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!

  • @knFEnglish
    4•2 years ago

    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!

    • @abominable_pandaEnglish
      2•2 years ago

      Thats so cool! Thank you. I’ll defo be looking in to that

    • CaptainBlagbirdEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      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…)

      • @knFEnglish
        2•1 year 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.