Cool Things to do with a Linux Server

Photo by Josh Sorenson on Unsplash

Hello Linux lovers..

So, I guess you have a Cloud Virtual Machine or a spare old computer in which you want to install Linux Server. You can do a lot of things with Linux server for learning purposes or just for fun..

I started using Linux servers when my uncle gave me access to one of his Virtual Machines. I indeed enjoy using it..!

Okay, let me tell you some cool things to do with it..

1. Web Server

Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash

Have you ever showcased any of your works to your friends by hosting them online? If your answer is a NO, then it’s time.

I installed LAMP Stack ( LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL & PHP), hosted my Website in it. Also installed a Wordpress blog, many of my PHP works. And also linked Google Analytics, so that I can monitor the traffic. If you are going to host a website, make use of Google Analytics. It’s an awesome tool. You can see no. of visitors per day, per month, Area of traffic, Network of traffic, type of devices used to view your website and many more..

2. Game Server

Photo by Caspar Camille Rubin on Unsplash

Are you a game lover? Great..! You can build your own private multi-player game server for yourself. Lots of games like Minecraft, Terraria support to build our own private game servers.

3. Mail Server

Image by Muhammad Ribkhan from Pixabay

Ever thought of having a custom domain emails like anything@yourdomain.com for free? Being a student, how cool it’ll be if you send an email to your friends from your custom mail?

Well, Services like Google offer such custom mail service for some amount of money. But if you want to use custom mails completely for free, you can do it in your linux server using Postfix.

4. Personal Cloud Storage

Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay

Ever thought that Google could read all your data stored in your Google account? Got a Virtual Machine with heavy Gigs? Why not use it as a cloud storage so that you will be the super admin of your files?

There might be times that your laptop crashes and all your data gets erased. Build your own cloud storage system (using ownCloud) which backs up all your data from your laptop. Save files which you want to access from anywhere in the world?

5. Home Surveillance

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

If you’re a movie freak, you would’ve got an idea about Home Surveillance by now. Setting up cameras every corner, watching all those activities happening around your home right from your mobile, while having a cappuccino in your college canteen. Cool ! right?

You can get to know any unusual or suspicious activities around or inside your home without actually being in your home. All the video footage will be uploaded to your linux cloud server.

6. Home Automation

Please don’t say that you don’t love Iron Man movies :P

Imagine, a bunch of your friends visited your home on a Saturday night, and you say like, ‘Hey JARVIS, activate House Party Protocol’. And all of a sudden, all the lights go down, A disco ball with crazy combination of colorful lights starts rotating, and in a short while, your favorite playlist of rock music fills the entire house. Damn Beautiful…! Yeah..

You can do such things, controlling electronic devices in your home using a virtual assistant. api.ai is a must-see website for beginners to make an assistant which gives pre-designed responses from a given set of questions.

7. Home Movie Database

Photo by Jens Kreuter on Unsplash

Got a huge collection of movies and photos? Copying movies from your computer to phone, sharing them to your brother.. all of these wastes a lot of time and it sucks! But we have a solution! Setup Linux server in your old computer, store all of your collections and install Plex Media Server Software. Now you can stream & organize all those movies, photos or any digital media across any device in your home network. A single copy of movie can be viewed by all family members at the same time without actually having that movie stored in their phones. You can even use your Smart TV/PlayStation/XBox to stream the media from your home server.

8. Remote Access

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

You can connect to your Linux cloud server from any device,anywhere from them world using tools like Putty. So your server is just a few keystrokes away from you..

Conclusion :

You got the best and most powerful Operating System installed in your machine. Why not try to learn more from it? Learn the basic things like modifying permissions, creating users, installing packages and utilities..

If you use your server in more cool ways, feel free to mention them in the comments.

Have a nice day!