I had my Pi 400 scaling go wonky  when using VNC.

To reset it run:

export DISPLAY=:0
xrandr --fb 1920x1080

Way back in https://macblaze.ca/?p=14445 I set up Nginx to  handle port forwarding to my home computer. Since then I have modified it a bot and I wanted to make a not of those mods here.

Site in a subfolder

• I have the subdomain xxx.macblaze.ca.
• I want to have it access a site at 192.168.1.xx:8080
• in a folder /folder

Set up the subdomain as usual

1. go to Custom Locations
2. location /
3. Forward Hostname/IP 192.168.1.xx/folder
4. Forward Port 8080

Docker container

• ensure the container and Nginx’s container are on the same network. (current code method)

Set up the subdomain as usual

1. go to Details
2. Forward Hostname/IP <container-name> (get using docker ps --format "{{.Names}}")
   or Container IP
3. Forward Port <the internal port>

 

Two Sites/Apps on one subdomain

• I have the subdomain xxx.macblaze.ca.
• I want to have it access a site at 192.168.1.xx1:8080
• I want the subdomain xxx.macblaze.ca/app to access an app at 192.168.1.xx2:8080

Set up

1. the subdomain as usual for the site
2. go to Advanced Locations
3. Add:

   location /app {
       proxy_pass http://192.168.1.xx2:8080/;
   }
   location /app/ {
       proxy_pass http://192.168.1.xx2:8080/;
   }

Just computer note…

I wanted to run a Flask web app for L’s Moodle conversions and doing it on the Mac server seemed the best idea. I put the web app into the www folder. Here were the steps…

cd /to_folder

python3 -m venv venv

source venv/bin/activate

pip install Flask

pip install pypandoc

python3 main.py

 

To come…

Add Gunicorn

Well I think I an 90% sure this is the way I will go. Back in New Image Management? I mentioned I was testing Immich as possible replacement for Apple Photos and the iphone app. I tested it out and even used it at a family visit to Brooks and so far it has performed flawlessly. I covered some of this in the original post but I thought I would  add in a bit more detail.

Server

I have this installed on my Mac Mini (2019) which has basically become my server these days. Maybe a post later about how that is set up now. Much of this is based on https://rhettbull.github.io/osxphotos/tutorial.html‘s tutorial.

Step 1 Docker

Everything is Docker (containerized) so, other than the Docker overhead, it is pretty clean install-wise. I decided to go with Docker’s Docker Desktop for the Mac rather than jump through the hoops to install it on the system itself… lower overhead vs easier management… and I was lazy.

Then I followed Immich’s install guide. The only real tricky part was that on a Mac if you try to ‘get’ the .env file it immediately is invisible (wget -O .env https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/example.env). So I modified the command to read wget -O example.env https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/example.env and then after editing it renamed it (in terminal mv example.env .env) to .env

The .env (Environment)

I changed the location of my library to a folder on my Mini and decided to put the postgres database there as well. Not sure if this is best practice but I am tired for hunting for elements years later when I need to change or clean up something. And then I set the time zone to America/Edmonton.

Just a note to remind you if you want to edit the .env in a text editor then hit cmd-shift-. (period), this will show all the invisible files so you can just drag the .env file to BBEdit etc. Just remember to hit cmd-shift-. again to hide them all or all the hidden files will clutter up everything.

Save the file.

Docker Compose

Make sure you are in the right directory (the one with all these files) and run the downloaded docker compose command docker compose up -d. This will invoke Docker, run though the compose file to download and set up everything and the -d ensure it is running in the background.

That’s it. You should be up and running at http://<machine-ip-address>:2283

Step 2 Apple Photos

The next big challenge is to get the photos from Photos to Immich.

If, like L, you have a bunch of images on your phone or iPad that aren’t on your desktop the easiest was is to download the Immich App from the store and set it up to back-up all the images. Once that’s done you can set it to only back up Recent and every time you open Immich on your phone it will upload the images to the server.

 

As for the main Photos Library I covered that back in the original post (New Image Management?).

Settings

A few settings and tweaks.

• I enabled tags Account Settings > Features > Tags. This shows all the tags that I had set in Photos and allows me to set more.
• I changed the library so it organized itself in a more understandable way. Originally all the images were stored in folders like /Immich/upload/8e403d85-6740-4ba7-8549-0feb702f0cb3/6a/04. By going to Administration > Settings > Storage Template and enabling it you can set the folders to year/month/ date etc. and it will migrate all the images to the new structure e.g. /Immich/library/User-1/1956/1956-01-01/001 – 1956.jpg.
  • Then you have to go to Administration > Jobs > Storage template migration and click Start

A Second Library

One of the neater things is that you can set up a second user and use the server for them as well. I did this and set up all L’s images to be stored in a different folder. Note that when you set up the user you then should go to Administration > User and click the three dots to edit the account. Change the Storage label to whatever you wan the folder to be called.

Then either before or after you migrate their images. Make sure you repeat the Storage template steps above.

Sharing

Now, if you want, you can set it up so the other user can see all of you images in their own Immich instance. Account Settings > Settings > Partner Sharing. Add the other user and they can  see pretty much everything by clicking on Sharing in the main sidebar.

External Access

I am still not sure if I will use this as something that is accessible external to my firewall. I did briefly set it up to one of my test domains when I was away and it worked just as advertised. i took a picture, opened the Immich app and voila it was  available pretty much instantly on the web interface.

But if I leave it inaccessible, the app stores all the thumbnails so I can”see the images wherever I am and when I am back in my own network I can upload the images then — which is pretty much how I did it with the old system. the only difference being if I want a high-res version of a photo when I am away from home I am screwed unless I VPN back in… and I rarely leave the VPN running unless I am away for extended periods.

Hmmm….

I’ve decided to give an alternative to Apple Photos a try. Photos has been increasingly  frustrating in its organization on the iphone and its pretty darn slow on my desktop if I try and offload the data base to an external drive.

Immich

An open source, self hosted photo solution, Immich is also free. And it has an iPhone app that will sync with you camera roll to automatically backup photos from the camera.

 

I will flush out the documentation but basically I followed baty.net/posts/2025/12/from-apple-photos-to-immich/ 

Immich is a Docker container but My Pi’s aren’t robust enough (I think) so I installed it on my Intel Mac Mini (2019) which is doing duty as my Calibre server and Jellyfin server. This means I have to use the clucnky Docker Desktop for Mac but c’est la vie. It install via docker -compose file docs.immich.app/install/docker-compose. The wget didn’t work so I just downloaded the file from Github. I had to use terminal to rename the .env file. Then I fired up the container by running the compose file and that was pretty much it.

Visit the app by going to 192.168.1.x:2283, create an account and add a password.

Preliminary testing

cd into your directory and docker compose up -d

I played around with and the iPhone app and decided it was going to work and proceeded to move my main library of 30,000+ images. What I did was copy the photos library (Photos Library.photoslibrary) over to the mac mini (150gig, 1+ hours) then use an utility to export it. In retrospect that was silly since I exported it to an external SSD for temporary storage anyway. What I should have done was  run the utility direct from the original library to the ssd and save me a lot of time.

osxphotos

To install:

brew tap Rhetbull/osxphotos

brew install osxphotos

It’s a pretty fancy little utility but I went with the basics:

osxphotos export /Volumes/External_SSD/DestinationFolder \
--skip-original-if-edited \
--sidecar XMP \
--touch-file \
--directory "{folder_album}" \
--download-missing \
--library '/Users/admin/Desktop/photo library/Photos Library.photoslibrary'

Note this if you want to import a library other than the defualt Photos library. Otherwise you can just eliminate the last line.

It didn’t take too long and it had exported all my images in a fancy folder structure on the ssd.

immich cli

Then I had to install the command line interface for immich. I discovered it was on brew which was easier than the suggested npm.

brew install immich-cli

Then you need to go to the immich web interface (192.168.1.x:2283) and add an api key. Account Settings > Api Key.  Then add the key tot eh following and log in.

immich login http://192.168.1.x:2283/api APIKEYxxxXXXxxxXXXXxxXXXXXx

Once you are logged in, let ’er rip.

immich upload --recursive /Volumes/External_SSD/DestinationFolder --album

Less than an hour later the images were imported. It took a couple of hours for the thumbnails to appear and overnight for things like geo-location and face recognition to  finishing running.

Conclusion

So far it is pretty slick. I can  take a picture on my phone and  it is set to upload the image as soon as I open the app (if I am at home). The response is snappy, the AI assisted search is wonderful (for finding images with two cats, or bread, or pizza etc.)

If I keep it I will likely set up a domain and a ssl cert so I can access the images from outside my firewall. But for now the big downside is that if I want to do anything but look at an image on my iPhone from outside my personal network I am out of luck—the app only stores thumbnails. And maybe a followup review where I can add a bit more detail…

 

I dug up this picture of my desk from 2010… 15 years ago. Of all the electronics visible (and there are a lot if you look closely…including the calculator and the camera) they have all been relegated to the recycling bin.  (Actually so have the desk, shelves and chair  lol…) The very last thing I was using was the Apple keyboard which got replaced last week… so all in all I think the sometimes outrageous price of Apple products is worth the while.

I still have the ipad (1st gen) and one of the apple mices but both are in a box and only used in an emergency. Actually looking closer I still use those speakers so  I guess they are the winners 🙂

A reminder!

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2002

https://moreblaze.blogspot.com/2002/11/

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I had this set up as an auto post… I have no idea why… it’s not been 20 years since anything…

Sigh.

Booksonix, the book management software Orca uses to manage their publications and workflow released an API (Application Programming Interface) a few weeks ago — so I started playing with it to see if I could automate some of my work.

After much playing with flask, jinja and json files I made a thing of beauty. Just plug in the print ISBN and it delivers me the cover for download and all the metadata, formatted and everything so I can just copy and paste it into the epub’s .opf file. That’s what an API does, let you get info out of a system without having to go through the regular interface so you can manipulate it the way you want. All the best websites have one: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc.

Read all most of the nonsense here: https://macblaze.ca/?cat=9

Note: Since Elon’s take over, the removal of api’s and the subsequent X thing, my digest stopped working on May 11, 2023. So while I actually managed to stay on Twitter (X) for 15 years the tweets for the last 7 months have gone unrecorded. It might also be time to blow this joint. Although I will say that since all the hardcore Twitter users abandoned it it has been a much happier place (if you avoid the idjuts…).

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BruceKeith is alive and well and living on Twitter. We’ll see how this goes…

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Now Tweeting.