You could host a Tor relay node (or an i2p node). These networks need crowd and bandwidth.
this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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Assuming your server is indeed public facing, try endlessh-go. It’s a tarpit that wastes time/resources of bots/scanners/skiddies
Oh that looks fun. Gonna try that, thanks.
How about hosting an ADS-B receiver, tracking nearby air traffic. It doesn’t serve any practical purpose other than participating in the crowd sourced network that feeds sites like FlightAware and FlightRadar24 (and you get a free subscription by participating)
Yep, I set mine up last weekend.
Used a nice Racknex rackmount kit to put a Raspberry Pi with SDR in the rack, and a little LCD display on the front that cycles through the details of aircraft currently in range - so it also serves the important purpose of Blinkenlights.
I'm fortunate to live close to two international airports (one small, one big) and under a reasonably busy flight corridor as well, so plenty of planes to spot - light aircraft, helicopters and military all the way up to A380s.
@mko I have one. Lots of fun. Made with a Raspberry Pi 0. Lots of plans online. It sits on my windowsill. Tiny! It feeds those two commercial flight tracking sites as well as others. Here is a link to the software for web interface to your ADSB receiver.
https://romm.app/ - Self hosted game ROM manager that lets you play retro games directly in the browser (using RetroArch cores compiled to WebAssembly).
https://retroassembly.com/ is a similar project.
There's also https://gamevau.lt/ which is like a self-hosted version of Steam, for DRM-free games (like from GOG).
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I haven't done it in a few years but I used to run my own weather model. If fed the correct data and given time to crunch the numbers, several times a day you can create your own weather forecast that is probably (hopefully) similar to the freely available forecasts from the weather service, TV, radio and apps.
Which input data is required? Is it hard to setup?
It's been a few years but I don't remember it being too hard to set up. I did it on slackware, compiling everything from source, so anybody should be able to do it on a distro with dependency resolution.
They provided a zip file that is updated every so often (hourly?) and contains data for your specific region. I just used that. It does have an option that people can use their own data, but I think it's because most NWS offices run this model in addition to the national models they get from upstream. No normal person has enough input data to be useful.
I setup the IT-Tools mostly for fun. I've only used it a couple of times, but it's a swiss army knife of small practical tools.
Oh I like
Game servers? https://linuxgsm.com/. Have an Unreal Tournament 99... tournament with friends.
What a fuckton of ads and shit on that website...
Feels awesome and a cool project to self host but visiting that URL makes me puke
Pi-hole and Firefox with UBO, I saw no ads
My pihole disagrees.
I went to see this F-ton of ads and I did not see poop! Maybe it is time you look at investing in pihole?
Much more fun to use linuxgsm and docker, also a bit easier in my personal opinion... https://github.com/GameServerManagers/docker-linuxgsm
Oh that's cool, thanks.
thats an awesome suggestion @dan@upvote.au +1
they have cs, as well.
@OP post your server IP, I'll come play
You could run a BBS! Synchronet and Enigma both have Docker images available.
It's really the epitome of a pointless endeavor, but it also gives you an entirely new kind of system to learn, tinker with, and customize.
Forgive my negligence, but what is a BBS?
Back in the olden times, before the WWW came along and the internet exploded, you'd fire up your modem and dial into other computers. Bulletin Board Systems.
They would typically host some local forums, files to download, private messaging, and some online games. Larger ones might have a chat room. As time went on, networked forums got popular. Mostly text interfaces, but ANSI graphics and menus were common.
It was really the best.
Setting one up to be accessible via telnet is a fun little project. Install a couple of doors (games) like Legend of the Red Dragon, Pimp Wars, Usurper and just have fun.
Ohhhhh that sounds very interesting! I might just have to set one up for my server!
A similar but not quite as retro endeavour would be hosting a Hotline server.
I miss the days of dialing your local BBS
It was the best of times, it was the w... nope. Just the best.
A fediverse instance obviously.
I've actually been wondering how feasible it might be to set up a Lemmy or piefed server just for me. Is it frowned upon in the fediverse to essentially have a "vanity" url for an instance no one else can join? How difficult would it be to manage blocklists/federation without a team like the large instances have? Would there be an issue with instances refusing to federate with a single user instance?
It's not a big deal, but a single user instance has some issues with discoverability as it will only show communities you personally have subscribed to.
I'm running a Minecraft server for me and my sibling, and it's been fun. I managed to get GeyserMC and Floodgate working so that Bedrock edition clients (i.e. their tablet) can connect to the world.
Little silky that there's no Linux version of Bedrock edition to be honest, but it's in Microsoft's interest to keep Windows as the only option that can run both editions.
No Linux Minecraft bedrock got me and my wife to switch to Hytale instead. Get F’ed MicroSlop.
Might want to check out Village Story too, believe its a bit more mature in age, as in the game has been out for longer.
I know that one, once we get bored of Hytale we will check it out. So many new experiences now competing with Minecraft audience.
Depending on the specs of your server/VPS you could run a modded Minecraft server. Back in the day I really got into Minecraft and ran a server modded out to the max with shaders, and all manner of accoutrements. It was for fun, but Minecraft is one of those games you can really learn from.
spoiler
I had a World of Warcraft-server running for a while, that was quite fun.
Chat bots are real fun to make and are really useful.
can I name her Sony?
There are lots of game servers you can run. I highly recommend Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart. (Yes, that’s a terrible name, but it’s a very fun game.)
I think I read recently about some emulator portal you can selfhost, would that be silly enough? Requires you to acquire ROMs though.
A website/blog
I keep thinking making a magic mirror would be such a project..
I have one. Very neat little project. I see now that there is an AI interface for MagicMirror now. Looks intriguing.
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