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?
You must log in or register to comment.
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).
I’m assuming your phone has to be rooted for this right? Or is docker running without root? I didn’t realize anything like this was possible. This is interesting.
Nipe! Not rooted. In a VM though
I’ve never tried it on Android, but running Docker in rootless mode is doable, and is encouraged for security reasons. https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/rootless/
Lmao this is amazing. The future is now…
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?
Oh man that’d be super cool. An ARM cluster of androids would be awesome. Battery backups built in!
Debian is supposedly coming to android. That would be cool.
That’s Debian in the screenshot
Oh nice! I can’t see very well on phone.
With the latest release of android it now supports some Linux functionality.
Wait, it does? Gonna have to check that out.
Early alpha, but yea it’s full on Linux in Android. Quite slick
Dope, seems to not have landed yet in LineageOS but the Terminal app is already installed. Just missing the toggle in the developer options.
Is it an app I should be able to just find in my installed apps or do I need to enable it?
Because as of now (Pixel 7, Android 15) I can only find Termux.You have to be on the March update, then go to Developer options -> Linux environment, and enable it. Then ‘Terminal’ will appear in your apps drawer.
latest release of android
Does that mean 15?
Yea kinda. Android is switching to quarterly releases, so my phone now says “Android 15” but this was QPR2 specifically
“Android 15” but this was QPR2 specifically
How can we bring that to a real world (read: cheap Chinese) phone?
Not sure, but if LineageOS supports it, that should be all you need
Thanks. My phone is on 14 and won’t get another update, oh well.
my friends complaining that my plex server because I left my phone on the bus and it ran out of charge
The lines between mobile device and server get blurred even more.
Tbh a laptop is a “mobile” device
It’s a server with integrated UPS and KVM console.
Except for that time I took out the battery because it was swollen and took the screen off to help with cooling. At least I still have my K and M
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! :)
Unfortunately, from trying this myself, I don’t think you can forward port 53 to the Android host, so that won’t work (easily). It seems that privileged ports aren’t allowed to be forwarded.
I do it. It has be DOT and you have to have a valid cert.
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
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
Just installed arch with chroot on my old rooted phone a week ago.
Seeing this is great because it means there’s no need to complicated workarounds or even root access! Plus the distro runs natively and not with difficulties like with chroot :D
Native in what sense? As I understand it that uses a VM of some sort
You’re right actually it’s not native I don’t know what I’m on about 😅 Still it’s much easier to have a baked in terminal app than having to install proot on top of termux, hopefully it will have less of a performance impact than proot as well.
The change maker feature would be to arrive home and plug your phone in a dock station and have a desktop to use as a pc
I have a Steam Deck dock specifically for this. Except the mouse comes up on the phone screen instead of the monitor. Weird bug.
But then how would I look at my phone while using my Desktop.
I’ll need a dummy phone to doom scroll on.
This has been supported on Samsung devices for years - it was first added to the Galaxy S8 (2017). It’s called Samsung DeX. You can plug a phone or tablet into a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and it gives you a full screen experience.
They have docking stations, but you can also just use a USB C hub.
I’ve been talking about this for years! I got the idea from razer but I’m imagining the laptop chassis adds a nice screen, enormous battery, better IO, and then it just uses the touch screen as the track pad.
It could be so cool
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.
The VM eats through the battery, that’s the only hangup I have with this. Otherwise that’s a fantastic idea.
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
There are root apps that can limit battery charge level. If you have an older phone that’s rootable, I would look into that.
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
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.
these are the times when I get jealous, as an iOS user
I dont know how you can stand using iOS. Its just so unintuitive, theres no back button and I can’t even figure out copy/paste.
Copy paste is easy. You just tap on the, no wait you tap on the, fuck hold on. You tap, there we are, on the word and hold until it highlights. No wait hold on. Fuck. There we are. Ok now you tap on the highlighted word to copy, fuck wait Ah fuck it just type it again yourself
I feel this. My work phone is an iPhone 12, and typing is a pain compared to Android.
Haha my feelings exactly, I can work in Linux cli and program rust with ease, but I can’t copy and paste on an iPhone.
I wish all the logs at my company were as beautiful as these terminal logs
Please no. I can’t grep that. (Nor ingest it to splunk for more powerful searching.)
