Alex's Blog

Toronto Bike Share Status

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I love Toronto’s Bike Share network, but often times the bike station closest to my place has no bikes or the place I’m heading to has no docks. The Bike Share app is a bit clunky, requiring multiple taps and scrolling to check all of this info. In order to save those few extra seconds in the morning, I did the logical thing and spent a multiple hours to make a simple dashboard and iOS widget that surfaces the info I need at a glance.

Check out the project on GitHub

Here are some screenshots of the dashboard and widget in action:

Toronto Bike Share — dashboard overview.

iOS Scriptable widget showing favorite stations.

Self-hosting services on a custom domain securely

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My Setup

Proxmox: Running on a bare metal server.
Basic Linux VM: Running services I would like to access securely.
Custom domain: I have the domain alexboden.ca with DNS records managed by Cloudflare.

The Goal

Private by default: Services should only be reachable from my devices.
Single URL per service: e.g. git.alexboden.ca, jellyfin.alexboden.ca, proxmox.alexboden.ca.
Clean HTTPS: No browser warnings, even on phones.
No public exposure: No NAT forwards, no dangling ports.

The Solution

I combined Tailscale Serve with Caddy running inside a VM as a single TLS termination point:

Tailscale Serve: Accepts incoming HTTPS traffic on port 443, does raw TCP passthrough.
Caddy in a VM: Terminates TLS using a private CA, then reverse-proxies each service.
Proxmox host: Accessed over its own Tailscale IP.

The Setup

Tailscale:

You can download tailscale here.

sudo tailscale serve reset
sudo tailscale serve --bg --tcp=443 tcp://localhost:443

This allows incoming traffic on port 443, the standard port for HTTPS.

Caddy + Cloudflare

You can download Caddy here. Since I manage my DNS with Cloudflare, I also installed the Cloudflare DNS module.

I installed Caddy as a systemd service on my self hosted VM. I added the following to my Caddyfile (/etc/caddy/Caddyfile):

(cloudflare) {
    tls {
        dns cloudflare CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN
    }
}

# Example of a reverse proxy for a service running on the same VM as Caddy
git.alexboden.ca {
    reverse_proxy http://localhost:3000
    import cloudflare
}

# Example of a reverse proxy for a service in the same tailnet (with a different )
proxmox.alexboden.ca {
    reverse_proxy https://100.109.111.101:8006 {
        transport http {
            tls_insecure_skip_verify
        }
        header_up Host {host}
        header_up X-Forwarded-Proto https
        header_up X-Forwarded-For {remote}
    }
    import cloudflare
}

Then reload Caddy:

systemctl restart caddy

Add the following DNS records to Cloudflare:

Type	Name	Content	Proxy Status	TTL
CNAME	git.alexboden.ca	vm-name.tailnet-name.ts.net	DNS only	Auto
CNAME	proxmox.alexboden.ca	vm-name.tailnet-name.ts.net	DNS only	Auto

You can find the VM name and tailnet name in the Tailscale dashboard.

Diagram of the setup

flowchart TD subgraph Cloudflare[Cloudflare DNS] DNS1["git.alexboden.ca"] DNS2["proxmox.alexboden.ca"] end subgraph Tailnet[Tailscale Network] U["User Devices\n(Laptop, Phone)"] TS["Tailscale Serve (TCP:443 passthrough)"] VM["Caddy (TLS Termination + Reverse Proxy)"] PVE["Proxmox Host (Bare Metal, Tailscale IP)"] Gitea["Gitea Service localhost:3000"] end %% Flows U -->|HTTPS Request git.alexboden.ca| DNS1 U -->|HTTPS Request proxmox.alexboden.ca| DNS2 DNS1 --> TS DNS2 --> TS TS --> VM VM -->|Local Reverse Proxy| Gitea VM -->|Reverse Proxy via Tailscale IP| PVE

Using Slurm to Run GitHub Actions

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

How WATcloud runs GitHub Actions on Slurm the workload manager.

Chess Stats: Tracking Your Chess.com Playing Time

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been playing chess on Chess.com for a while, and I’ve always been curious about how much time I’ve actually spent playing. The platform shows you game counts, ratings, and win/loss records, but it doesn’t surface the total time investment in a clear way.

To satisfy this curiosity, I built Chess Stats — a simple web tool that fetches your Chess.com game history and calculates how much time you’ve spent playing.

How It Works

Enter your Chess.com username, and the tool will:

Fetch your complete game history from the Chess.com API
Calculate the total time spent based on game time controls
Display your playing statistics in an easy-to-read format

It’s a straightforward way to see your chess time investment at a glance. Whether you’re curious about your total hours played or want to track your activity over time, Chess Stats makes it easy to get those insights.

Check it out at chess-stats.alexboden.ca