Blog
Building a Tech Support Business; My Journey and Lessons Learned

Building a Tech Support Business; My Journey and Lessons Learned

My journey of creating a personalized tech support business, from brainstorming the initial concept to building a website using AI tools like Bolt.new. I also share my experiences and lessons learned while working with technologies like React, Supabase, and edge functions.
A Custom LaunchAgent for Nudge

A Custom LaunchAgent for Nudge

Why we needed to deploy a custom LaunchAgent for our school
On Hugo, the static site generator

On Hugo, the static site generator

So, I published a little blog post about browser extensions to write down how we’re currently doing it, and I thought it went well, since I didn’t look at the site on mobile at all.
How to Enforce Browser Extensions Across your Org

How to Enforce Browser Extensions Across your Org

If you’re a sysadmin or sysengineer at an organization that supports multiple browsers and platforms, this is for you.
Dash Cameras

Dash Cameras

I’ve been using the Viofo A119 Plus Duo for about 3 years now, until…
Working with Jamf School

Working with Jamf School

I’ve been using Jamf School at work for 3 years now. This is the first year (2024) in which I believe ALL of our faculty and staff Macs are enrolled in JS. Previously to the 21-22 school year, the school paid for Jamf Pro to manage the iPads for the K-5th graders and used imaging to deploy the Macs. I arrived in 2021, and that summer we began to move our devices and configurations to Jamf School.
Pfsense Https V2

Pfsense Https V2

Yesterday, I learned how to get Let’s Encrypt working on our PfSense router.
Unifi Controller HTTPS

Unifi Controller HTTPS

Here’s another HTTPS certificate story. This time, a self-hosted Unifi Controller was the invalid certificate annoyance.
A Real pfsense HTTPS Certificate

A Real pfsense HTTPS Certificate

Yesterday, I learned how to get Let’s Encrypt working on our PfSense router.

Hello World

First post!

Unifi Controller HTTPS

Planted February 8, 2023

Unifi Controller HTTPS

Here’s another HTTPS certificate story. This time, a self-hosted Unifi Controller was the “invalid certificate” annoyance.

Yesterday, it began with attempting to use acme.sh from GitHub on our Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS server which has unifi running on it. I did encounter a similar error to my last story, and I had to change my DNS servers again. That probably deserves another blog post so I don’t forget how to do it next time. So, I’m able to get the HTTPS certificate, but I encountered an error after running the following command.

acme.sh --deploy -d unifi.my.tld --deploy-hook unifi --debug
#output...
Could not open file or uri for loading certs of certificates from -in file from /root/.acme.sh/unifi.my.tld_ecc/unifi.my.tld.cer
807B28F96C7F0000:error:16000069:STORE routines:ossl_store_get0_loader_int:unregistered scheme:../crypto/store/store_register.c:237:scheme=file
807B28F96C7F0000:error:80000002:system library:file_open:No such file or directory:../providers/implementations/storemgmt/file_store.c:267:calling stat(/root/.acme.sh/unifi.my.tld_ecc/unifi.my.tld.cer)
Error generating pkcs12. Please re-run with --debug and report a bug

And Google seems to have a good answer to what’s going on here. The clues make it seem like openssl cannot generate the certificate for the Java process that Unifi runs in. I’m using OpenSSL 3.0.2 15 Mar 2022, which at this point is slightly out of date, so I attempt to build the latest from source. Eventually, after make install and running the binary, I get a linking error…

undefined symbol: BIO_f_zlib

I did get a search result for StackOverflow, which was promising, but unfortunately it was taken down for some reason…

At this point, I go back to my original Google search “unifi controller https let’s encrypt” and through a Reddit post, found this dude who has written a cute bash script for this very purpose. Another link to his website. I downloaded it and ran it and sure enough, it eventually works, even with a little error, too.

Despite the error message, Unable to load certificate, the script finishes and I go refresh my Unifi Controller Chrome tab. Sure enough, the certificate error shows up, but this time, it has unifi.my.tld in the Common Name!

Next up, giving our ESXi servers real HTTPS certificates…