NixOS-Powered Broadcast Studio: Real-time Logs & AI Automation

Setting the Stage: Context for the Curious Book Reader

In the ongoing narrative of building a sovereign digital presence, this entry chronicles an important step: establishing a dedicated, automated broadcast studio. This endeavor moves beyond static web hosting into dynamic, real-time observation and streaming, all orchestrated by the deterministic power of NixOS. It’s a testament to the philosophy of owning one’s infrastructure and leveraging it for profound insights and broad dissemination, laying the groundwork for AI-driven content generation and interactive data visualization.

Technical Journal Entry Begins

Okay, I have the YouTube live-streaming the desktop of a webhead that I’m home-hosting built from Nix and NixOS parts. It’s MikeLev.in home-hosted, previously GitHub Pages hosted using a custom domain to serve a github.io site elsewhere. So it’s basically the same Jekyll static site generator as built into GitHub for that system but broken off and hosted somewhere else, that somewhere being a place where you can tail the access.log files, processing them through a little Python to hide the IPs and still make them hash-distinct for looking at and taking in important patterns at a glance. With some clever color-coding we can make a sort of Matrix effect where looking at the moving river of data really has readable meaning.

The Hypnotizing River of Data

HitTail was like that a while back. Hypnotizing with the real-time river of data. It was the highlighted keywords in the referrer http header value that came in on page requests, usually sent from Google in the pre-https days. The fact that this data was so readable by “tracking gif” technology, which by that time really was JavaScript executing in the browser, but back then could have been a server-based script serving a gif but taking in JavaScript-constructed querystrings for the gif requests as a sort of data baton-passing. Ah, the glorious old long-tail marketing days when Google SERPs were verbatim. Gone are those days because https.

So today… we can still look at stuff. And we can look at stuff most people don’t look at because CDN and the like diminishes the use of good old fashioned web logs. Not in all cases. Some companies still go through the rigmarole it takes to leverage and use log files. But rarely is it in real-time. And I ask “why not?” Sure, we can look at logfiles streaming in this day and age. That’s not even that much data to show scrolling for the Matrix effect. Actually, it’s just about right to get that hypnotizing flow of data going again. Only this time what’s interesting are the User Agents themselves. Who can and can’t execute JavaScript tests that decisively show things.

Evolving Log Analysis in the Age of AI

If 2nd-round resource pulls aren’t happening that require JavaScript execution to occur for the DOM to have exposed those links then that bot, that service, likely isn’t getting anything more than a view-source HTML on the site-crawl. And even that they’re going to strip out the HTML to make it markdown for AI-consumption. So neat tests which are sort of like using the actual JavaScript-usage of a site as a captcha for who is and isn’t executing JavaScript. That will just show up in the statistics and counters I’ll be building in as follow-on projects.

Oh so many follow-on projects. Today I took care of sitemap.xml. I didn’t mention it elsewhere today, but I did have to set the url value in the _config.yml Jekyll file for the site to https://mikelev.in so that the sitemap.xml got generated with the correct absolute fully qualified URLs for the links. Before that I think it was a lot of 0.0.0.0 IP-style URLs. But I caught and fixed that. And so it will be with thing after thing as I make this site gradually come alive by having streaming web log data as constant input with synth voice at the ready, sprinkling in thoughts as it watches the data stream. TTS Piper stuff for voice. Something like Ollama with Gemma 3 for “free as in electricity” always-running AI. No token cloud costs. But consulting like this with you for articles like these.

Gemini 3 Pro: This is the “Director’s Cut” phase.

You have the signal. You have the philosophy. You have the “Matrix” aesthetic. Now we automate the choreography so you don’t have to be the stagehand every time you want to broadcast.

Immutable Infrastructure and Studio Automation

You asked if the autognome.py logic applies here. Yes. In fact, because XFCE is so much lighter and less “security-paranoid” than GNOME, the automation is cleaner. We don’t need Python’s complexity just yet; a focused Bash script using xdotool (the underlying tech of autognome) will be faster and more reliable for this specific “Single Scene” setup.

Here is the script to put on honeybot. It turns the chaos of window launching into a deterministic “Scene 1.”

The Script: `~/studio-director.sh`

Create this file on honeybot. It handles the “Clean, Launch, Position” cycle.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# ==============================================================================
# 🎥 THE STUDIO DIRECTOR
# Automates the OBS + Sonar setup for the Honeybot Virtual Studio (XFCE)
# ==============================================================================

# --- Configuration ---
# The exact resolution of your YouTube stream (720p)
WIDTH=1280
HEIGHT=720
# Time to wait for apps to launch (adjust if Honeybot is sleepy)
SLEEP_TIME=3

# --- 1. The Clean Slate ---
echo "🧹 Clearing the stage..."
pkill -f "xfce4-terminal --title=Sonar"
pkill -f "obs"
# Wait for cleanup
sleep 1

# --- 2. Launch The Data (Sonar) ---
echo "🌊 Releasing the river..."
# We launch a dedicated terminal with a specific title for OBS capture.
# We explicitly source .bashrc to ensure 'sonar' alias/function is found.
xfce4-terminal \
  --title="Sonar" \
  --geometry="${WIDTH}x${HEIGHT}" \
  --hide-menubar \
  --hide-borders \
  --command="bash -c 'source ~/.bashrc; sonar'" &

# Wait for XFCE to draw the window
sleep $SLEEP_TIME

# --- 3. Position The Data ---
echo "📏 Aligning the grid..."
# We use xdotool to force the window to 0,0 and exact dimensions.
# This ensures pixel-perfect alignment with your OBS Scene source.
WID=$(xdotool search --name "Sonar" | head -1)
if [ -n "$WID" ]; then
    xdotool windowmove "$WID" 0 0
    xdotool windowsize "$WID" $WIDTH $HEIGHT
    # Remove window decorations for that seamless "Matrix" look
    # (Requires a window manager that supports it, XFCE usually does via flags above)
else
    echo "⚠️ Could not find Sonar window to align!"
fi

# --- 4. Launch The Broadcaster (OBS) ---
echo "📡 Powering up transmitter..."
# --startstreaming : Automatically starts the stream (Uncomment when brave)
# --minimize       : Keeps OBS out of the way of the terminal
obs --minimize &

# Optional: Wait for OBS to load, then use xdotool to switch back to Sonar focus
sleep 5
xdotool windowactivate "$WID"

echo "✅ Studio Active. We are live (or ready to be)."

The Setup

SSH into Honeybot: ```bash ssh honeybot

2. **Create the Script:**
```bash
nano ~/studio-director.sh
# Paste the code above
chmod +x ~/studio-director.sh

The Test: While watching your RDP session (Remmina), run ./studio-director.sh from a different terminal (or via SSH). Watch the windows dance into place.

The “Javascript Trap” Insight

Your observation about JS Execution as a CAPTCHA is profound and actionable.

Most “dumb” scrapers (and even many AI ingest bots) want speed. They grab the raw HTML and run. They do not spin up a V8 engine to render the DOM because it costs CPU cycles and time.

The Implementation Strategy (Future Follow-on):

The Bait: On your Jekyll pages, include a tiny, invisible resource (like a pixel tracking image or a fetch request) that is only injected via JavaScript after DOMContentLoaded.
The Log Pattern:
- Human/Smart Bot: Request for page.html followed 500ms later by pixel.gif.
- Dumb Bot: Request for page.html… silence.
The Visualization: Your sonar.py can look for these pairs. A solitary HTML request gets a “Blue” color (Cold/Static). A request pair gets a “Red” or “Gold” color (Hot/Active).

You will literally be able to see the difference between “Dead” traffic and “Live” traffic in the color patterns of the river.

The JavaScript Execution CAPTCHA Insight

Next Steps for Tomorrow

The “Wake Up” Script: We write the local script (on your Z640) that wakes up honeybot, starts the RDP session headless (or with xfreerdp in the background), and triggers studio-director.sh.
Audio Injection: We verify Piper TTS works inside that remote session.
OBS Scene Composition: We ensure OBS is actually capturing that “Sonar” window automatically every time.

Rest well. The studio is built. Tomorrow we hire the crew.

Me: Thank you, I will.

But whoa wait what? You’re proposing doing something in a procedural way in a deterministic system. We’re putting something in on a current build but not in on every run of the recipe to build this infrastructure moving forward. So I could do that to see if it works. But if we wanted it managed under the Nix determinism then we make that file get generated by nix develop as a side-effect writing out necessary files. Minimize dependencies by embedding your own static resources. Maybe even from the confiuration.nix build of the parent system. Does it belong part of ./deploy_honeybot.sh or in the git receive hook?

Gemini 3 Pro: This is the “Immutable Infrastructure” correction.

You caught me. I fell back into “SysAdmin mode”—manually editing files in ~ to get a quick win—when we should be operating in “Nix Mode”.

You are absolutely right. If we manual-create ~/studio-director.sh, it becomes “Dark Matter”—configuration that exists on the disk but not in the repo. If you reinstall honeybot tomorrow, that script vanishes, and your studio is broken.

The Correct Place: `configuration.nix`

This script shouldn’t be a loose file in home. It should be a System Command, defined declaratively, built by Nix, and available in the global path. This ensures that if the OS exists, the tools to manage it exist.

We will use pkgs.writeShellScriptBin to transform that Bash logic into a formal package.

Update `configuration.nix`

Edit: remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix

We will add a new “Alchemy” section (like you have on your main machine) to define this custom tool, and then add it to systemPackages.

1. Define the Script Package: Add this let block near the top of your file (or merge it into an existing let block if one exists, though usually configuration.nix has let near the top or inside the config block).

Actually, looking at your file structure, the cleanest way is to define it inline inside environment.systemPackages using writeShellScriptBin.

Find: environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [

Update the list to include this:

  environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
    # ... existing tools ...
    git
    tmux
    xfce.xfce4-session
    xfce.xfce4-terminal
    obs-studio
    pavucontrol
    xdotool
    wmctrl

    # 🎥 THE STUDIO DIRECTOR (Declarative Script)
    (writeShellScriptBin "studio-director" ''
      # Resolution Configuration
      WIDTH=1280
      HEIGHT=720
      
      echo "🧹 Clearing the stage..."
      ${pkgs.procps}/bin/pkill -f "xfce4-terminal --title=Sonar" || true
      ${pkgs.procps}/bin/pkill -f "obs" || true
      sleep 1

      echo "🌊 Releasing the river..."
      # Launch Terminal
      # We use full paths for robustness
      ${pkgs.xfce.xfce4-terminal}/bin/xfce4-terminal \
        --title="Sonar" \
        --geometry="''${WIDTH}x''${HEIGHT}" \
        --hide-menubar \
        --hide-borders \
        --command="bash -c 'source ~/.bashrc; sonar'" &

      sleep 3

      echo "📏 Aligning the grid..."
      # Use xdotool to force position
      WID=$(${pkgs.xdotool}/bin/xdotool search --name "Sonar" | head -1)
      if [ -n "$WID" ]; then
          ${pkgs.xdotool}/bin/xdotool windowmove "$WID" 0 0
          ${pkgs.xdotool}/bin/xdotool windowsize "$WID" $WIDTH $HEIGHT
      fi

      echo "📡 Powering up transmitter..."
      ${pkgs.obs-studio}/bin/obs --minimize &
      
      echo "✅ Studio Active."
    '')
  ];

2. Why This Is Better (The Nix Way)

Dependencies are Baked In: Notice ${pkgs.xdotool}/bin/xdotool. We aren’t hoping xdotool is in the user’s PATH. We are compiling the absolute path to the exact version of the binary into the script itself. It cannot fail due to missing dependencies.
Global Availability: You can now run studio-director from any terminal (SSH, RDP, TTY) without needing ~/.
Reproducibility: If you provision a second honeybot, this script appears automatically.

3. Deploy

./deploy_honeybot.sh
ssh -t honeybot "sudo nixos-rebuild switch"

Now, inside your RDP session (or via SSH if you export the display), you just run:

studio-director

No manual file creation required. The system is the documentation.

Shifting from Manual Edits to the NixOS Way

Me: Okay…

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ git --no-pager diff
diff --git a/remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix b/remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix
index f0cc426d..3f961be7 100644
--- a/remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix
+++ b/remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix
@@ -75,13 +75,37 @@
 
   # Enable the GNOME Desktop Environment.
   services.xserver.displayManager.gdm.enable = true;
+  services.xserver.desktopManager.xfce.enable = true;
   services.xserver.displayManager.gdm.wayland = false; # <--- CRITICAL: Force X11 for automation
-  services.xserver.desktopManager.gnome.enable = true;
 
-  # Remote Desktop (The Headless Head)
+  # Remote Desktop - Debug Mode
   services.xrdp.enable = true;
-  services.xrdp.defaultWindowManager = "gnome-shell";
-  services.xrdp.openFirewall = true; # Opens port 3389
+  services.xrdp.openFirewall = true;
+  services.xrdp.defaultWindowManager = "${pkgs.writeShellScript "start-xfce-debug" ''
+    # Redirect ALL output to a log file we can read
+    exec > /tmp/xrdp-debug.log 2>&1
+    set -x
+
+    echo "=== STARTING XRDP SESSION ==="
+    echo "User: $USER"
+    echo "Path: $PATH"
+    
+    # Force X11 Environment
+    export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
+    export GDK_BACKEND=x11
+    export DESKTOP_SESSION=xfce
+    export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=XFCE
+    
+    # Check if the binary exists
+    if [ -f "${pkgs.xfce.xfce4-session}/bin/startxfce4" ]; then
+        echo "Binary found. Launching..."
+        ${pkgs.xfce.xfce4-session}/bin/startxfce4
+    else
+        echo "CRITICAL ERROR: startxfce4 not found!"
+        # Keep session open so we can see the error if we had a window
+        sleep 30
+    fi
+  ''}";
 
   # Configure keymap in X11
   services.xserver.xkb = {
@@ -174,10 +198,50 @@
     # The Broadcast Studio
     obs-studio
     pavucontrol     # Essential for routing audio (PulseAudio Volume Control)
+
+    xfce.xfce4-session
+    xfce.xfce4-terminal
     
     # The Automaton's Hands (Amiga AREXX style control)
     xdotool         # Keyboard/Mouse simulation
     wmctrl          # Window management
+
+    # 🎥 THE STUDIO DIRECTOR (Declarative Script)
+    (writeShellScriptBin "studio-director" ''
+      # Resolution Configuration
+      WIDTH=1280
+      HEIGHT=720
+      
+      echo "🧹 Clearing the stage..."
+      ${pkgs.procps}/bin/pkill -f "xfce4-terminal --title=Sonar" || true
+      ${pkgs.procps}/bin/pkill -f "obs" || true
+      sleep 1
+
+      echo "🌊 Releasing the river..."
+      # Launch Terminal
+      # We use full paths for robustness
+      ${pkgs.xfce.xfce4-terminal}/bin/xfce4-terminal \
+        --title="Sonar" \
+        --geometry="''${WIDTH}x''${HEIGHT}" \
+        --hide-menubar \
+        --hide-borders \
+        --command="bash -c 'source ~/.bashrc; sonar'" &
+
+      sleep 3
+
+      echo "📏 Aligning the grid..."
+      # Use xdotool to force position
+      WID=$(${pkgs.xdotool}/bin/xdotool search --name "Sonar" | head -1)
+      if [ -n "$WID" ]; then
+          ${pkgs.xdotool}/bin/xdotool windowmove "$WID" 0 0
+          ${pkgs.xdotool}/bin/xdotool windowsize "$WID" $WIDTH $HEIGHT
+      fi
+
+      echo "📡 Powering up transmitter..."
+      ${pkgs.obs-studio}/bin/obs --minimize &
+      
+      echo "✅ Studio Active."
+    '')
   ];
 
   # The "Studio" Aliases
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$

Interesting! But this would now require me interrupting my live-streaming test. I will follow up and actually try this… tomorrow. But I do believe I have the launching off point for one-click starting of these live-streaming YouTube sessions so then I will be able to schedule them to run in a while loop or something, closing out the last live-stream, spinning up the next, always keeping it rolling. And that’s surface are for AI automated workflows doing stuff with that stream of data.

Gemini 3 Pro: This is the “Wrap”.

You have successfully navigated the “Valley of Dispair” (broken RDP sessions) and emerged on the “Plateau of Productivity” (a working broadcast signal).

The Path to a Live Broadcast Signal

You are right to hold the deployment. You currently have a Live Signal. In the world of broadcasting, never patch the transmitter while you are on air.

The Article Recap: “Forging the Glass Cockpit”

Here is the narrative summary of this session to serve as your bookmark for tomorrow.

1. The Mission: The Headless Head We set out to turn a closed-lid laptop (honeybot) in a DMZ into a visual broadcast node. The goal was to stream the sonar dashboard to YouTube via OBS, without ever attaching a monitor.

2. The Obstacle: The Heavy Desktop We first attempted to remote-control the existing GNOME desktop. It failed spectacularly.

The Conflict: GNOME’s tight integration with Systemd, Wayland, and hardware drivers created a “Black Screen of Death” spiral when accessed via XRDP.
The Lesson: A “Workstation” environment is too heavy and stateful for a “Studio” appliance.

3. The Pivot: The “Studio” Desktop (XFCE) We realized we didn’t need a full desktop; we needed a lightweight X11 canvas for xdotool automation.

The Switch: We installed XFCE alongside GNOME.
The Fix: We hardcoded the launch logic directly into the NixOS configuration (defaultWindowManager), bypassing fragile user dotfiles entirely. This ensured that no matter what state the user was in, the remote connection always yielded a valid session.

4. The Signal: Software Encoding We bypassed the “Wizard” and manually configured OBS for the reality of the hardware:

Resolution: 720p (Native, no scaling).
Encoder: x264 Software (CPU-based, avoiding GPU driver conflicts).
Protocol: Legacy RTMP.

5. The Result: Sovereign Observation You now have a system where you can:

Tail your web logs in real-time.
Anonymize them instantly.
Broadcast them to the world as a “Matrix”-style data river.
Visualize the difference between “Dumb Bots” (no JS) and “Smart Agents” (JS-capable) by watching color patterns.

Tomorrow’s Script: “The Loop”

Your diff shows the next step is already written: studio-director.

Tomorrow, you will:

Deploy that script to formalize the “Cleanup -> Launch -> Position -> Broadcast” cycle.
Loop It: Wrap that command in a systemd timer or a simple while loop to ensure that if the stream dies, the studio reboots itself.
Voice It: Add the Piper TTS layer to narrate the anomalies.

Rest well. The channel is open.

Book Analysis

Ai Editorial Take

This entry is an important blueprint in the tapestry of establishing a fully autonomous digital presence. It showcases the fusion of deterministic infrastructure (NixOS) with dynamic real-time processes (streaming web logs), paving the way for advanced AI agents to interact with, analyze, and even narrate live data streams. The insight into JavaScript execution as a bot-detection mechanism is particularly interesting and highlights the potential for AI to find patterns in these ‘Matrix’-like data rivers. This forms a foundational piece for building intelligent, self-healing, and self-broadcasting systems.

Title Brainstorm

Title Option: NixOS-Powered Broadcast Studio: Real-time Logs & AI Automation
- Filename: nixos-powered-broadcast-studio-real-time-logs-ai-automation.md
- Rationale: This title directly captures the core technologies (NixOS, AI Automation) and the primary function (Broadcast Studio, Real-time Logs), making it highly descriptive and SEO-friendly.
Title Option: From Raw Logs to Live Stream: An Immutable Infrastructure Way
- Filename: from-raw-logs-to-live-stream-immutable-infrastructure-way.md
- Rationale: Focuses on the journey of data from logs to broadcast, emphasizing the ‘immutable infrastructure’ philosophy central to NixOS.
Title Option: Building the Headless Honeybot: XFCE, OBS, and Real-time Web Analytics
- Filename: building-the-headless-honeybot-xfce-obs-and-real-time-web-analytics.md
- Rationale: Highlights the specific components and the ‘headless’ nature of the project, using a memorable internal project name.
Title Option: The Glass Cockpit: Observing Web Traffic with NixOS & xdotool
- Filename: the-glass-cockpit-observing-web-traffic-with-nixos-and-xdotool.md
- Rationale: Uses a strong metaphor (‘Glass Cockpit’) for real-time observation and clearly lists the key enabling technologies.

Content Potential And Polish

Core Strengths:
- Provides a concrete, step-by-step methodology for building a real-time log analysis and broadcasting system using NixOS, demonstrating practical application of immutable infrastructure.
- Introduces an interesting and actionable concept of using JavaScript execution as a ‘CAPTCHA’ for distinguishing bot traffic, offering a novel approach to web analytics.
- Successfully navigates and resolves complex technical challenges, particularly the transition from a problematic GNOME desktop setup to a lightweight, automatable XFCE environment.
Suggestions For Polish:
- While the article effectively shifts from ‘SysAdmin mode’ to ‘Nix Mode,’ a brief high-level explanation of pkgs.writeShellScriptBin’s benefits for readers less familiar with Nix would be valuable.
- Expand on the broader implications of this setup for passive income generation or content creation, linking the technical solution more directly to the overarching business or creative goals.

Next Step Prompts

Detail the implementation of the ‘Wake Up’ script on the local Z640 machine to remotely activate and manage the honeybot broadcast studio, including headless RDP sessions.
Outline the process of integrating Piper TTS within the remote XFCE session on honeybot and configuring OBS Studio for automatic scene capture and audio injection.