Admit it – you bought systems you’re not using.
We’ve all done it! You see a good deal and can’t resist. Or you have a grand vision for a vast digital empire but it never quite seems to get done (yet!). What do you do with all the spare LowEndBoxes you have lying around? Other than tracking them with MyIdlers, of course.
There’s a number of things you could consider doing with them to make the world a better place.
Thanks to LowEndTalk member @default for starting a thread on this topic.
Defeat Censorship
TOR (The Onion Router) is a protocol that obfuscates a user’s origin on the Internet. Traffic is processed through multiple nodes, so if you’re in downtown Beijing, you might appear to be coming from Kansas City. This is valuable if you’re behind some sort of censorship regime and trying to access a freer Internet. Of course, it can be used for nefarious purposes as well, but that’s true of most technologies, going back to the rock. It’s easy to run a TOR node. There are several different kinds, and the easiest is a relay node which is generally allowed by most providers (unlike exit nodes, which generally are not). Check out our tutorial.
Help Scientific Research
Folding@home is a distributed computing project that harnesses the processing power of thousands of volunteer computers around the world to simulate the complex folding processes of proteins, which are crucial to understanding diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, and viral infections like COVID-19. I have no idea what the “folding processes of proteins” means if I’m being honest, but apparently understanding them is important for scientists. This is similar to SETI @home, except you’re fighting disease. With this one, make suret your provider is OK with you burning CPU 24×7 (or consider renicing the process). Learn more at foldingathome.org.
Mirror Your Favorite Project
All open source projects need hosting. Sure, GitHub fills the need for many, but there are still tons of projects that need something else. If you like a particular piece of software, why not ask them if they need a mirror for distribution? Even if they have big mirrors in major datacenters, your VPS in a more obscure geography might be helpful.
Map the Internet
You can run a Globalping probe from your idle system. Globalping is used to “monitor, debug and benchmark your internet infrastructure from a globally distributed network of probes.” You can use this to: “Run a global latency test! Benchmark your CDN provider and understand how the network performs! Compare DNS providers to find the fastest one globally or in your region. Run network tests globally or from specific locations and regions. Debug and troubleshoot your networking problems and share the test results with others!” Interested? Head over to their web site.
Help the World Keep Itself On Time
The Internet runs on the Network Time Protocol, which keeps the correct time on millions (heck, billions) of servers, computers, and smart devices. You could consider running an NTP server and contributing to this web of NTP servers. You don’t need much – even a 512MB VPS would be fine. Take a look.
What other ideas do you have for using your idlers for good? Please share in the comments below!
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Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.
As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.
Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.
His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.
You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.
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