this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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Android Self hosting (lemmy.world)
submitted 15 hours ago by Dust0741@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
41 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

With the latest release of android it now supports some Linux functionality. I got docker installed simply by following Docker's docs.

Any thoughts or uses for a mobile homelab? What would be useful to have mobile?

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[–] node815@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Maybe your own adblocker, I thought about doing that myself, I use the public one from adguard on my phone (dns.aguard-dns.com) but having it on your own device would be pretty slick perhaps. But thinking about it more, Google wouldn't just let you use an internal IP for the private DNS. I have tried it with my locally hosted adblocker and it rejects it.

Or you could set up a dashboard like Homepage or Dashy, or Flame or ? Ultimately, your imagination would do! :)

[–] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 11 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

With the latest release of android it now supports some Linux functionality.

Wait, it does? Gonna have to check that out.

[–] Dust0741@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Early alpha, but yea it's full on Linux in Android. Quite slick

[–] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 2 points 8 hours ago

Dope, seems to not have landed yet in LineageOS but the Terminal app is already installed. Just missing the toggle in the developer options.

[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 12 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

my friends complaining that my plex server because I left my phone on the bus and it ran out of charge

[–] perishthethought@lemm.ee 3 points 8 hours ago

The lines between mobile device and server get blurred even more.

[–] muelltonne@feddit.org 6 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

What is the current wisdom about having an android device always plugged in? Some people say that it will kill and pillow the battery, but does it really?

[–] Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

The trick of retrofitting any battery powered device into a wired one is to remove the battery. No matter what, Li-ion batteries cannot sustain permanent power. Expensive adapters and new Androids can regulate power well, as can automations, but the best worry-free option is battery removal.

Edit: I've just remembered Fairphone, they're bossing the mobile repair ability front and have removable batteries like pre-2012. Could get one of those

[–] GrumpyDuckling@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

In the past people used tasker to charge at a certain threshold. Check with homeassistant people to see what they do.

[–] Dust0741@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

I don't know. I think they are pretty good at managing battery, and have a new setting for maxing it out at 80% charge, but I don't think I'd put it near anything expensive for years on end.

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

latest release of android

Does that mean 15?

[–] Dust0741@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Yea kinda. Android is switching to quarterly releases, so my phone now says "Android 15" but this was QPR2 specifically

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

"Android 15" but this was QPR2 specifically

How can we bring that to a real world (read: cheap Chinese) phone?

[–] Dust0741@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Not sure, but if LineageOS supports it, that should be all you need

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

Thanks. My phone is on 14 and won't get another update, oh well.

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 3 points 8 hours ago

I can see my 5 year old android mobile struggling being a suitable self hosting machine... (Because of the battery).

But not gonna lie, having it working as a more advanced travel router connect to Tailscale sounds like a neat idea (which I think it is already possible? The other day I saw the client app that supports subnet routers? I just haven't tried it, and it has a disclaimer that it drains the battery... So I didn't end up doing that at that moment when I was away).

[–] ashaman2007@lemm.ee 33 points 15 hours ago

Lmao this is amazing. The future is now...

[–] tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden 17 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

That's cool! I've always had the idea of a small k3s cluster on old phones with postmarketOS. I guess it doesn't work with older phones which don't have the latest Android Version but given the homelab trend generally goes towards small, low power devices, this could continue the trend with super small and low power phones. Probably in 2 years when current gen phones rotate out of company leasing contracts?

[–] Dust0741@lemmy.world 12 points 14 hours ago

Oh man that'd be super cool. An ARM cluster of androids would be awesome. Battery backups built in!

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 10 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Debian is supposedly coming to android. That would be cool.

[–] Dust0741@lemmy.world 23 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

That's Debian in the screenshot

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 4 points 13 hours ago

Oh nice! I can't see very well on phone.

[–] neatobuilds@lemmy.today 3 points 11 hours ago

Get steam-headless running on there

[–] shadowtofu@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

While this is very exciting, I just tried it, and the network connectivity seems to be broken. No IPv6.

[–] Dust0741@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Hmm I was messing with its networking. External vpns break stuff on GrapheneOS. Its internal IP was 192.168.0.2, and my network is different.

[–] shadowtofu@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 9 hours ago

Yes, Linux is running in a VM, and the network interface is a virtualized veth interface connected to a host bridge. The host android system has IP address 192.168.0.1, and this network interface is called avf_tap_fixed (as seen from termux).

[–] confuser@lemmy.zip 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

How do we activate this feature? I have it enabled after going into the developer settings menu but nothing seems to happen, I see mentions of an app but idk what the app is. I am on grapheneOS though instead of normal android so there could be something with that here.

Oh nvm I figured it out, it just took a bit for me to realize there was a new terminal app on my phone

[–] OR3X@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

That’s super cool! I’ve been wanting to setup an offsite backup rig at my parents place and using an old phone to run it would be super ideal but I just don’t have any hardware that’s compatible with postmarketOS. Maybe one day ill bite the bullet and just buy a compatible used phone to do it with.

[–] knF@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Impressive! Can you please link the instructions you followed?

Some time ago I was hosting the full ARR suite, bitwarden, AdGuard etc, but it was usually a mess with direct installs. With docker it might be worth revisiting it.

My only advice, buy a usb-ETH dongle, it will make a huge difference in stability

[–] Dust0741@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/debian/#install-using-the-repository

That's it lol. To turn on the terminal, it's a developer option for now, and is very alpha, just search for Linux in settings after turning on dev mode

[–] Selfhoster1728@infosec.pub 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Just installed arch with chroot on my old rooted phone a week ago.

Seeing this is great because it means there's no need for complicated workarounds or even root access! Plus the distro runs natively and not with difficulties like with chroot :D

[–] Tiuku@sopuli.xyz 3 points 12 hours ago

Native in what sense? As I understand it that uses a VM of some sort

[–] shyguyblue@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Oh nice! I'd love to run an ad blocker/dns/reverse proxy on something with a little more beef than the Pi zero I've got now.

Jellyfin and or Pi zero does not like streaming through the video.local address I've got setup, so i have to use IP address to get anything without stuttering.

[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

pi zero for streaming is insane not gonna lie. What sort of resolution do you stream it at?

A decently newish phone would blow even a pi 5 out of the water I bet. Modern GPU drivers from snapdragon or mediatek plus core designs that arent 7 years old out of the factory would be a godsend for low-watt homelabbers

[–] shyguyblue@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Dang, I just realized I didn't explain the setup well enough:

An old laptop runs the Jellyfin server, but the Pi runs the reverse proxy. For some reason, trying to use the reverse proxied address causes problems, but connecting directly to the laptop via IP address and port runs fine.

I tried a Jellyfin server with a pi 2 or 3 and it couldn't serve more than one client at a time. So i imagine a zero wouldn't even be able to load the app, much less serve anything :/

My main reason for running my DNS/ad block/nginx through the zero, sometimes the laptop goes down, freezes, or fails to clear the transcodes folder, so having that stuff separate keeps at least part of the network running.

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

The VM eats through the battery, that's the only hangup I have with this. Otherwise that's a fantastic idea.

[–] shyguyblue@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

If I trusted the battery tech more, I would use an old phone. But I've had one of those white plastic Mac books hooked up to power so long, the battery swelled out of its enclosure :/

Maybe there's a way to disconnect the battery, or an app that switches off charging, so it drains enough to keep that from happening

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

There are root apps that can limit battery charge level. If you have an older phone that's rootable, I would look into that.

[–] shortrounddev@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I wish all the logs at my company were as beautiful as these terminal logs

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Please no. I can't grep that. (Nor ingest it to splunk for more powerful searching.)

[–] shortrounddev@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

If its an application I run locally, I rarely grep logs (they're small enough that I can just ctrl+f). If it's something running in production with millions of lines of logs, then I agree