Hello everyone. This will be my rough draft notebook, where I'll write my random thoughts in poor English, along with technical notes for personal use. You won't find anything interesting here, so if you've randomly stumbled upon this blog, you can leave now without any regret.
There's a little oddity about me: I like to make lists and do things systematically and in order. I also like to watch anime, and there are a lot of anime that I’m planning to watch later. And so I had a need to create an app that would solve my problem of making lists of anime that I would like to watch in the future.
Before creating this app, I was making do with Google Docs spreadsheets, but I wanted to create something of my own, with features that are difficult or impossible to implement in spreadsheets (for example, requesting information about anime from an external database using the API). And besides, it happened that I got a subscription to chatgpt plus, and so I decided to try my hand at so-called “vibe coding”.
I have created applications, simple programs and scripts for my personal use before, but this time I decided to take the project seriously, having read quite a lot of material about vibe-coding.
I used a tactic of the multi-staged prompting with set a set of high-quality build prompts. Here’s the sets of prompts I used to create my “anime-backlog” app: https://github.com/bernd32/anime-tracker-web/blob/main/prompts.txt I have put a lot of effort into creating these sets of LLM prompts, but it was worth it because the app turned out quite well. I'm not a professional programmer, but I think my app would be perfectly ready for production, if it weren't for the fact that it's for my personal use and might only be of interest to me.
Here’s the link to the application I’m talking about: https://backlog.bernd32.xyz
By the way, there are a lot (most of them) of the features that are not available to non-logged users. Basically, all actions that can modify the database are available only to logged users (only to me, basically).
And here’s the github repo: https://github.com/bernd32/anime-tracker-web/
The full list of features in this app:
Core backlog management
Library organization and browsing
Progress and status tracking
Random selection
Statistics
Import and export
Shikimori metadata
Authentication and access control
Preferences and settings
Year management
UI and UX
Backend and operational features
FastAPI backend with structured API routes.
PostgreSQL persistence.
Alembic database migrations.
Docker Compose setup for production-style deployment.
Development Docker overlay for local bind-mounted development.
Health and readiness endpoints.
Configurable CORS settings.
Configurable Shikimori proxy support.
And if you think that a set of high-quality prompts allowed me to create the app perfectly on my first try, you're very much mistaken. The first attempt was a flop, and I had to ask LLM to fix quite a few syntax errors and bugs, as well as add and fix various features. However, this helped me to create a fairly solid framework (architecture) for a high-quality application, so any rough edges that appeared during “development” were very easy to fix, as they hardly affected the core architecture of the application that was created the first time.
When running borgmatic create prune via the systemd service (borgmatic.service), the backup process hung indefinitely during the create phase after the log line Processing files …
and the warning
/var/lib/docker/containers/...-json.log: file changed while we backed it up.
The hang occurred only when the database hooks were active (mariadb_databases and sqlite_databases). These hooks automatically enable --read-special and cause borgmatic to include temporary dump files, which in turn triggered extensive special-file exclusions under /var/lib/docker.
A broad exclusion
- /var/lib/docker/**
prevented the hang but also omitted all Docker volume data (persistent application files located under /var/lib/docker/volumes/).
Manual execution of borgmatic create from an interactive root shell completed successfully, confirming the issue was specific to the non-interactive systemd execution environment combined with Docker’s overlay2 layers, container logs, and runtime files.
Database hooks force --read-special and interact with rapidly changing or special files inside /var/lib/docker.
Borg’s file processing becomes blocked when encountering Docker overlay files, container log files that change during backup, and certain pseudo-files in the overlay2 directory.
The broad Docker exclusion resolved the hang but removed the desired volume backups.
Retain the database hooks (they provide consistent, point-in-time dumps) and replace the broad Docker exclusion with granular exclusions that target only the ephemeral/problematic paths. Update the exclude_patterns section in /etc/borgmatic/config.yaml as follows (add/replace the Docker-related lines):
exclude_patterns:
...
- /var/lib/docker/overlay2/**
- /var/lib/docker/containers/**
- /var/lib/docker/image/**
- /var/lib/docker/tmp/**
- /var/lib/docker/volumes/*/_data/*.log
More info about this issue in the docs: https://torsion.org/borgmatic/how-to/backup-your-databases/
I've organized my first home automated backup system and tried my best to describe it (the system seems a bit complicated to me, so in case something goes wrong I'll definitely need a reference). Since this is my first attempt at setting up a backup system, it may have some flaws.
systemctl status borgmatic.timerjournalctl -u borgmatic.service[arch-pc] ──(borgmatic.timer -> daily at 22:00)──borgmatic {/etc/borgmatic.d/arch-pc.yaml} ──▶ [NAS]──/srv/backups/arch-pc (Samsung SSD)
[vps-nl] ──(borgmatic.timer -> daily at 16:00 Server time (21:00 EKT))──borgmatic {/etc/borgmatic/config.yaml} ──▶ [NAS]──/srv/backups/vps-nl (Samsung SSD)
[arch-pc-media] ──media-backup.sh (running manually)──borgmatic {/etc/borgmatic.d/arch-pc-media.yaml} ──▶ [NAS]──/mnt/media/backups/arch-pc-media (External HDD)
[nas] ──(borgmatic.timer)──borgmatic {/etc/borgmatic/config.yaml}──▶ /srv/backups/nas (Samsung SSD)
/root/.ssh/config)ssh://home-borg/srv/backups/arch-pc/root/.ssh/config)/root/.ssh/config)/srv/backups/
arch-pc/
vps-nl/
nas/
/run/media/bernd/backups/
arch-pc-media/
Archive format: {hostname}-{timestamp}
Notifications:
Triggers:
Script:
List archives: borg list /path/to/repo or outside the NAS: borgmatic repo-list --config /etc/borgmatic.d/arch-pc.yaml
Mount the archive to /mnt/borg (*): sudo borgmatic mount --config /etc/borgmatic.d/arch-pc.yaml --archive archpc-2025-10-03T21:25:12 --mount-point /mnt/borg
Unmount: sudo borgmatic umount --mount-point /mnt/borg
Extract a file from the archive: sudo borgmatic extract --config /etc/borgmatic.d/arch-pc.yaml --archive archpc-2025-10-03T21:25:12 --path /path/to/file/to/extact --destination /tmp
Restore all files from the archive: borgmatic extract --config /etc/borgmatic.d/arch-pc.yaml --archive archpc-2025-10-03T21:25:12
(*) fuse2 and python-llfuse packages should be installed
The borgmatic configuration file used for the original backup must be available on the host.
Case 1. Restore all configured databases from the latest archive: /root/.local/bin/borgmatic restore --config /etc/borgmatic/config.yaml --archive latest
Case 2. Restore a specific database (e.g., only Bookstack’s MariaDB): 1) Stop all containers that use the mariadb container, e.g.: docker stop bookstack; 2) borgmatic restore --config /etc/borgmatic/config.yaml --archive latest --database bookstack
Case 3. Restore only the Chyrp-lite SQLite database: 1) Stop the container; 2) /root/.local/bin/borgmatic restore --config /etc/borgmatic/config.yaml --archive latest --database chyrp
Case 1. borg.crypto.key.ArchiveTAMInvalid: Data integrity error: Archive authentication did not verify error when trying to open an archive
Solution: This problem is related to Trusted Archive Metadata (TAM). The solution is to repair the archives:
su -
BORG_WORKAROUNDS=ignore_invalid_archive_tam borg upgrade --archives-tam /path/to/repo
Check: borg check /path/to/repo
So today last.fm stopped working for Russia:
❯ curl -I https://www.last.fm/ | head -n1
HTTP/2 403
So here's the problem: now my dockerized Navidrome server won't scrobble tracks to last.fm, and since Navidrome doesn't support proxy configuration, I have to route all network traffic from the container through a proxy server.
Sometimes I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place, because the restrictions are coming from both sides... But something good always comes out of every bad situation, and from this one I'll learn a bit more about proxying docker containers. Anyways.
What's my goal: make Navidrome scrobble tracks to last.fm again by routing its traffic though my host machine's Xray proxy. What's my steps:
So first I need to update my Xray configuration. Basically I need to tell Xray to listen on all network interfaces (0.0.0.0) so the Docker container can reach it:
"inbounds": [
{
"listen": "0.0.0.0",
"port": 10808,
"protocol": "socks"
},
{
"listen": "0.0.0.0",
"port": 10809,
"protocol": "http"
}
],
And since my server is local and working behind a router and cg-nat, it is a safe approach.
Now I need to update my docker compose file, so Navidrome can find the host and use the proxy vars:
services:
navidrome:
extra_hosts:
- "host.docker.internal:host-gateway"
environment:
- HTTP_PROXY=http://host.docker.internal:10809
- HTTPS_PROXY=http://host.docker.internal:10809
- ALL_PROXY=socks5://host.docker.internal:10808
- NO_PROXY=localhost,127.0.0.1
Why extra_hosts? It creates a "map" so the container knows host.docker.internal = your host machine's IP. Checking that variables described in the docker file are read within the container:
root@thinkcentre:~# docker exec navidrome-navidrome-1 env | grep -i proxy
no_proxy=localhost,127.0.0.1
http_proxy=http://host.docker.internal:10809
https_proxy=http://host.docker.internal:10809
all_proxy=socks5://host.docker.internal:10809
Looks like it's fine. Too bad we can't test connection inside the container using curl, because there's no such utility in the container. Let's just play a song and see if it is scrobbling or not:
Yes, it is working as intended, yay!
Only what he finds conducive is to his taste; his pleasure, his enjoyment stops when the mark of what is conducive is overstepped. He guesses correctly what will heal harm, he exploits strokes of bad luck to his advantage; what does not kill him makes him stronger.