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!

  • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/

    Is likely the one you meant.

    Most professional data-centers will claim some sort of eco lable or running on 100% renewable, at least in Europe, but that means little if they still use a lot of electricity and thus displace other consumers to fossil fuel power.

    The most sustainable is to host on a low powered device from home. We have a community with a special focus on that here: https://slrpnk.net/c/selfhosting

  • knF@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’m hosting al my services on an old Android mobile with termux. Power consumption is ridiculous, not 100% sustainable but it is very low power. You could add solar panels and you’re done. In terms of performance, mainly for family use, I’ve never had an issue once I plugged it to an ethernet port.

      • knF@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year 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!

        • CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.worldEnglish
          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…)

          • knF@lemmy.worldEnglish
            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.