Recent content on TheWalrus
The Problem 
 If you’ve ever tinkered with self-hosting web projects and services, you’re probably already familiar with one of the major webservers like Apache or nginx. You’ve likely also hosted other non-HTTPS services such as SSH, for headless access to a Linux machine or, as I like to do, tunneling your browser traffic through a home Linux server via a SOCKS proxy. This…
Using ESP8266 as an IoT Endpoint with Encrypted MQTT Transport 
 A while back, I purchased a few SparkFun Thing Dev boards (featuring the venerable ESP8266 WiFi chipset) and SparkFun Beefcake Relays with a plan to use them in a cloud-free IoT setup. After some investigation, I settled on using the MQTT protocol as a lightweight way to send and receive messages between my Linux server and any…
Enabling Simultaneous AP and Managed Mode WiFi on Raspberry Pi Zero W (Raspbian Stretch) 
 I recently purchased a pair of Raspberry Pi Zero W boards, and plan to use them for some home automation / IoT-type work. One of my requirements is that the WiFi on this board be able to run as both a “managed” device (also known as “client” mode) and as an access point,…
What’s with TheWalrus? 
 This one’s easy. I was looking for interesting words that end with ‘us’ that could be purchased as cheap domain names. I picked up a few and so far have only maintained TheWalrus and TheCactus . I have no personal attachment to either one yet, but I’m sure I can retroactively drum something up if I can dedicate some time to this blog.…