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Self-hosting

Low-cost bot server

An unused Android tablet repurposed as a lightweight Linux host for a small bot, with deployments connected to GitHub.

Status
Running
Timeline
Ongoing setup
Source
No public repository
Simple preview of a small Linux service running on an Android tablet
Ask me about it

Case study

The need

A small bot needed to stay online, but paying for another cloud server was hard to justify for a personal project.

What I built

I reused an Android tablet as a Linux host and set up a repeatable path for deploying updates from GitHub.

What changed

The bot runs on hardware I already had, without another monthly server bill or manual updates on the device.

Build notes

Decisions kept practical

  • The host is intentionally modest because the service is small.
  • Deployment steps live outside the device so updates are repeatable.
  • The tradeoff is less redundancy than a managed cloud service, which is acceptable for this project.

This is a personal hosting setup and is separate from my employer systems and infrastructure.