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Notes from the engine room.
What 18 years of cloud support taught me — Nextcloud, identity, storage, automation and AI. Practice, not buzzword bingo.
Topics: Nextcloud DNS, mail & certificates Linux troubleshooting AI, LLMs & RAG Security & patches
n8n introduced: a workflow that takes the internet's pulse, and you start it with one click
What n8n is, why I self-host it, and an example workflow: 7 sources, one AI, live on a page at the press of a button. With a download to import it yourself.
Can these domains be spoofed? We checked SPF and DMARC of 102 well-known domains, and only half of the banks reject forged mail
SPF, DMARC and MTA-STS of 102 well-known domains: 59 reject forged mail, 21 only monitor with p=none, 6 have no DMARC. Banks, Germany and Italy compared.
We graded the security headers of 57 big websites: only 21 ship an effective CSP
A scan of 57 well-known sites: HSTS is common, CSP is not. Results by header, the four sites with grade A, and how to read the numbers fairly.
HTTP security headers in ten minutes: a safe starter set for nginx and how to test it
HSTS, CSP, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy: what each security header does, a copy-paste nginx starter set, and how to test it.
Nextcloud doesn't show copied files: file system, database and occ files:scan
Copied files straight into the Nextcloud data directory but the web UI stays empty? Why it happens and how occ files:scan fixes it.
Incident note: No space left on device despite free space
Incident note: No space left on device but df shows free space? Usually inodes are exhausted or deleted files are still open. Diagnose with df -i and lsof…
Scam radar: today's phishing emails and fake texts in plain words, updated twice a day
My new scam radar collects current scams, explains them in plain words and says what to do. How it works, and how to spot a scam before you click.
Halloween: the token monster prefers video
A Halloween still or a short AI video? One concrete example: 1,120 versus 28,960 output tokens, and why that ratio is not the whole cost story.
One week after PHP2Shell: attacked in the wild, and now a Linux kernel flaw on top
PHP2Shell is exploited and on CISA's list. Now a Linux kernel flaw (CVE-2026-46300) can turn it into root. The facts in charts, and what to check today.
An AI assistant for your own website: chat, voice calls and appointments, hosted on my own Mac
How a local AI phone receptionist became an assistant for my website: widget, nginx proxy, voice on my Mac, appointment booking, privacy.
Root cause analysis in support: why the cause rarely sits where the symptom shows
A workaround closes the ticket; only root cause analysis prevents the next one. How 2nd/3rd-level support gets from the symptom to the actual cause.
Nextcloud: Collabora's built-in CODE server is being exploited. Check it today
CVE-2026-110447 lets attackers run commands on Nextcloud servers with the built-in CODE app. How to check, update or remove it and look for web shells.
Three critical NGINX flaws: less dramatic than PHP2Shell, but patch them quickly anyway
NGINX fix in 1.30.6 and 1.31.7 (Plus 37.1.0.1, 37.0.5.1): which configurations are affected, how to check them and how to update containers.
Mitigating PHP2Shell when no update exists yet: php.ini settings for NAS, Plesk and your own servers
No PHP update yet on Synology? Three php.ini settings shrink the PHP2Shell attack surface — step by step for Web Station, Plesk and your own servers.
PHP emergency patch (PHP2Shell): how to check and patch your servers
Two critical PHP flaws, fixed in 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35: what to do on Plesk, Synology, shared hosting, Docker and your own servers.
DNS migration without downtime: TTL, order of steps and a checklist for domain and hosting moves
Switch hosting or DNS provider without losing website or e-mail: lower the TTL, export the zone instead of retyping it, test before the cutover.
Mail landing in spam: SPF, DKIM and DMARC alignment explained
SPF, DKIM and DMARC explained simply: what each checks, why mail lands in spam although SPF passes, how to read headers — with a table and checklist.
Nextcloud with SAML and OIDC: 8 errors that keep showing up in support
Redirect loop, clock skew, wrong UID, duplicate accounts, missing groups: 8 SAML/OIDC errors from Nextcloud support — each with the cause and the fix.
New articles by e-mail
One e-mail per new article. No tracking, unsubscribe any time. As a thank-you after confirming: my “Server operations & patching” checklist (PDF).