SimpleServer

For a couple of years now, I have wanted to run a server that does simple tasks. No fancy applications, no forced updates. Something that could do what I want and only what I want. I figured that this hackathon would be the perfect chance to try and make my dreams a reality. It was a great chance to learn about server development and how the internet works. SimpleServer is simple. That was my goal for it. It's an application that you can log into easily from anywhere and I can control all aspects of it since it runs on my own hardware that I configured completely by myself. Currently it has a few basic functions. It has an authentication protocol for signing in, it has a notes application and it has a messaging application where users can message each other by using their emails. The building of this project was divided into two parts. Website building and server building. Ethan and Ayman worked on the website, dealing with HTML and Python to build it, while I worked on the server side. I built the server from scratch. I started with building Arch Linux on my mini-desktop from the base install environment. From here, I used a basic window manager to organize my terminals and run applications with GUIs. I tested a couple of web servers and troubleshooted for many hours, but I finally found something that worked consistently and that was lightweight. Meanwhile, Ethan and Ayman worked tirelessly to build the website from scratch, learning everything they could about frontend and backend development. We all ran into more than our fair share of issues. Since we are freshmen, there are many things we don't know. This was Ethan and Ayman's first time building a website and it was my first time ever configuring and running a server for a website. We did accomplish quite a bit though. Our biggest accomplishment is probably the knowledge base that we have created. Ethan and Ayman now know a lot more about implementing different libraries and web development and I know a lot more about servers and how the internet work. I also was able to create an ultra-lightweight server that can probably run on any computer within the last 15 years. Now what's next for SimpleServer? This may become more of a personal project for me. My initial aim for this project was to make a file transfer system and a general hub for all things I might need to retrieve on any device quickly. If I get really into the project, I might make it a community based project. It would be interesting to make the whole thing configurable from one file so anyone that wanted to could make their own SimpleServer. Since everything in this project is opensource, this is definitely possible.

Built With

• arch-linux
• caddy
• github
• html
• i3wm
• python