This is the correct answer.

Edit /etc/hosts and add

127.0.0.1 example.com

so when you type example.com into the address bar it goes to 127.0.0.1.

Oh man, even reading that hurt ':D I’m sorry for your loss.

You mean 2 piholes or adguard homes, right? That way if one goes down you can still use the other one.

Does it work if you change your DNS server by editing /etc/resolv.conf and having it show exactly one name server like

nameserver 9.9.9.9

?

Oh wow, thanks for the explanation.

react to email running in their networks.

Is email dangerous? (I have no idea how email works so please don’t bombard me with acronyms)

Haha sorry mate I must have assumed you had your mind reading hat on. Basically what darkassasin said above.

Re:

The fact that it’s a “single board” computer, specifically, is mildly irrelevant

Very cool, thank you.

That sounds really good but is that safe to do? I thought you shouldn’t dd a disk if there was some activity going on on it.

So is the output image saved to the SD card or do you save it to an external drive?

The only down side I can see with that setup is that should the sd card fail you’ll have to reinstall the OS on a new card and then install and configure all the programs you had before. For my set up that would be a pain in the neck but it depends on your specific use case.

SBCs often run on sd cards or emmc modules so there are other possibilities than a standard desktop computer.

I only have the OS on the sd card and I pop that out and dd a copy to my backup drive every 6 months or so. For that reason I like to use small sd cards like 8gb size. All other drives on the machine are external or network drives and those have their own backup routine with rsync.

Do you use only the sd card or what kind of storage system do you have on your sbc?

Good thinking. How do you keep the charge in that range? Software? Mechanical timer for the plug?

How have you been powering it? Plugged in 24/7?

Definitely not stupid.

This is smart, and with the timer you can try to keep the charge between 20 and 80%.

Thanks, I’ll look into those.

Sorry, this question might just reveal my ignorance, but what is the advantage of using all these programs over just using rsync? Yes, I am old and simple, but I’d love to know.

I feel like a loser after reading some of these awesome setups, but i just use an rpi4 4gb. It’s enough for 1-2 ppl casual use as NAS, media server, nextcloud, pihole, and a few other things here and there. I have USB hub with it’s own power supply because if not the hard drives lose power occasionally. All in all it’s like 20W max but usually under 10. Best of all it’s completely silent.