Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to common questions about picking the right IT tool.
What's the best free network monitoring tool?
Zabbix and Prometheus are the two most widely used free, open-source options. Zabbix is easier to get running out of the box with a built-in web UI; Prometheus pairs with Grafana for more customizable dashboards and is the more common choice in container-heavy environments. Nagios or Icinga are solid alternatives if you want a more traditional alerting-first setup. See the Networking & Monitoring section for more.
What's the difference between Nmap and Wireshark?
Nmap scans a network to discover what devices and open ports exist on it. Wireshark captures and inspects the actual traffic flowing across a network, packet by packet. In short: Nmap tells you what's there, Wireshark tells you what's happening. Most network troubleshooting workflows use both together.
What's a good free, open-source password manager for IT teams?
Bitwarden is the most common choice — free tier, cross-platform, and supports team/shared vaults on paid plans. KeePass is the fully offline, single-file alternative if you'd rather not rely on any cloud sync at all. Both are covered in the Security, Privacy & OpSec section.
What's the best free alternative to VMware ESXi?
Proxmox VE is the most popular free, open-source alternative — it handles both VMs and lightweight LXC containers, has a full web management UI, and supports clustering. It's what I personally run my own home lab on.
How do I securely access my home lab or home network remotely?
WireGuard is the current standard for this — it's a modern VPN protocol that's fast, simple to configure, and far less overhead than older options like OpenVPN. Avoid directly port-forwarding services to the internet; route remote access through a VPN like WireGuard instead.
What tool should I use to automate server configuration?
Ansible is the most common starting point — it's agentless (no software to install on target machines), uses YAML files that are easy to read, and works well for configuring existing servers. Terraform is better suited to provisioning new infrastructure itself (cloud resources, VMs) rather than configuring what's already running.
What's the best free, self-hosted media server?
Jellyfin is the fully free and open-source option, with no paid tiers at all. Plex has a larger ecosystem and easier remote-access setup, but nudges users toward a paid Plex Pass for some features. Emby sits in between the two. I cover this in more detail on my Media Lab page.
Do I need antivirus software on Linux?
Linux malware is far less common than on Windows, but it's not zero, especially on servers exposed to the internet. ClamAV is the standard free, open-source option — most useful for scanning files before they're passed to Windows users (e.g., on a mail or file server) rather than as constant real-time protection.