It's that time of year again where you have broken out the pencils and scribbled in your best guesses, your lucky feelings, your gut instincts, and your this-makes-no-sense-but-I'm-doing-it-anyways upsets. You've got that bracket filled out and by this point you have either given up on winning, you're glad you got half your games right, or you are getting really anxious about maybe (just maybe) winning that jackpot between you and your friends.

We're busting that bracket this week and talking about technology both inside the stadium on the court and technology that is used outside of the crowded stands.

And what better way to celebrate the journey to and from the Sweet 16 than by drinking 16-oz beers?!

This week we're honoring the Academy Awards by discussing movie cocktails and in-home media servers!

We start with 007's favorite drink (shaken, not stirred) and talk hardware and software options for how to have your very own media server inside your house.

From there we bring in Scarface's Cuba Libre to assist us in actually building a media server out of an old machine that we bring back to life with Linux.

Interested in doing something similar at home? Here's how we did it!

Follow along with the video to see the step by step instructions, but here's a lot of the commands for you to paste into your CLI. Be sure to read them prior to pasting to confirm there isn't a specific variable or detail you need to change for your machine.

To see your new IP address:

ip addr show

To run updates:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade -y

Go to another computer in your home and ssh into the Linux box for the rest of this.

To SSH:

ssh username@ipaddress (change these variables accordingly)

Install Docker Pre-reqs:

sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release

Add Docker's GPG Key:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

Set up Repository (There should be a Angled Bracket [Shift + .] after docker.list):

echo \

"deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \

$(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list (angled bracket, see above) /dev/null

Install Docker:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-compose-plugin

Add user to docker group:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Verify Docker:

docker --version

Create home for Plex:

mkdir -p ~/docker/plex/config

mkdir -p ~/media/movies

mkdir -p ~/media/tv

Create YAML File:

nano ~/docker/plex/docker-compose.yml

YAML File:

services:

plex:

image: lscr.io/linuxserver/plex:latest

container_name: plex

network_mode: host

environment:

- PUID=1000

- PGID=1000

- TZ=Etc/UTC # Change to your timezone, e.g., America/New_York

- VERSION=docker

volumes:

- ~/docker/plex/config:/config

- ~/media/tv:/tv

- ~/media/movies:/movies

restart: unless-stopped

Launch Server:

cd ~/docker/plex

docker compose up -d

Claim Server in Web Browser:

http://IPAddress:32400/web

Set permissions:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER ~/media

Install Cockpit:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y cockpit

Enable Cockpit:

sudo systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket

Confirm Cockpit access in Web Browser:

https://IPAddress:9090

Keep PC from Going to sleep:

sudo systemctl mask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target

Create Volume for Portainer:

docker volume create portainer_dataRun Container:docker run -d \

-p 8000:8000 \

-p 9443:9443 \

--name portainer \

--restart=always \

-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \

-v portainer_data:/data \

portainer/portainer-ce:latest

Access Portainer via Web Browser:

https://IPAddress:9443

Add Tailscale VPN:

curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh

Bring Tailscale Connection Up:

sudo tailscale up

Find Tailscale IP address:

tailscale ip -4

Install Samba on Linux server:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install samba -y

Create Samba User:

sudo smbpasswd -a (insert user name here)

Setup Plex Group Permissions:

sudo groupadd plex

sudo usermod -aG plex (Insert username here)

sudo chown -R (insert username here):plex ~/media/movies

sudo chmod -R 775 ~/media/movies

Configure Share:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Paste block into bottom:

[Movies]

path = /home/joseph/media/movies

read only = no

browsable = yes

guest ok = no

Start Service:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

And there you go! Map your drive to your PC, move your digital files over, and go watch them on Plex!

If last week was the nuts and bolts of networking, this week we're discussing thread count and screw pitch.

We're diving into the deep end of how networking actually works.

First, we're going to tackle IP addresses and subnetting. And to help with the complexity, we're going simple with a nice Kentucky Mule. Bring that copper cup!

Next we're going to be talking ports and protocols (what are those things anyway?) and we're getting really simple. How much simpler can you get than bourbon, neat?

Lastly, we're addressing (see what I did there...) server-client architecture. And since we talked about CIDR early on, we're drinking cider to finish this thing out!

Sometimes complexity's best match is simplicity.

*AI Note: This episode contains pictures that were generated by Gemini AI.