Vladimir Ermakov
IaaS Engineer
I build and run infrastructure: clouds (OpenStack), networks and the Linux underneath them. Before my current role as an IaaS engineer I spent eight years at an OpenStack vendor, going from senior engineer to development team lead and solutions architect.
Robotics is where I started. In 2013 I created MAVROS, the bridge that lets PX4 and ArduPilot drones talk to ROS, and I still maintain it. At home I tinker with OpenWrt, microcontrollers and home automation.
I have lived in Belgrade since 2022. I still love road cycling, though this year I’ve ridden much less; these days my favourite escape is flying FPV in Bosnia.
Latest notes
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obserwrt: flow export on OpenWrt after netobserv, pmacct and softflowd
Three ready-made flow exporters in five days, the reasons none of them stayed, and the bumps on the way to my own eBPF exporter: ucode that isn't JavaScript, a C++ rewrite, netlink and MAC addresses mistaken for IP. -
Backing up OpenWrt hosts and their VMs to Proxmox Backup Server
pbs-helper and qemu-instance-init: host backups, a procd init script for QEMU guests, and consistent backups of running VMs. -
siphon: getting CloudNativePG's WAL from a bucket into Proxmox Backup Server
Moving apps to Kubernetes took their databases out of my PBS backups: CloudNativePG archives WAL into a bucket on the same Ceph. Why rclone didn't fit, and the bumps in building my own tool on Proxmox's crates: no crates.io, no tags, an S3 client that drops headers, and a snapshot the web UI couldn't open.
Experience
- 2025–IaaS Engineer
- 2017–2025Solutions Architect, Development Team Lead, Senior Software Engineer — OpenStack vendor
- 2012–Freelance software and electronics engineer
- 2011–2012Software developer, industrial automation
Projects
MAVROS 2013–
MAVLink extension for ROS and ROS 2, used to fly PX4 and ArduPilot vehicles from ROS. Author and maintainer.
CamWRT 2014–2015
OpenWrt port for TI DaVinci DM36x IP cameras, plus chip debugging tools. Early work, never finished.
Home automation
Smaller tools for my own home — ESP8266/ESP32 OTA server, water meter to MQTT bridge, Home Assistant integrations.
Old blog 2008–2010
In Russian: robots, microcontrollers, Linux — TermiTiger, ORFA, ST-Boot, HgAdmin…