Flashing the Lily58 R2G with QMK

a2n — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 14:36:46 +0000

Lately I got a Lily58 R2G (from mechboards uk) and broke the code for some reason. So to fix that I have to flash the keyboard with the default layout for Vial.

The process is not so hard, but the lack of clear examples can lead to lost time and errors, so here is the full to-do:

The first step is quite simple: you have to install QMK MSYS exactly as described here at step #2: https://docs.qmk.fm/newbs_getting_started#set-up-your-environment
After having QMK MSYS installed, the next step is to set it up, but not from the original repo, instead from the MechboardsLTD one (https://github.com/MechboardsLTD/vial-qmk/tree/r2g/keyboards/mechboards/lily58/r2g). For that we have to execute the following command: qmk setup MechboardsLTD/vial-qmk. If this command doesn't work, another solution is to execute qmk setup, then clone the repository and use the clone to set up QMK with qmk setup -H path/to/the/clone
Here we need to switch to the r2g branch with a good old git checkout r2g (obviously you have to be in the repository to do that)
To test that everything is correct, you can execute this command and check if the result lists mechboards/lily58/r2g: qmk list-keyboards | grep mechboards
If everything is correct, you can now edit the config file if wanted and then build the uf2 file with qmk compile -kb mechboards/lily58/r2g -km vial
In my case, the uf2 file was generated in the root folder of the vial-qmk repository we set up at step 2
When you have this file, you have to plug the main part only of the keyboard into your PC while pressing the bootloader physical button located at the back of the board, the button is here:

While pressing the button and plugging in the keyboard, a new USB device should appear on your system, the name should be RPI-RP2. If this is the case, you simply have to place the uf2 file in the folder and the keyboard should reset itself
Unplug the keyboard, replug the right part, replug the keyboard and voilà :)

VPN, Docker, and a cold coffee

a2n — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 09:35:42 +0000

Today I had a hard time understanding why my VPN was connected but I couldn’t reach my DB sitting just behind it.

Very simple situation:

you launch your PC, coffee’s hot
start your VPN
open your code and do some stuff
need to check something in a tool protected by the VPN
hu ho, why can’t I reach the site?
check the VPN logs — nothing weird
double-check the VPN config
recreate a VPN user
try with another Wi-Fi
coffee’s cold

Then I reboot my PC, connect to the VPN… and suddenly the site works.

Why that?

"Simply" because of Docker! More specifically: Docker networks.

When I launched Docker, it created a network using the same IP range as my VPN.

We can confirm the problem with a few commands.

ip route show (while connected to the VPN) gives us an idea of the VPN’s IP range.

If we run it after launching Docker, we’ll usually see something like 172.17.0.0/16 to 172.11.0.0/16 for Docker.

You can double-check with ip addr:

172.17.0.0/16 dev docker0 proto kernel scope link src 172.17.0.1 linkdown

Next, if needed, we can find which Docker network is using which IP by listing all networks with docker network list and inspecting them using docker network inspect {network_id}.

In the resulting JSON, look at the subnet and gateway keys to identify which network is conflicting with your local one.

If you created the network manually, you can simply edit your config.
If not (like in my case), we can take a more general approach by updating Docker’s configuration itself.

Open (or create) /etc/docker/daemon.json and edit the default-address-pools key:

{
  "default-address-pools": [
    {
      "base": "172.240.0.0/16", // choose any IP range you prefer
      "size": 24
    }
  ]
}

Before restarting Docker, run docker network prune to remove all unused networks from your setup — those can still hold onto old IPs even after changing the config.

If the prune doesn’t remove the “bad” network, you can delete it manually.

Finally, restart Docker (eg: systemd): systemctl restart docker

And voilà — now I just need to reheat my coffee, but at least my setup works! ☕

Forem: a2n

Flashing the Lily58 R2G with QMK

VPN, Docker, and a cold coffee