A huge upshot to using a laptop is you have a built-in UPS and KVM.
You don't need to blur the private address. No one here is going to be on your private network.
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
232 points (97.9% liked)
Selfhosted
58328 readers
725 users here now
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
-
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
-
No spam posting.
-
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
-
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
-
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
-
No trolling.
-
No low-effort posts. This is subjective and will largely be determined by the community member reports.
Resources:
- selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
- awesome-selfhosted software
- awesome-sysadmin resources
- Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
...is what They^tm^ wants you to believe.
Trust no one, always wear your tinfoil hat and don't take vaccines.
~this message was sponsored by the darwin awards committee and the illuminati~
Trust no one, always wear your tinfoil hat and ~~don’t take vaccines~~.
I'd say 'Never Trust/Always Verify', however I wouldn't say that was tinfoil hat territory. More just common sense. As far as never getting vaccines, all one has to do is go to Reddit and look up the 'Herman Cain Award' subredit to read about people who didn't get vaccines because DumbFuck Donny told them there was nothing to worry about. We are almost to the point of a measles pandemic in the US now and COVID rages on in it's new form of Cicada.
It's all about exaggerated escalation to make it clear that im joking.
_this message was sponsored by the darwin awards committee
And this part also carries some weight towards the joking part
Sorry, COVID is a sore spot for me. My lady friend was a nurse of 40 years who's career was cut short by it. She now has long COVID, and will for the rest of her life. Not because we thought COVID was bullshit, but because 70 million other dumfuck rednecks thought it was.
If it isn't 192.168.1.0/24 then you should blur it. Mine is completely random and I keep it to myself.
Why?
I use a 2015 MacBook pro. The screen was busted so I removed it and disabled the lid switch. Works great.
Downside to laptop as your homelab: got that spicy pillow now permanently plugged in. Maybe consider pulling out the battery.
I also have a 2015 MBP lying fallow in my closet. Do you have any suggestions for turning it into a server? Are you using MacOS still or have you installed something else?
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| CF | CloudFlare |
| PSU | Power Supply Unit |
| SSD | Solid State Drive mass storage |
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 5 acronyms.
[Thread #222 for this comm, first seen 8th Apr 2026, 19:10] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Here are some acronyms the bot missed:
KVM: Keyboard, Video and Mouse UPS: Uninterruptible Power Supply
If you're curious what I'm running on here, it's mostly containers plus one VM for Docker. (I've made my dislike for Docker as a distribution platform known elsewhere on here and this is why).
Most are various wikis that I'm testing, MediaWiki, Bookstack, DokuWiki, PmWiki, An Otter Wiki, DocMost.
it only works as a UPS if you periodically discharge the battery. My first "server" was a compaq laptop, I had used it for years and then reprovisioned it to Ubuntu Server, after 2 or 3 years of 24/7 if you unplugged it at all it just instant died because keeping it 100% charged all the time killed the battery.
Naively I assumed that anything in the last decade or so with a battery already has some sort of battery management system that regulates this stuff to help prolong battery lifespan, but maybe I'm wrong.
Yea, which is a fair expectation, but it's not a safe assumption. Verify it does before prolonged use. Make sure its well ventilated(heat is killer to batteries as well), and that some form of BMS is present on the system, and that it's enabled because some have the system but have it disabled by default.
one should cap the battery at 70% or smth if keeping it connected 24/7
I'm not sure that all laptops support capping, and I'm not sure if Panasonic ToughBook supports the drivers necessary to cap. I guess you could deploy TLP and check sudo tlp-stat -b
it's not a toughbook and idk how to configure it but my letsnote cf-rz6 came with the battery charge capped at 80%, maybe it can be configured with their windows tool (or the acpi call made by that tool). i already have linux on it so can't check tho..
Thanks for reminding me i have a craptop in storage thst i can use for a server.
If it still turns on, it still has an use!
My wife's 10 year-old Chromebook has spent the last few years as my Linux laptop that I keep tucked away next to the bed for those "oh shit, did I remember to do x on the server" moments.
a* use, jfyi
You are right. But I actually don’t know why… I was told (as a non native speaker) that „an“ is always used when the next word starts with a vocal. But „use“ seems to be an exception.
English is complicated bro. I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you are multi-lingual, you've got more going for you than most Americans. In general, use "a" before words that begin with a consonant sound. Use "an" before words that begin with a vowel sound.
If it starts like "you" (universe, unity, ...) then it's just "a" 🤜🤛
Thanks too! Was in a similar situation as B0rax.
No biggie:)
Thanks!
Ya welcome:)
It's weird but "long U" is pronounced /ju/ so even though it's a vowel letter it starts with a semivowel.
If it doesn't, it can still be a paperweight!
Which is a use by definition.
if a craptp is useful it's not crap anymore heh
Lol. Craptop. I named my old laptop that.
Kinda like my dentist ist named Crentist.
This is the way to do it in my opinion. There is always an old computer laying somewhere in your house.
I had one active a good while back. To quote Buddy Guy '..ain't nuthin' wrong with that.' Hell, I have a 15 year old, self build computer. I use it daily. It works, and pretty well too.
If you haven't already, I'd see if you can run it sans battery, just power cord. Reason being, old laptop batteries can be a hazard. They can swell and burst, they can over heat,. In some cases, they can become a fire hazard. Best to be safe.
If you've already done so, then awesome , and ignore the second paragraph. Is this your first foray into selfhosting?
I have a machine that’s 12 years old, I built it back in the early 2010s. I have some extra video cards laying around so I slapped a 2080 in and it’s now a dedicated Beat Saber machine (I don’t touch Facebook or Google code on any device with PII, so I’ve really missed playing Beat Saber.)
It runs at 90+FPS no matter the song, and it’s got about 500 songs so far. I love that machine soooo much.
When I built mine, I purposefully spent the $$ for a long term service machine and stocked it with all the cutting edge tech of the day in it like SLI which was wildly popular then, maxed out the mobo with RAM to 96 GB, etc. It's no modern gaming machine, but it will handle most anything you throw at it.
Niiiiice! I did SLI 7900GTs when Crysis came out and it ran at like 40+ FPS even with explosions on screen! It cost me an unholy amount…
the machine I now use for Beat Saber wasn’t as crazy as the Crysis machine: it’s an i5-4790k, 16 or 32GB DDR3, and a couple SSDs. I replaced its 1070 just because I had a better card laying around. I hope it works well for many years to come! It’s also SOMEHOW inexplicably powered by a 500w bronze semi-modular PSU that seems like it’s going to go on forever into eternity… I hope so, it’s been so good to me!
Ideally see if you can do a battery charge limit. Lithium batteries are happiest around 40-60% charge. If you can limit it that low then you keep your built in UPS, don't risk the CPU running at a crawl, and the battery is happy. Even just the normal 80% that good laptops offer will be sufficient.
load more comments
(2 replies)
some machines restrict cpu clock speed if there's no battery fyi. my 2008 macbook does this
I can tell you live somewhere with cheap electricity
laptops are pretty power efficient tho
Not 15 year old laptops. Like that's 32nm Sandy bridge or even older
Wouldn't take much to implement a solar panel to run it tho.
i use many sandy bridge laptops (mostly xx20 thinkpads) and they seem pretty ok to me. newer machine is probably much more efficient but these machines are not that power hungry compared to desktops.
Why do you say that?
Which model toughbook?
CF-53
I bought it used from Amazon about 5 years ago, so it hasn't been in my possession the whole time. It was likely used enterprise/industrial stock. Judging by how one of the modifier keys is stuck it was well-used. The seller replaced the original hard drive with an SSD and the battery may have been replaced as well.
Prior to becoming my home lab it was my ham shack computer running win 10.
view more: next ›