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Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

colaptop.pages.dev

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Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#251

Post by literalAardvark »

simoncion wrote: post #246
literalAardvark wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I meant k0s. Off by one error at 3 am. There are a couple of things here: first off, minikube isn't tuned for low resources, it's a full k8s packaged for developers. Second, it doesn't burn much CPU at all unless you blew it up and it's churning pods. Third, try to remember that you're running a tool that provides most of what you need to run a service, it's not a bare VM, it comes with reverse proxy, tons of t…

> ...it doesn't burn much CPU at all unless... You noticed that I said "(intermittently) half of the CPU power", yeah? > Third, try to remember that you're running a tool that provides most of what you need to run a service... I already get everything that I need to run a service with old-ass systems like OpenRC+netifrc or -hack, gag- systemd and its swarm of dependencies. "Run a service on a *nix box" is a thing tha…

Hey I'm not arguing that you in particular shouldn't use old tech for fun. Heck serve your emacs written internet website via nc from your Amiga for all I care.

I'm just pointing out that it's easy and sufficiently efficient to run k8s on old computers, which makes running homelabs quite easy and also allows projects such as the OP to really shine. You seem to really enjoy telling me how bad it is that k8s needs 0.05 CPU and 500MB of RAM to run but the thing is it will scale horizontally a lot, and also presents the APIs you'll be expected to know in a devops job in 2026.

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#252

Post by me-vs-cat »

StableAlkyne wrote: post #250
me-vs-cat wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't look off. What looks off is showing you don't know how copyright works by blindly putting the current year.

While this is certainly a creative way to interpret the copyright notice's date, I believe most people look at it as a "last updated" sort of thing.

Yet your earlier comment said "200x-$currentYear" not "200x-$modifiedYear" in reply to someone automatically inserting the year. That shows a misunderstanding of copyright AND an intent to mislead when you believe others view it as last updated.

You're better off omitting it entirely in generated web pages. No one cares unless they don't understand copyright, the year shown isn't the current year, and they're already looking to find fault. In other words, for those that treat it as last updated, they must already be struggling to find value when they scroll to your copyright notice, and at that point, after feeling the page looks stale, is seeing the current year going to change their mind?

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#253

Post by StableAlkyne »

me-vs-cat wrote: post #252
StableAlkyne wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is certainly a creative way to interpret the copyright notice's date, I believe most people look at it as a "last updated" sort of thing.

Yet your earlier comment said "200x-$currentYear" not "200x-$modifiedYear" in reply to someone automatically inserting the year. That shows a misunderstanding of copyright AND an intent to mislead when you believe others view it as last updated. You're better off omitting it entirely in generated web pages. No one cares unless they don't understand copyright, the year shown isn't the current year, and they're already…

I'm not sure what the point being made here even is, beyond arguing just to argue?

It does not matter in the US whether you use the current year or last modified date. At worst, omitting a date entirely makes it easier for the other guy to claim "innocent infringement", which only reduces your damages. Show me one US court case from this century where the tail of a date range had a material affect on the outcome.

Moreover, it is an objective fact that people use the current year and the modified year in web pages being written today. And based on the comment that kicked this whole chain off, clearly people are using it as a signal of when the page was changed.

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#254

Post by trklausss »

jve wrote: post #134
trklausss wrote: post #133

What's the difference between this and 1. setting my laptop at home and 2. connect it through Tailscale? I lose ownership of my laptop, you install whatever software you want on it (with the security risks that it conveys) and in turn "you let me connect to my computer"?

Well connectivity (speed) and energy stability may be 2 of them (your internet may go down along with electricity). Or look at it another way: you wanted to buy/rent a server you intended to put in datacenter anyway. Now you can do the same with laptop.

Jokes on you I got a 20kWh backup UPS on the entire house.

Now on a serious note: internet can go down anywhere, even for them. There is nowhere stated that, if your old hardware misbehaves, you can use others, and there are privacy concerns with running your stuff on their software stack… So I don’t see a huge advantage honestly.

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#255

Post by danesparza »

bombcar wrote: post #49
whalesalad wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tons of places do mac mini colo, https://www.macminivault.com/mac-mini-colocation/

Marco tells us that if you have 48 Mac minis, buy them yourself and rent a rack.

I'm pretty sure a rack will fit 84 mac minis. :-)

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#256

Post by kube-system »

me-vs-cat wrote: post #205
StableAlkyne wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like pseudolegal folklore (in the US at least). Do you have any actual examples where this affected a case? In the US, you get copyright on your work automatically, with or without a label. The only thing a label does in the US is defend against "innocent infringement" defenses. But even that defense doesn't absolve the other party from liability; you just can't recover as much. There is no reason you can…

You're right that the notice is effectively useless for such web pages. And if it doesn't matter, then why bother to put anything?

1. Some people aren't up to date on copyright law. Before 1989 you did need to put a copyright notice to get copyright protection in the US

2. Copyright law varies in other countries

3. Many laypeople just cargo-cult legal tropes without understanding them

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#257

Post by reincoder »

reincoder wrote: post #82

I work for IPinfo and we operate a distributed network consisting of around 1,400 servers. I think we have reached a point where it is extremely hard for us purchase VPSes from interesting ASNs. To support lots of ISPs, universities, and different organizations we have been asking them if they have an old laptop lying around that they can host our software on. Goal is to reach 70,000 probes within the next couple of…

  ---
  Edit to my parent company
  ---
I am scaling back this enthusiasm a bit. We need to work with mature organizations instead of individuals.

We need SSH through a public IP address and use Ubuntu as an operating system. Since we need to determine where these servers are located, we need to collaborate with universities, various organizations, IXP, DCs, telecom/ISP consulting companies with a mature understanding of network engineering.

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#258

Post by matt-p »

qmr wrote: post #242
matt-p wrote: post #173

I am surprised a serious facility would be happy having 100 old LiPo batteries in a rack. That is a (nasty) fire waiting to happen IMO. These are old batteries that may even have minor physical damage from being dropped and will be in maybe a ~25-30c environment.

Laptop batteries are lithium ion not lithium polymer.

Sometimes, but usually polymer these days. e.g the most popular laptop is probably a macbook https://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-air/specs/
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