how to repurpose your old phone into a web server

Summary

back to home how to repurpose your old phone into a web server this webpage is hosted on a drawer-bound fairphone 2 from 2015, running postmarketos in this tutorial you will be guided through the steps taken to get there you will end up with a small home server, able to run basic services we aim to reduce e-waste, encourage reuse and give a second life to forgotten chips you will need an unused android phone a charger and power source a wifi connection a computer running linux (natively or in a virtual machine) step 1: installing postmarketos first step is installing postmarketos on your phone find your device in the devices page and verify that your device is properly supported keep that page open throughout the installation install pmbootstrap, the main command-line application for postmarketos we'll first generate the image, then flash it to the device generate the image update the ports and initialize your device information: $ pmbootstrap pull $ pmbootstrap init when asked for the codename for your device, provide the one listed in your device's page you opened above when asked for which user interface to use, you can choose console (which should be the most minimal option) or fbkeyboard to have a minimal keyboard on-screen (which you shouldn't have to use thanks to ssh, but just in case, it's fun) generate the image: $ pmbootstrap install flash the image check your device's page for how to boot your device in flash mode usually this means powering the device on with the "volume down" button pressed connect the phone into your computer and boot it in flash mode next, check the Installation section of the page and follow any instructions listed there finally, if you have not already, flash the image to the device: $ pmbootstrap flasher flash_rootfs then, reboot the device and verify that postmarketos starts-up correctly step 2: setting up your server now that your phone is postmarketos'ed, let's log into it the default postmarketos username/password combination ...