How I replaced my morning routine of checking 5 different apps with a single email — built on n8n, Claude, and a $35 computer.
Secure Connection Established…
Welcome to my field notes. I am a System Administrator and CySA+ certified security practitioner.
This blog tracks my journey through enterprise security, home lab experiments, and firewall configurations.
Current Operations:
- Securing my network with Adguard
- Learning about different AI’s and their capabilities
- Analyzing network traffic and automation scripts
Operation: Distributed Private AI
// The Local LLM Architecture With the rapid expansion of AI, I wanted the capabilities of a Large Language Model (LLM) without sending my data, network logs, or automation scripts out to a public cloud server.
To solve this, I engineered a distributed, completely private AI architecture utilizing my existing home lab and PC hardware.
The Hardware Split Running an LLM natively on a Raspberry Pi is incredibly slow due to hardware limitations.
Operation: Network Sinkhole
## Operation: Network Sinkhole
One of the most critical steps in securing any network—whether it is an enterprise environment or a home network—is controlling the DNS traffic.
For my current home lab architecture, I wanted a lightweight, low-overhead solution to act as a network-wide ad blocker and security sinkhole.
### The Stack
* **Hardware:** Raspberry Pi
* **OS:** DietPi (chosen for its incredibly minimal footprint)
* **DNS Sinkhole:** AdGuard Home