The backup that said “success” for 14 nights while failing
A nightly backup reported success while its off-site copy was failing. The fix: a job that fails loudly, so the failure alert fires.
$ ls work/ --backup
Work
What I was asked to fix, what I changed, and how the result was checked, with the numbers. Clients are named only with their written permission.
Case studies
client = work for an SD Tech client, described without names. lab = my own servers, where a change is tried before it touches a client system.
Lab notes
I run a small production estate for my own work. New tools run there before they touch a client system. These notes name tools and results, never machines, addresses or client details.
- Private models on a laptop. A 36 GB Apple Silicon laptop runs a 35B mixture-of-experts model offline at conversational speed.
- Detection engineering. Behavioural detection without signatures, tested in the lab.
- Source code. An endpoint agent and console I published under the AGPL-3.0 stays downloadable here, with its checksum, until it moves to its new home. Download the source archive
LLM Chat, a private assistant on my own hardware · Notes for owners
Have something like this on your plate?
Describe it in a line or two. I reply within two business days.