Field notes from the rack. Real incidents, real fixes, real systems — written up so the next person (or the next me) gets the hour back.
The Phantom Bad Blocks: How a 15-Year-Old Linux Bug Took Down 75 Security Cameras
A field report on diagnosing and repairing a RAID failure that wasn’t a hardware failure at all — and why ‘replace the disk’ would have made it far worse.
The Alert That Went to Nobody
A critical event fired a perfectly good alert into a receiver wired to absolutely no one — and everybody slept fine because of it.
The TLS Cert Only an API Could Renew
A FreePBX user panel served an expired TLS cert, every reload swore it was fixed, and the only thing that actually moved the needle was calling the cert module’s own regeneration API.
The Sensor That Cried Wolf
A loud-sound detector paged us all night for slamming doors — because it measured volume, not meaning.
The App That Wouldn't Open After an Update
A desktop app auto-updated, swallowed its own window, and hung forever — and the fix had nothing to do with the install.
Seven Network Gotchas That Look Like Ghosts
The network isn’t haunted — it’s orphaned ports, stale DNS, and a firewall eating your return path. Run the checklist before you light the candles.
The 99 Access Points That Didn't Exist
An inventory report swore a site had 99 access points; the ceiling said twelve, and the database had been lying the whole time.
The Smart Blind That Took Down an Entire Network
A $30 Wi-Fi window blind decided it was the default gateway, and the whole site went dark whenever it felt like it.
I Found a Secret in a Git Repo (It Was Mine)
I went looking for a leaked credential in a client’s stack and found one staring back at me — committed by my own hand, baked into history forever.
90s Kid - The Day We Got 56k
The afternoon the modem screamed a little faster and the whole house held its breath.