tradicije

Update! Apparently removing the battery also removes half the CPU lol.

I’ll keep you posted!

Part 3: They said a phone can’t run without a battery. Unfortunately, Pettyl didn’t get the memo.

This post is an update of the second part of my Moto server series: lemmy.zip/post/72142441

Rumor has it that keeping an 8-year-old phone permanently plugged in with its equally ancient Li-ion battery might not be the greatest idea ever conceived.

Some even claimed that a phone needs a battery to work.

Very negative people.

Anyway, I removed it.

Pettyl did not care.

nginx: UP PHP-FPM: UP MariaDB: UP WordPress: UP cloudflared: UP sshd: UP

The battery is currently sitting next to the phone, contributing absolutely nothing to the project.

Pettyl is now running entirely from USB power, at around 37°C, while continuing to serve the website like this is completely normal.

There is, however, one tiny detail the haters may enjoy:

It can’t boot without the battery.

So the official Pettyl disaster recovery procedure is now:

1. Insert battery
2. Boot Pettyl
3. Connect USB power
4. Remove battery
5. Pretend this is enterprise infrastructure

The battery is no longer a battery.

It is the starter motor.

I see no problems with this architecture.

Anyway, Part 3 is going great.

update: Now you can leave your thoughts on the website, as @autriyo@feddit.org suggested, and I loved the idea so much I had to implement it immediately.

Note: No personal information is required. Visitor statistics use an anonymous browser identifier, and the guestbook only stores what you choose to submit.

Update: I turned my old Motorola E5 Play into an actual WordPress server

We did it boys! Battery is no more: lemmy.zip/post/72181546

This post is a follow-up to my original post: lemmy.zip/post/71885626

Surprisingly, it wasn’t that tough to set up.

My original plan was to install postmarketOS and turn the phone into a proper tiny Linux server. Unfortunately, my Moto E5 Play is the pettyl variant, while the available postmarketOS port is for james. I decided that turning the phone into a brick probably wasn’t an essential part of the project.

So I went with Termux instead.

It’s now running nginx, PHP, MariaDB, WordPress, SSH and cloudflared directly on the phone. Everything starts automatically on boot, and I even made a tiny WordPress plugin for anonymous Today / Total / Online visitor stats.

And yes, the website is being served by the exact phone in the photo.

1 GB of RAM. Somehow this thing is now a production server.

I named it Pettyl, after the device codename.

You can actually visit it at moto.dimitrium.org.

The website is barebones, I plan to push it to the limits. Also, this project will soon be available on my GitHub page github.com/tradicije

Next problem: figuring out how long an old Motorola can tolerate my bullshit.

Thank you everyone for commenting on this, I didn’t expect this much feedback!

I will go ahead and start this project with an old phone, not sure yet which phone, and I’ll document everything and give you an update soon!

Home server on old android phones?

Update is here: lemmy.zip/post/72142441

Hey guys, since I got into hosting my own servers, any electronic device I see I wonder - can it become a server?

This is probably not a crazy and new idea with android phones, but I had to share it with you. If you don’t know, there’s this thing called postmarket OS, full linux experience on an android phone.

Of course, not all phones are supported, but a phone like Galaxy Note 9 is a great candidate - it supports LAN over usb, postmarket OS fully supports it (the Exinos version) and setting up a phone as a selfhosted server has it’s real perks. Pis got really expensive, not to mention they don’t have a built-in UPS (phones have batteries), they use slow SD cards, while phones have faster UFS memory, phones draw way less power.

What do you guys think? I will for sure get a used Galaxy Note 9 and explore this idea, and if all goes well, I might even buy more of them and create a cluster.