Rafael Pfister

Off Topic

These articles come out of private projects built on open-source software: Home Assistant and IoT devices on the home network, Paperless-ngx for a paperless office, cloud storage with Rclone and Proton Drive. The standards stay the same as at work, but everything runs at home, after hours. Questions and your own experiences are very welcome in the comments of each article.

13 articles in 7 topics

Topics in this hub

Home Assistant and IoT Running connected devices on your own network: local control instead of vendor clouds, Home Assistant and community integrations, network segmentation, firewall rules, and handling long-lived device credentials. 3 articles → Paperless-ngx Running your own document archive with Paperless-ngx: container installation, version upgrades and migrations, storage requirements, backup and restore, and the limits of offloading the document store. 1 article → PC & Hardware BIOS/UEFI maintenance, firmware updates, stability diagnostics and hardware topics around the personal machine. 3 articles → Proton Drive Proton Drive beyond the official apps: the state on Linux, connecting via Rclone and the SDK, unattended authentication, and using it as a store for self-hosted services. 2 articles → Rclone Connecting cloud storage with Rclone: FUSE mounts, the VFS cache, running inside Docker containers, unattended authentication and the pitfalls of individual backends. 3 articles → Remote support Remote access and support with open-source tools: RustDesk as a TeamViewer alternative, direct connections over your own network, unattended access and the limits of free usage. 1 article → VPN and remote access Private networks over the internet: mesh VPN with Tailscale and WireGuard compared with classic IPsec and SSL VPN gateways, least-privilege access rules and connecting existing networks. 1 article →

Latest articles

NewProton Drive CLI: Using Proton Drive from Scripts and Servers

Since June 2026, Proton has offered an official command-line tool for Proton Drive. This article covers commands, signing in on servers without a desktop, conflict strategies for scripts, and its limitations compared with Rclone.

October 1, 2026 Proton Drive 9 min read

NewProton Drive on Linux: The State of Play in October 2026

The official Linux client has been announced but is not yet available. The official Proton Drive CLI has been available for scripts and servers since June 2026; Proton Drive can still only be mounted with Rclone. What is missing is machine access limited to individual folders or tasks.

October 1, 2026 Proton Drive 8 min read

NewWhat exactly is Tailscale, and what advantages does it offer over traditional VPN connections?

Tailscale uses WireGuard to create a mesh VPN in which devices connect directly rather than through a central VPN concentrator. Learn how coordination servers, NAT traversal, and DERP relays work together, the advantages over IPsec and SSL VPNs, and the dependencies and limitations you should know before deploying it.

October 1, 2026 VPN and remote access 11 min read

NewMoving Windows to a Smaller SSD with Rescuezilla: From 1 TB to 512 GB

Rescuezilla restores an image only to a disk that extends at least to the end of the final partition. Using a 1 TB NVMe as an example, this guide shows how to shrink C: with GParted, move the recovery partition, remove the dirty flag, and restore the new image to a 512 GB SSD.

September 29, 2026 PC & Hardware 9 min to read

NewRescuezilla: Migrate Windows to a New SSD, with an Introduction to the Tool

Rescuezilla is a free, Clonezilla-compatible imaging solution with a graphical interface. This article introduces the tool and shows the complete migration of a Windows installation to a new SSD: preparation in Windows, bootable USB drive, backup, verification, restore, and follow-up steps.

September 29, 2026 PC & Hardware 10 min to read

RustDesk: Setting Up the Open-Source TeamViewer Alternative

RustDesk is open-source remote support software licensed under the AGPL, free of charge and self-hostable. Learn how to install the client on Windows (including unattended deployment via MSI), how connections work through the public rendezvous server, your own server, or a direct connection, which features are needed for day-to-day support, and where the limits of free use lie.

September 1, 2026 Remote support 9 min read

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