this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Hey everyone, I'm looking to get into self-hosting as a bit of a hobby, host some websites and learn a bit more about sys-admin stuff.

I just wondered if anyone had any recommendations on or experiences with green/sustainable hosting services?

It's a bit far-fetched but I remember a website I found a while back that was fully hosted using solar energy (yes it went down at times).

Thanks for any help!

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

It's a bit far-fetched but I remember a website I found a while back that was fully hosted using solar energy (yes it went down at times).

Was it this one?

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/

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

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/

I adore that website, and its sibling No Tech Magazine.

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

I'm hosting al my services on an old Android mobile with termux. Power consumption is ridiculous, not 100% sustainable but it is very low power. You could add solar panels and you're done. In terms of performance, mainly for family use, I've never had an issue once I plugged it to an ethernet port.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Mind telling us more about this please? What services are you running and how? Docker?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No Docker unfortunately, it would require either to recompile the mobile Kernel or use QEMU and I believe it would have a big impact on the performances. Basically this time the approach was: what can I do with an old mobile without rooting or anything. Hardware:

  • Samsung S20
  • USB3 to Ethernet & charger port
  • 128GB SD card

Sofrware:

  • Termux (android app)
  • SSH (OpenSSH in Termux)
  • Rclone (in Termux)
  • Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Prowlarr (in proot-distro)
  • Transmission (in proot-distro)
  • Kavitha (in proot-distro)
  • Podgrab (in proot-distro)
  • Ombi (in proot-distro)
  • ntfy (in proot-distro)
  • Filebrowser (in proot-distro)
  • Vaultwarden (in proot-distro)
  • Homer with lighttpd (in proot-distro)

Since I wasn't able to install .NET Runtime in Termux directly, I used the proot-distro (Ubuntu) and inside I've installed all the services. Services are started manually every time I restart the proot-distro (unfortunately I'm getting an error when installing Termux:Boot), it's a simple script so I'm not dying over it. To keep the proot-distro alive I launch is with the screen command so I'm ensuring persistence even when the terminal is closed.

It's not a clean solution like docker etc. but I'm consuming 5 or 10Wh of energy every day which is close to nothing and probably sustainable with a solar panel.

Every once in a while (basically when the SD is almost full) I transfer the files with rclone to an external drive where I consolidate the files.

Oh extra tip, with rclone you can create a DLNA server so you can serve the files you have download immediately (tested with VNC and Kodi)

The phone/server has still room (CPU & RAM) to go and possibly I could install HomeAssistant without any issue. Also I could add Joplin and Floccus using webdav for storage as I had in my previous server but I don't miss them.

Any other questions, doubts, scripts, feel free to ask!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Were you able to use the phone Bluetooth in HomeAssistant?

(Or do you not have access to interfaces like that with proot-distro? I'm not at all familiar with it..)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Unfortunately I didn't give it a try.

I tried HA Bluetooth presence detector on my PC some time ago with not so good results and since that time I didn't gave another go.

I saw a Termux-bluetooth package so it could be a feasible thing.

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

Solar panels, inverter that works with HomeAssistant that tells your UPS to turn off your server when your batteries are low.