Frank Ruiz

Frank Ruiz

Systems administration and IT infrastructure. 10+ years in enterprise IT.

I run my own infrastructure at home: a RHEL 10 server with about a dozen self-hosted services, a camera NVR and an auto-watering plant monitor. I also built and maintain an AI-accelerated camera system for a friend. I document everything I build.

Currently learning: RHCSA. I practice on the same RHEL server I use every day, so the lab and the production box are one machine.

Home

  1. ISP gateway Router and Wi-Fi. Behind carrier-grade NAT, so nothing is port-forwarded.
  2. home server HP EliteDesk 800 G6, Core i7, 32 GB. RHEL 10, Docker, KVM, Caddy, Pi-hole, Jellyfin, Seafile, Frigate. Build notes
  3. 8 TB Barracuda USB enclosure. Media, file sync data, VM disks. Build notes
  4. plant monitor ESP32-C3, four soil sensors and an auto-watering pump. Build notes

Remote maintenance over Tailscale

Built and maintained for a friend

  1. NVR Pi Raspberry Pi 5 with a Hailo-8L accelerator. Frigate NVR. Build notes
  2. Reolink cameras Outdoor cameras, alerts filtered by zone.

My equipment, and the system I maintain for a friend, drawn as a rack. Select a unit to read about it.

Projects

  • Home server

    RHEL 10, since September 2023

    A RHEL 10 server running about a dozen containers, each on its own LAN address through a macvlan network. Pi-hole answers DNS for local .lan names, and Caddy serves every service over HTTPS with certificates from a private CA. I moved it from Ubuntu to RHEL so I use RHCSA skills every day.

    Built with RHEL 10, Docker Compose, Caddy, Pi-hole, macvlan, NetworkManager, firewalld, SELinux, KVM, Cockpit, Tailscale

  • Camera NVR

    Frigate, at home and for a friend

    Cameras with object detection that runs locally. For a friend, I built a Raspberry Pi 5 NVR with a Hailo-8L that handles their outdoor cameras at about 10 ms per inference, and I maintain it remotely. At home, a second instance runs a YOLOv9 model on the Intel iGPU through OpenVINO. Alerts fire only for people inside chosen zones, and my own face is filtered out before anything reaches my phone.

    Built with Frigate, Hailo-8L, OpenVINO, YOLOv9, go2rtc, frigate-notify, ntfy, Caddy, Tailscale

  • IronCard

    Self-hosted app

    A workout tracker built with Claude, which I deploy and run as a container on the home server. Its port is bound to localhost only, so the only way in is through Caddy, which adds HTTPS and a login. I reach it from my phone over Tailscale.

    Built with Docker Compose, Caddy, basic auth, private CA, Tailscale

  • Plant monitor

    ESP32-C3, version 2

    Started as an ESP8266 reading one soil sensor and pushing a moisture check to my phone. Version 2 runs on an ESP32-C3 with four soil sensors, a temperature and humidity sensor, and a relay-driven pump that waters the plants automatically.

    Built with ESP32-C3, ESP8266, DHT22, relay and 12 V pump, Arduino, ntfy, Caddy

  • This site

    GitHub Pages

    Plain HTML and CSS published from a GitHub repository to a subdomain of my own domain, with DNS in AWS Route 53. Built while learning git, and kept free of internal details.

    Built with HTML, CSS, git, GitHub Pages, AWS Route 53

Experience

Enterprise IT support and endpoint management for Windows and macOS users in banking and corporate environments. Bilingual in English and Spanish.

  • Service Desk Analyst

    First Republic Bank · New York, NY
    2019–2023

    • Supported 9,600+ Windows and macOS users in a banking operation under strict SLAs.
    • Managed Active Directory accounts and Intune group assignments, deployed software with SCCM, and ran and adapted existing PowerShell for AD queries and reporting.
    • Led a ServiceNow knowledge base consolidation: audited, rewrote and standardized hundreds of articles and ticket templates.

  • Desktop Support Analyst

    Solix Inc. · Parsippany, NJ
    2016–2018

    • Supported 1,000+ users and built and maintained workstation images with Ivanti.
    • Administered Active Directory, Group Policy and Exchange mailboxes.

  • Network Technician (Contract)

    Goldman Sachs HQ, via Greenlite Networks · New York, NY
    2016

    • Racked Cisco routers and switches and worked overnight maintenance windows: repatching and floor-to-floor cable runs.
    • Installed, terminated and tested Cat5/6 structured cabling.

  • Advanced Repair Agent

    Geek Squad, Best Buy · New Jersey
    2014–2016

    • Diagnosed and repaired 20+ computers and devices a day: component-level hardware, OS installs and data migrations.

Certifications and education

  • Jamf Certified Tech Jamf Pro
  • Jamf Certified Associate Jamf Pro
  • Jamf Certified Associate Jamf Protect
  • RHCSA Red Hat Certified System Administrator, in progress
  • IT Certificate Mesa Community College, 2025–2026

What I work with

Endpoints and identity
Active Directory, Group Policy, Exchange, Intune, SCCM, Jamf Pro and Protect, Ivanti imaging, ServiceNow, PowerShell (running and adapting existing scripts).
Linux
RHEL 10, Ubuntu Server, Raspberry Pi OS. systemd, cron, journald, dnf, apt, subscription-manager, git.
Networking
NetworkManager and nmcli, systemd-networkd, macvlan, static addressing, Pi-hole DNS, AWS Route 53, Tailscale, WireGuard.
Containers
Docker Compose, external and per-stack networks, gluetun VPN sidecars, Portainer, Watchtower.
Security
firewalld, UFW, SELinux file contexts, Caddy with a private CA, basic auth, SSH keys.
Storage and VMs
ext4, LVM, fstab options, SMART checks, USB storage quirks, KVM and libvirt storage pools, Cockpit.
Edge video and hardware
Frigate, Hailo-8L, OpenVINO, VAAPI and Quick Sync, go2rtc, ESP32-C3, ESP8266 and Arduino.

Contact

LinkedIn and GitHub