code-server example screenshot, this shows the homepage upon install

Self hosting code-server

How I put code-server behind a FortiGate, a Caddy proxy chain, and Entra ID single sign-on so its built-in terminal never faces the raw internet.

July 2, 2026 · 11 min · 2244 words · Nate
A visual representation of Terraform and EVPN-VXLAN

VXLAN Between a FortiGate and Proxmox, Part 3: Automating It With Terraform

Taking the hand-built FortiGate and Proxmox EVPN fabric and reproducing it entirely in code, one Terraform workspace driving both platforms, with every wall I hit along the way written down so you do not have to hit them too.

June 30, 2026 · 18 min · 3625 words · Nate

VXLAN Between a FortiGate and Proxmox, Part 2.5: A Security Aside

What this overlay actually buys you on the security side, beyond writing firewall policies, plus an honest list of what it does not buy you, and an FAQ on VXLAN and EVPN versus plain VLANs.

June 27, 2026 · 10 min · 1957 words · Nate

VXLAN Performance on a FortiGate 70F: The Software Switching Tax

Measuring the throughput cost of VXLAN on a small FortiGate with no VXLAN offload, by A/B testing the same VM over an overlay segment versus a plain VLAN, and tracing the ceiling back to the silicon.

June 25, 2026 · 10 min · 1994 words · Nate
PDM EVPN page

VXLAN Between a FortiGate and Proxmox, Part 2: EVPN

Swapping the static VXLAN peer list for a BGP EVPN control plane across a FortiGate and a three node Proxmox cluster, and every place the two platforms tripped me up by disagreeing on what to state versus what to derive.

June 25, 2026 · 12 min · 2500 words · Nate

VXLAN Between a FortiGate and Proxmox

Standing up a single stretched Layer 2 segment between a FortiGate and a Proxmox host using unicast VXLAN, and proving the data plane before adding any complexity.

June 23, 2026 · 7 min · 1309 words · Nate

Proxmox Best Practices - Guest Storage

How I set cache, aio, iothread, and discard on Proxmox VMs, decided by how each VM is used rather than the OS inside it, plus the ZFS foundations that keep those choices safe to leave alone for years.

May 11, 2026 · 15 min · 3056 words · Nate

Proxmox Best Practices - Guest CPU Types

How I pick a Proxmox VM CPU type: host versus the x86-64-vN virtual types, the Spectre and Meltdown flags those types quietly leave off, and why host is usually the wrong default on Windows.

May 4, 2026 · 15 min · 2985 words · Nate

IPv6 at Home: Prefix Delegation with Cox, FortiGate, and an Aging Brocade Core

How I carve up the /56 that Cox delegates over DHCPv6-PD across a FortiGate edge and a Brocade ICX core, why the prefix keeps changing, and the plan for automating the renumbering.

December 15, 2024 · 16 min · 3259 words · Nate

iDRAC Fan Control

Basic iDRAC fan control with ipmitool, and why it stops working on newer firmware

September 25, 2024 · 5 min · 975 words · Nate