Selfhosted

40296 readers

491 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.

Resources:

selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
awesome-selfhosted software
awesome-sysadmin resources
Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

101

The future of selfhosted services is going to be... Android? (packmates.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

105 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The future of selfhosted services is going to be... Android?

Wait, what?

Think about it. At some point everyone has had an old phone lying around. They are designed to be constantly connected, constantly on... and even have a battery and potentially still a SIM card to survive power outages.

We just need to make it easy to create APK packaged servers that can avoid battery-optimization kills and automatically configure an outbound tunnel like ngrok, zerotrust, etc...

The goal: hosting services like #nextcloud, #syncthing, #mastodon!? should be as easy as installing an APK and leaving an old phone connected to a spare charger / outlet.

It would be tempting to have an optimized ROM, but if self-hosting is meant to become more commonplace, installing an APK should be all that's needed. #Android can do SSH, VPN and other tunnels without the need for root, so there should be no problem in using tunnels to publicly expose a phone/server in a secure manner.

In regards to the suitability of home-grade broadband, I believe that it should not be a huge problem at least in Europe where home connections are most often unmetered: "At the end of June 2021, 70.2% of EU homes were passed by either FTTP or cable DOCSIS
3.1 networks, i.e. those technologies currently capable of supporting gigabit speeds."

Source: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/broadband-coverage-europe-2021

PS. syncthing actually already has an APK and is easy to use. Although I had to sort out some battery optimization stuff, it's a good example of what should become much more commonplace.

cc: @selfhosted
#selfhosted #selfhosting

(page 2) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Just for shiggles, I setup and ran a minecraft Java server on an old phone for a little while. I did this through Termux.

It was surprisingly good.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Counterpoint: spicy pillows

I was going to host pihole on an old android until I noticed it getting quite warm while continuously connected to power. Realised I didn't know the lifespan of the battery and didn't want it tp start a fire.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'd rather use a real OS, thank you

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

@Wander @selfhosted Unlikely, the biggest issue android devices have is hardware support due to the ARM CPU architecture. It's just not as useful as old x86 hardware, you're stuck with old outdated and vulnerable firmware. My opinion is that one of the selling points of ARM hardware for device vendors is it's relative impossibility to get open source driver support. You may see some use of Apple M1 and M2 simply because it's a smaller FOSS support target, but android devices vary too much.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Wander @selfhosted I in fact already use android for syncthing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

@AMS @selfhosted yes, hopefully we'll see an explosion in self-hostable alternatives that can be installed as easily as syncthing.

load more comments