Larvitz Blog
Mastodon

Welcome to Larvitz Blog! I’m Christian, a Cloud Consultant by day and FreeBSD enthusiast by night, with over 20 years in enterprise IT. Here I write about FreeBSD jails, PF firewalling, self-hosting, Linux system administration, and anything that’s cleanly engineered. Most articles are hands-on guides born from running my own infrastructure, from dual-stack networking and Ansible automation to hosting a Mastodon instance on FreeBSD.

Have a question or want to discuss something? Find me on the Fediverse at @Larvitz@burningboard.net. I’m always happy to chat!

#off-topic Articles

  • Sun 07 June 2026
  • DIY

A Monoblock AC Is Only as Good as Its Window Seal

I moved into a top-floor 1970s apartment in one of the warmest corners of Germany, work from home, and needed the office to stay below “thinking is hard now”. A single-hose portable AC is a thermodynamically compromised machine, but most of what makes it bad happens at the window. Here is the personal story, a short detour into why these units leak, and the cheap XPS panel I cut to fix the part that actually matters.

A Field Manual for Three Years on Deutsche Bahn

After years of regular business travel by Deutsche Bahn, here is the small library of habits, app picks, routing folklore, and survival gear that actually helps. Not a complaint piece. A handbook for everyone who has resigned themselves to the system and would like the next trip to suck a little less.