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

  • bustrpoindextr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    9 months ago

    Pass, I’ll take the cluster of raspberry pis for the same cost… For the purpose of self hosting my cluster is going to out perform your x86. Like why are you going to spend hundreds of dollars for an x86 that will do fine when you can spend $50 for a pi that will also do fine?

    Then you can just cluster those pis and get redundancy

    • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
      121·
      9 months ago

      You’ve got it backwards, a small x86 box is more cost effective for better performance. With a raspberry pi you’re paying for the form factor (and often scarcity)

      • bustrpoindextr@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        9 months ago

        You’ve got it backwards. A small x86 is a hundreds, and a rpi is 50… Like come on… Cost for performance isn’t even a question…

        Y’all… I thought you’d be better at tech than Reddit… this is sad

        • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
          41·
          9 months ago

          You can get a wyse thin client on eBay for $50, and if you’re clustering the pis it’s not $50 anymore, so you can get a real computer on woot in the $150 range.

          Either of those options will run circles around a pi/pi cluster.

          • MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            holy shit I haven’t thought about that webside in over a decade. Do you have personal experience purchasing self hosting stuff from there?

            • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
              21·
              9 months ago

              I’ve bought a couple old SFF PCs and tablets from there for low powered workstation stuff.

              For self hosting I end up with rack mount dell servers when the prices fall off a cliff; right now it’s the 13th gen stuff that’s super cheap.

          • bustrpoindextr@lemmy.worldEnglish
            14·
            9 months ago

            Please learn to read. Again. I thought I wasn’t on Reddit anymore.

            $50 for a pi. Not for clustering. For one. That’s it.

            An X86 PC is gonna cost you hundreds. That’s how I can cluster rpi, for the same cost. I hope you now know how to do basic math.