Okay, let me walk you through what I did with this thing I called ‘benhadi’. It wasn’t anything massive, really just me trying to get something done over the weekend.
Getting Started
So, I had this idea, right? For a little project, just for myself. I decided to call it ‘benhadi’. The main goal was pretty simple: I wanted to set up a small corner on my network, kind of a personal space for some files and maybe testing out little web things. Nothing fancy, just a basic setup.
First thing I did was figure out where I’d host this. Didn’t want to use cloud stuff for this, wanted it local. I looked around and found an old Raspberry Pi I wasn’t really using. Perfect, I thought. Low power, small, quiet. Just what I needed.
The Process
Next step was getting an operating system onto it. I grabbed the latest Raspberry Pi OS Lite image. Flashed it onto an SD card using the official imager tool. That part’s always pretty straightforward, thankfully.
Once the OS was flashed, I popped the SD card into the Pi, connected the network cable, and powered it up. Since I used the ‘Lite’ version, it was all command line. Had to find its IP address on my network first. Used my router’s interface to spot the new device.
Then, I SSH’d into it from my main computer. The usual stuff: changed the default password immediately. Always do that first, super important. Then ran the updates:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
This took a little while, fetching all the latest packages. Grabbed a coffee while it was working.
After updating, I needed to install the specific software for my ‘benhadi’ idea. In this case, I wanted a simple web server and maybe a way to easily transfer files. So, I installed Nginx first:
sudo apt install nginx -y
Checked if it was running by visiting the Pi’s IP address in my web browser. Got the default Nginx page. Nice, that worked.
Then, for file transfers, I thought about setting up Samba or something, but honestly, for my own use, SFTP (which works over SSH) was good enough. Didn’t need extra installs for that basic part.
I spent some time tweaking the Nginx configuration. Nothing major, just setting up a basic virtual host, pointing it to a directory I created in my user’s home folder. This was mostly trial and error, checking the config syntax with `sudo nginx -t` before restarting the service.
Wrapping Up
So, after a few hours of tinkering, I had my ‘benhadi’ setup. Basically, a tiny Raspberry Pi running a basic web server, reachable only on my home network. I could drop simple HTML files into a folder using SFTP, and they’d show up in my browser when I visited the Pi’s address.
It’s not groundbreaking tech or anything, just a simple, personal corner. But it felt good to get it done, turning an unused device into something functional, even if just for my own little experiments. That was the whole point of the ‘benhadi’ practice for me. Just doing it, step by step.
