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How to repurpose your old phone into a web server

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Related ongoing thread: This blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem (2021) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46049981

If the device can run PostmarketOS with a mainstream kernel, then it can run any Linux distribution. (I put Arch ARM on such devices, since I like that distro.)

That's the big hurdle though - mainstream kernel support.

For most devices, even if they can be rooted and jailbroken, you're stuck with the kernel they come with. Doesn't have a new feature you need? A horrible security flaw in the network stack? You're out of luck. Most "repurpose your old phone" approaches have this problem. You can make it a server but you wouldn't want to expose it to the public Internet.

2 months agoby retrac

The thing that holds me back from this is always the battery. I want to have my battery removed so that it doesn't eventually become a time bomb, but it's a pain on modern phones and I'm not even sure if they boot without. The mobile hardware reuse space can suck for hobbyists.

2 months agoby jjice

I tried this once a few years ago.. had half a dozen Samsung Android phones running an SSH daemon with some functionality that could be remotely accessed. However, what I learned is that phones generally don't like to run 24/7 as servers. They start giving you trouble after a while, never figured out why.

But I suspect it's just the "always on" nature and the battery. The usage pattern is just entirely different than having a phone in your pocket and using when you need it.

You're welcome to try though, maybe phones got more reliable.

2 months agoby sgt

All my old phones used to become BOINC nodes doing WorldCommunityGrid or seti@home, at least until we got to the point where you couldn't run the phone without a battery anymore. Came home to one too many spicy pillow'd phones even keeping them in a cool area with a rigged up fan blowing on them.

2 months agoby officeplant

Call out to World Wide Web (no affiliation) that sets up a web server on an iOS/iPadOS (€9.99 for PRO, https://apps.apple.com/it/app/worldwideweb-mobile/id16230068...)

2 months agoby qubex

This sounds like a fun project. A perfect use for an old android phone sitting in the junk drawer.

2 months agoby dinkleberg

For some reason, I never buy phones that work with postmarketOS :( And I find phone naming confusing, it's difficult to find a used one locally to play with. Is it a Moto Play 2018 or a Play 2020? Trying to get that information from someone on Facebook marketplace is like pulling teeth.

2 months agoby _whiteCaps_

Inspired by this, went to look into how much performance I can squeeze and turns out Qualcomm software practices are so bad that I can’t do much but accept old software.

It sounds like Qualcomm has to do everything from scratch on their hidden Linux software for every new chip.

2 months agoby vjerancrnjak

Related ongoing thread:

This blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem (2021) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46049981

2 months agoby dang

Title should be updated to include "unused android phone"

2 months agoby clueless

Don't even need postmarketOS.

Simple root, with a custom degoogled rom, and termux is all you need.

2 months agoby ActorNightly

I have an old iPhone XS lying around with a broken digitizer. Basically, it's recording phantom touch events all the time, making it unusable. Though the screen itself, camera, CPU etc. are all working fine.

Any ideas what I can do with it to give it some purpose?

2 months agoby leobg

It's through this link that I today discovered that a surface RT can run Linux. I think I got rid of mine already. Would have been nice to breathe some life into it

2 months agoby bdbdbdb

This sounds more like "How to add more devices to a botnet."

Exposing a port isn't exactly a safe thing to do nowadays, and I'd be wary of the security posture of an "old phone". Proceed with caution.

2 months agoby mixologic

There is a much easier way to do this without renting a VPS or anything. If you download and install the Localtonet application from Google Play or Termux, it is very easy to do.

2 months agoby justmee

For some reason I was expecting a RasPi in a rotary phone enclosure.

2 months agoby layer8

so once you have a web server on the phone how are you able to make it available publicly on the internet? don't ISPs detect these and ban? are you using wireguard or something like that?

ive been looking to build and serve my own servers and i have been considering to use old android phones to outright racks but the part I am still struggling to figure out is how to serve it publicly without ISP catching on as they require business plans for that and its not cheap

2 months agoby agentifysh

With proot-distro under Termux, you can also run a container with proot-docker script.

Right now you have to find a skopeo binary for your arch, but that's WIP.

2 months agoby zoobab

I use my old phone to proxy serial data to tcp. Also gives me macros and a video/audio feed. But most relevant to this is it has a built in webserver.

2 months agoby Jemm

Should be merged with: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46027554

2 months agoby denysvitali

Nothing beats my toaster serving my webpages.

2 months agoby shevy-java

psa: remove the battery just in case

2 months agoby guluarte