particular the relative impact of Enthesitis which has been a growing problem for me, with it building an increasingly distracting deep ache in my shins, forearms and hands. Whilst looking into such options I discovered that the medical cannabis is now legal in the United Kingdom, although limited in provision via the National Health Service, but there are plenty of private clinics that are able to prescribe cannabis if you meet certain criteria. This is typically if you have a chronic pain-related issue which you’ve already tried multiple treatment options for.

Copyright Takedown for Linking to the "State of Open Source" Report

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 17:02:00 +0000

A few days ago I received a notification from Reddit advising my account has been given a warning, saying that a comment of mine had been removed for potential copyright infringement. The notification explained that this was based upon a takedown notice being submitted, and that they determined my comment did violate Reddit’s copyright policy.

No, Gumroad Did Not Become Open Source Today

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 17:00:00 +0000

Advisory: I am not a legal expert and there could likely be inaccuracies in this post.

Today Gumroad announced that they’ve become open source, with this being echoed by the founder and on social sites like Hacker News:

Scripting Monitors (KDE on Fedora)

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 10:45:00 +0000

Last year I wrote about scripting monitors for my Gnome/Wayland/Fedora environment, and I’ve heavily utilised that script in my day-to-day PC use.

Recently I jumped over to KDE for a change but my prior script was gnome specific and therefore no longer functioned. Luckily KDE has a handy kscreen-doctor utility which has made it easy to adapt my script to work with KDE:

Amber flags in Open Source & Self-Hosted Projects

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 20:45:00 +0000

From my time exploring and using a range open source and/or self-hosted projects I’ve built up a range of known “amber flags”. I hesitate the call these reg flags, as by themselves I don’t think they’re specifically problematic, but they usually act as indicators of projects that aren’t aligned with my personal ideals in software I look for.

LLMs are Directing Open Source Licensing

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

I’m often looking at the licensing of open source projects, either out of personal interest or while moderating posts to /r/opensource, and through this I’ve seen a recent trend of projects having something like this in their readme:

Games Played in 2024

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 21:24:00 +0000

Played quite a lot this year; Got excited about Switch gaming for a while during the summer, and then later in the year I got myself a Quest 3 VR headset. I’m not new to VR, but hardly ever used my Occulus Rift S due to the need for Windows login and due to how janky the software & connection/cabling was. The Quest 3 has been great so far, solving many of my issues with the Rift S (no Windows use, no cables, much better software) and is so much more convenient to throw on and play with. I’ve only been using it standalone (without PC connection) so far and it’s incredible to what can be achieved on what is effectively a mobile Android device.

Beware of Poison in the Source

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 16:17:06 +0100

Bitwarden found itself caught in a spot of drama last week introducing non-free and non-open code into their desktop client. I don’t use Bitwarden myself, but in a similar vein I remember they launched their “Passwordless” project as open source while under non-open terms.

Common Misconceptions of the AGPL

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 20:21:38 +0100

Before getting into this post i want to make it clear I’m not a legal expert in any way and the following post is based upon my interpretations from spending a lot of time looking at software licenses.

Adapting GitHub action PHPUnit tests for Codeberg/Forgejo

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 10:11:58 +0100

I’ve recently been moving most of my projects from GitHub over to Codeberg and a self-hosted Forgejo instance. A few of my projects make use of GitHub actions to perform automated testing, so I ideally also wanted to transfer over this testing.

Lessons from the Allotment

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 19:30:43 +0100

At the end of last year I gained an allotment which I’ve been using to grow food. So far this has been much more successful than my attempts to grow food indoors as, with the summer growing season in progress, I’m currently eating daily from self-grown food, albeit mostly lettuce. I thought it would be good to think about & document the lessons learnt so far while I remember, so I can build upon these learnings next year.

Futo, Please don't attempt to create your own Open Source Definition

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 13:59:19 +0100

Update: Since writing this Futo have published a statement in regards to their use of open source, which shows intent to stop redefining the term and instead establish “Source First” - Futo statement - Futo video - Brodie Robertson video

Material You (Dynamic/Adaptive) Colors in Legacy Android Apps

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 00:10:08 +0000

Skip to implementation

Context

So recently I decided to create a much needed update to one of my apps that I’ve left neglected, with the last update being deployed over a decade ago in 2013. This was one of my first coding projects so it was fun to revisit it, while feeling good to actually provide some maintenance for its thousands of loyal remaining users. Time had not been kind to the app, with it asking for notification preferences & full-screen mode despite those not ever being needed, as modern Android had a tricky time understand the app’s requirements.

Scripting Monitors (Gnome & Wayland on Fedora)

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 20:28:52 +0000

On my PC (Fedora 39, Gnome Desktop Environment via Wayland) I often find myself switching monitor configuration. I have a dual-4k-screen setup, and jump between a few modes:

Normal/Development - Dual screen, both at 175% scale
Gaming - Single screen at 100% scale
Recording - Dual screen, alternate primary screen, one 2x scale, one 1.2x scale

While not tricky, it’s a fiddly process to frequently configure monitor settings. Therefore I wanted to automate this process. Looking online, most tools and guides used old techniques which were incompatible with my current desktop environment.

Retaining a Greenhouse Roof with 3d Printing

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 23:06:42 +0000

At the tail end of last year I took on a new allotment plot, on which sat a pretty standard little glass greenhouse. Unfortunately though, this greenhouse hadn’t had much recent attention in its provided state, with quite few missing or broken panes:

Games Played in 2023

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 05:23:26 +0000

Below are the games in 2023 that I spent more than a few hours playing, along with my brief thoughts. This is roughly chronological from start to end of 2023, although some games I’d often return to here and there.

Lessons From Growing Food Indoors

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:50:00 +0000

Earlier this year I got an itch to grow herbs and vegetables. Unfortunately, living in a flat, I have no outside space while my best window locations don’t get a great amount of sunlight. This led me down a rabbit hole of growing indoors using grow lights. Since LED lights have become widespread, using artificial lights for growing has become much more economical.

Why the Distinction Between "Open Source" and "Source Available" is Important

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 17:45:05 +0000

When looking at scenarios when open source is misrepresented I’ve commonly come across cases where a project downplays the distinction between open source and source-available-style licenses, choosing to advertise the project and/or themselves as open source while licensed in a non-OSD adhering manner.

Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 Timelapse

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 21:55:49 +0100

Recently I’ve been playing with a Raspberry Pi Camera module 3. One thing I’ve been toying with is putting together timelapses to observe how my different plants grow.

There’s a lot of content out there for this use-case, like this project by Jeff Geerling, but there’s a lot of variation out there in terms of camera versions, compatibility libraries, legacy modes and Raspbian versions, which makes finding a working example tricky.

Removing the Rear Seats on a Volvo C30

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 12:54:06 +0100

Sometimes you try to do something but, much to your surprise, there’s no discoverable information on the internet to guide you. My most recent experience of this came when attempting to remove the rear seats in my Volvo C30. It was not clear, from any of the guides or online advice, how the seats were attached. Some of the guidance for similar Volvo models ended up being completely different and led me to cause some damage. So I thought it’d be best to document this simple process in the hope it helps the next numpty that’s having trouble with this.

Reporting Google's WEI to the CMA

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 21:18:32 +0100

The Web Environment Integrity proposal, authored by folks at Google, has caused quite a stir over the last week, and for good reason. It’s another familiar case of:

“Here’s a thing needed for security. Sure it ~~could~~ be used to lock the web down to specific browsers, extensions, operating systems and devices, but I’m sure it won’t be even though there’s a lot of business interest in doing just that. We (non-legally-binding) pinky promise! We’ve even added a bit to the proposal to make it look like we’ve considered the open web!”.

Controlling Default GRUB Boot Option via USB

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 01:35:20 +0100

On my main desktop PC I primarily use Linux (Currently Fedora 38) but I do dual-boot with Windows for testing or for some games that don’t work quite right in Linux. One thing I’ve always wanted is some level of external physical control over which OS will be used on start-up. If I’m doing something that requires restarts, it’s annoying to be vigilant during boot to choose the right OS, and sometimes I like to switch on my PC then do something else like make a cup of tea (even though boot only takes like 10 seconds).

Creating a Video Home for FOSS Projects

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 11:08:19 +0100

For BookStack I’ve been consistently creating videos on YouTube for almost 2 years now, but recently I’ve been thinking about providing an alternative option for the following reasons:

I’ve come to really appreciate the open & connected federated world, and would like to make the videos available via those means.
YouTube has potential privacy implications, and pushes ads with increasing force. Some choice for users that can’t accept these elements would be nice.

For a YouTube alternative platform PeerTube is the obvious choice. Much like other federated & non-centralised platforms, the hard part is finding a home. None of the existing open servers really looked appropriate for serving the kind of videos I was making. I thought of creating a BookStack specific instance, but the hosting & maintenance effort didn’t really seem worthwhile, especially since this was a “nice to have” for the project, not something specifically requested by the community.

Paying for Search

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 15:05:05 +0100

Since the start of the year I’ve been paying for general web search through the use of Kagi at about £8 ($10) per month. I’ve long desired the ability to have some control over the results served, and Kagi seemed like a good way to gain this control.

My Favourite Static Site Deploy Method

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 23:28:35 +0100

There are many ways to deploy an application to a server, and often that depends on the technologies in play, access management and application setup. That said, even for a simple static site I think it’s common to folks to over complicate things. On Reddit I often see folks advising newbies to look into CI or git-hook based deployments as initial places to look, or even worse they start talking about kubernetes.

PhpStorm (JetBrains IDE) 2023 Linux Scaling

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 11:36:00 +0100

After updating PhpStorm to 2023.1 I found the UI scaling on my Fedora 37 (KDE/Wayland) system was off quite significantly, with the UI being super-scaled/zoomed-in, even though the zoom setting in the IDE config was at 100% and could not be reduced. I got the impression that my OS screen-scaling was doubling up in some way. This was the same for other 2023.1 JetBrains IDE releases like DataGrip.

Synology Hibernation with Active Backup for Business and Tailscale

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 15:45:34 +0100

Recently I’ve upgraded to a Synology DS220+, and with that started to use “Active Backup for Business” for Linux server backups. Along with that I use Tailscale to facilitate the private networking of these remote systems to avoid exposing everything involved to the public web.

My 2023 HomeLab Setup

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 23:16:42 +0000

Thought I’d document my current homelab setup. I’m not one to go full-out with a server rack, my setup is contained within a couple of shelves within some storage cubes:

Redefining Open Source via "Commercial Open Source"

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 22:06:46 +0000

As i’ve written about before, I think the term “Open Source” is quite important but it’s not uncommon to see the term stretched or misrepresented, often for business benefit. For the last year I’ve been recording such scenarios and a frequent character in those records has been Runa Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 2010 that has a focus on tech.

Moving to Mastodon

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 09:37:19 +0000

Like many folks recently, I’ve decided to just use Mastodon instead of Twitter. You can find me at @danb@fosstodon.org. Decided I’d document my thoughts that have lead to this.

Thoughts on Twitter

These are specific to my usage, having been using Twitter for about 6/7 years. Some of these are things I admittedly could address if needed.

Gaining Sponsors

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 12:35:59 +0000

Recently, after transparently sharing BookStack funding data I’ve had a few questions from others regarding how I’ve gained sponsors. There’s no magic hack I’m afraid, but below details my own experience and thoughts on this. This is reformatted from a response I previously provided to another open source maintainer. To be clear, I’m not currently sustaining myself on sponsorships/donations right now, but they do make up most of my current income.

"This is a Low Maintenance Project"

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 22:02:21 +0000

I love open source, but publishing, maintaining & supporting an open source project can take a lot of effort & time. There can often be expectations that if your project is open then you’re looking to grow it out with added features and contributions.

Upgrading my CPU, Ryzen 2600 to 5800x

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 16:15:00 +0000

I originally built my current desktop system on the AM4 AMD platform using a Ryzen 2600 CPU. This 6-core, 12 thread has done me well over the last few years but I decided it would be good to upgrade this for longevity. Now seemed like a good time since we’re at the tail end of the AM4 socket lifetime, meaning there’ll be no new CPU upgrade options bought to market in the future, at least without having to also upgrade the motherboard and likely memory too. My hope is that an upgrade to a latter AM4 CPU now should keep my system performant for the next 5 years or so, and be less likely to bottleneck a future GPU upgrade.

Migrating Google Photos to my Personal NAS

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 12:14:35 +0100

Recently I’ve been working to somewhat detach myself from Google services after seeing growing reported cases of users being suddenly locked out of their account without any possible recourse.

As part of this, I had about 5 year’s worth of photos stored solely within Google Photos that I wanted to migrate and organise within my personal NAS storage.

Scheduling Proxmox Storage to Reduce Disk Activity

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:30:00 +0100

This year I’ve been enjoying the use of Proxmox as a way to create & manage container & virtual environments for self-hosting my applications and scripts, while also providing a useful location to quickly spin-up development test environments.

Why the Term "Open Source" is Important

Sat, 30 Jul 2022 11:00:00 +0100

As I get deeper into the Open Source world, I’ve noticed more and more misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Open Source. I touched on this in part in another recent post of mine.

Lessons From Working for Myself (9 Months In)

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 14:31:00 +0100

I left my previous job at the end of September 2021 to focus on BookStack and OpenSource work full time. The initial plan was to spend 6 months away from work but here I am 9 months later, with no immediate plan to start job hunting just yet. In this post I’ll run though some of the discoveries I’ve made during this time.

Misrepresenting Open Source for Business Benefit

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +0100

Important Note: This post is written without legal knowledge nor expert understanding of open-source licenses, and is my own interpretation/speculation of scenarios and licenses. I mean no ill intent to any companies or people written about in this article. These are likely scenarios of mis-understandings or personal interpretations.

Cat Images in WebP

Sun, 16 Jan 2022 18:00:00 +0000

This post is a little test to play around with a few things:

Images in WebP
CSS grid image gallery
CSS only image expand/overlay

View the page source at around this point to see the CSS & HTML used. Below is the bash script used to convert the images from JPEG:

My 2022 Workstation Setup

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 18:00:00 +0000

Thought I’d document my home PC setup. This is my setup going into 2022:

Nerd Corner

This is the one part of my home that I dedicate to being a “nerd corner” as can be seen by the “Avatar: The Last Airbender” posters in addition to the exploded-view console posters. By default this corner is a bit dark so two Phillips Hue Play lights, attached to the back of the monitors, throw light onto the back walls. The colours of these change depending on time of day and PC status (Controlled via home assistant).

Leaving my Job to Focus on Open Source (For a bit)

Sun, 27 Jun 2021 11:27:20 +0100

Last week I handed in my notice at my current place of work, Clevertouch Marketing, with the intent to leave at the end of September. By the time I leave I will have been employed at Clevertouch for over 7 continuous years. Clevertouch kindly put their faith in me by offering me a job in 2014, after previously only taking on developers with some level of official education. My previous role was as a Sales Engineer at a temperature sensor equipment distributor so this was at a point of significant career change for me, as my first coding job. Clevertouch are a small company (Relative to who they work with), in a small village, with big ambitions, doing grand things within the realms of Marketing Automation. I’m extremely grateful for the time, flexibility and growth that the company has afforded me. I have worked with, and got to know, so many great people over the last 7 years.

Quickly Getting Placeholder Images With Unsplash Source

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 23:48:24 +0100

I often find myself needing a batch of placeholder images when testing or creating dummy content within projects. Unsplash is a great source for these but downloading each image and making them a reasonable size can take time. They do offer an API but it’s highly limited without creating an account and, even then, getting random images will still take multiple requests.

A Thanks to Laravel for the LTS Releases

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 18:11:13 +0000

I just wanna shout my thanks to Taylor Otwell, Graham Campbell, Mohamed Said, Dries Vints & all the other great Laravel maintainers for spending the time and effort in maintaining the LTS releases of the framework (In addition to all the other work you do for the framework and it’s ecosystem).

A Quick Overview of Unix-Style Permissions

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 15:00:10 +0000

This is a copy of an overview I wrote for people that were coming across an laravel-based file permission GitHub issue in the BookStack project. Adding it here as an easier location to reference.

The Power of currentColor

Sat, 17 Oct 2020 09:55:49 +0100

Within BookStack I wanted to allow customizability of the theme colors in a few cases. These are often applied to things like buttons or links, an element may utilise that theme color in a few different shades.

Dealing With Ankylosing Spondylitis Flareups

Sun, 08 Apr 2018 22:59:49 +0100

Having a flare-up of Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) can be a real nuisance, especially as it goes on for many days. In this post I’m going to go through what I’ve found helps with flare-ups. Note this only comes from personal experience so your mileage may vary. In addition, I am not a doctor or physiotherapist of any kind so am not going to advise medication or stretches but rather just some additional things I’ve found to help.

Hugo Verbose Dates With Suffixes

Sat, 07 Apr 2018 12:23:36 +0100

When building templates for the hugo static site generator you may find that you want to format post dates in a verbose format with a suffix, For example:

7th of April 2018