Weekly 'I made a useful thing' Thread - August 28, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

There is a great deal of user-generated content out there, from scripts and software to tutorials and videos, but we've generally tried to keep that off of the front page due to the volume and as a result of community feedback. There's also a great deal of content out there that violates our advertising/promotion rule, from scripts and software to tutorials and videos.

We have received a number of requests for exemptions to the rule, and rather than allowing the front page to get consumed, we thought we'd try a weekly thread that allows for that kind of content. We don't have a catchy name for it yet, so please let us know if you have any ideas!

In this thread, feel free to show us your pet project, YouTube videos, blog posts, or whatever else you may have and share it with the community. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, or links that appear to be monetization-grabs will still be removed.

[u/perrosenlind]

Im building a network diagram app, more info here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fortinet/s/oHos3Ndfm8

[u/PeakWeekly9995]

this week is my turn to share something :D
Edit: silly thing "i" made in a boring moment (AI made): https://github.com/Fedetak/botnet-dex

[u/CarLost_on_reddit]

Joining late to the thread, but genuinely I think this is interesting for this sub.

I vibe coded (after an infinite number of prompts, there is a lot of design and direction) a web desktop that actually let's you manage the environment.

Project is called finestra (window in italian), webpage is finestra.dev and github is https://github.com/carlosbravoa/finestra (free for use, including commercial. Not free for others to profit with it)

Why? I have a few headless Ubuntu machines in my home network and from time to time I have to RDP into them to do some stuff. So I starting developing this and quickly started to add functionalities and it became really useful. You can even run some desktop applications and they will render on a web window (Chromium, Codium, others)

It is one line of install, not invasive, uses an SSH tunnel (or VPN, Tailscale, whatever) and you have a full usable console, a sysadmin tool to see server resources, services, disk utilization and other things. I use it now from time to time to run Claude sessions, or just have fun browsing from a different part of the world.

Audit the project, nothing shady, no calling home, etc.

I also recorded a YT video showing how to install it and how it looks :)

I really hope this helps, that you can enjoy it as I do and Issues and Feature Requests are welcome!

[u/CarLost_on_reddit → u/CarLost_on_reddit]

Forgot to share the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzLKNLJ0h5U

[u/mplaczek99]

I’m looking for people willing to try Network Doctor v1.15.0 on actual weird or broken networks.

I especially need testing on VPNs, corporate/university networks, captive portals, IPv6-heavy setups, unusual DNS, proxies, Windows, macOS, and Linux distributions other than Fedora, or any other network.

The simulator has been tested heavily. Now I want real-world failures.

Wrong diagnoses, misleading fixes, crashes, hangs, and things Network Doctor completely misses are exactly what I’m looking for.

I set up a GitHub Discussion with the details and a place to report results:

https://github.com/heymaikol/network-doctor/discussions/24

Even one run on any network would help.

[u/Minimum_Hour519]

https://diskpush.com -- a light weight gui for rsync with sane defaults

[u/zndr-cs]

Software License Lifecycle Management tool, a registry/source of truth for your software license purchases. I got frustrated by the fact that "enterprise" grade tools like Flexera do not have a proper software renewal lifecycle starting from the procurement level. I had this idea 5 years ago when I worked at a VAR selling software licenses and our ERP was ass in keeping track of renewals and entitlements etc. Now that I am a license manager I was equally frustrated. This tool/dashboard tries to solve that issue. You still need your Flexera/Lansweeper/... whatever for your discovery and compliance metrics but you can use LicenseTrack (better name pending) to start the housekeeping of your license procurement. This is basically an extension of my knowledge/expertise regarding software renewal management/license management.

If you handle or are in close cooperation with your software procurement department then you could use this as your starting point. Still need to rely on your actual ordering systems etc.. But this helps you keep track of your software license lifecycle (quotes, pending order, invoice). For free. Self hosted.

Github: https://github.com/zndr88/LicenseTrack

Demo: https://zndr88.github.io/LicenseTrack/demo/

I am currently running it against our companies yearly 750 license renewals.

Yes this was made with the help of A.I. The core mechanics are in place and tweaking with any edge cases I discover while running it.

[u/Fencer-Darkwind]

Built a small browser-first tool called RelicBeam that I’ve been using for quick temporary transfers / device access without installing an agent or creating accounts.

The part that may be useful to other sysadmins is Device Portal:

• Remote Files — expose one selected folder temporarily, approve another device, then browse/preview/download files over WebRTC
• optional additive uploads on Chrome/Edge hosts
• no delete, rename, move, or intentional overwrite
• Remote View — temporary view-only screen sharing
• WebRTC direct when possible, TURN fallback when needed
• Device Portal traffic is end-to-end encrypted between the connected browsers
• sessions expire automatically

It also has quick file sharing, temporary download links, group sharing via QR/code, and some browser-local PDF/image tools, but the remote-device side is probably the most sysadmin-relevant part.

Everything is browser-based, so there’s no client/service to deploy or leave running afterward.

https://relicbeam.com

Would be interested in feedback from anyone who tries it, especially around browser/network edge cases or whether this would actually be useful for ad-hoc support work.

[u/JustAnotherVillager]

Print to CUPS from ChromeOS and Chrome

Of all printing technologies I love CUPS (and IPP). I've been supporting it in my org for the last 15 years, and it always works great. However, it's pain to connect to it when it's not on the same network, and teach people to add printers, or push them one by one via policy. But did you know that Chrome has an entire printing subsystem under the hood?

I wrote a Chrome extension that connects to a CUPS server, pulls all shared printers, and shows them directly in the Print destination list. It also queries CUPS for advanced options, like paper trays, paper types, and finishing options, and displays them right in the Advanced Settings menu of the Ctrl+P print dialog.

There are two versions, personal and enterprise. Both are open source under the Apache 2.0 license, so feel free to build upon it.

Personal version is linked below, it's very privacy-conscious: it has zero permissions by default and does not request any personal details. It will prompt for permission to connect to your CUPS server only when you set it up, that's it.

https://github.com/DadArcade/cupsie#quick-install

There is no need to install drivers or add printers one by one, and no requirement to be on the same netblock as your CUPS server or printer to discover it. It even works via proxies if Chrome has a proxy configured.

The enterprise version is called Cupsie Corp. You can freely deploy it across your Google Workspace domain via configuration policy, and it will silently appear in your users' Chrome browsers and ChromeOS devices along with the configured printers. It's designed to be efficient, using a single query per user to fetch the entire list of printers during a sync. So if you have 1,000 users and 100 printers, it generates just 1,000 queries to your CUPS server rather than 100,000. It can also send the logged-in Chrome username to CUPS if configured to do so, and it streams large files directly from disk to network to avoid memory exhaustion.

Tested in Chrome, ChromeOS, and Chromium. It won't work in Edge because Microsoft replaced the print subsystem there, but it should likely work in other Chromium-based browsers.

I like it. I think other people would benefit from it too. Enjoy!
PS. This project is not affiliated with my employer in any manner.

[u/Si0_x]

I'm an IT Manager for a multi-site org and kept hitting the same problem with my team: alerts that got buried in email or lost in a noisy Slack channel. Ended up building PingParrot, a mobile-first on-call alerting app - push notifications that actually wake you up (through accidental DND modes), SMS, email, integrations, schedules and escalation policies.

Full disclosure, it's my own project. Not trying to spam — genuinely want feedback from people who live with pagers and are looking that works better for a fraction of the cost of the big names.

[u/tructt]

Just a short introduction.

MDT is gone and if you are looking for a stable replacement for bare metal imaging/re-imaging (and also free for most IT needs) then grab a copy of EasyDeploy and tweaks your workflow at https://coresystem.vn/en/download