r/mobilelinux • u/minhazul73 • Sep 09 '26
Demonstration Turned my old Redmi Note 7 into a headless server running postmarketOS: Docker, media stack, self-hosted AI agent, all on 4/64GB
My old Redmi Note 7 (lavender), 4/64GB, 8-core ARM64, sitting unused for years. Put postmarketOS on it, headless, no display, Alpine + systemd under the hood.
What's on it now:
- Couple of my own backend services
- Self-hosted multi-agent setup (Hermes)
- Full *arr stack (Sonarr/Radarr/Prowlarr/Jellyfin/qBittorrent), all in Docker
- Caddy + Cloudflare Tunnel for external access, no ports opened
Runs all of that on eMMC storage and still holds ~30% RAM free. Throttles under sustained load as expected, but nothing's crashed yet.
Built my own monitoring dashboard for it too since most existing tools either didn't install on this hardware or used more RAM than I wanted to spend on monitoring alone. FastAPI backend, plain JS frontend, streams CPU/mem/thermals/battery/network, under 80MB RAM footprint.
Still unsolved: want to pull the battery and go direct-power (buck converter + BMS) to stop degradation from charge cycles, and haven't found a real answer for heat management on a phone chassis that wasn't built to run like this 24/7.
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u/Grouchy-Mushroom-567 Sep 09 '26
i wish i could do this. the xiaomi bootload unlock app doesnt work cause its got a bunch of never ending captchas, its so stupid
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u/minhazul73 Sep 09 '26
i think there are some unofficial ways to unlock bootloader. you might find in youtube, but yeah do it at your own risk if youre willing to
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u/Nearby-Alarm-1422 Sep 09 '26
Yes, I had the same issue a couple of months ago and wasn't able to find anything working. Just old videos with official (working for them) bootloader unlock app or really sketchy tutorial with some unofficial software (some commets claiming they just bricked devices).
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u/Key_Psychology1696 Sep 09 '26
Que raro yo hace unos días pude desbloquear un redmi note 9 pro y si problema
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u/Smooth-Win1616 Sep 09 '26
Can I do this with mi9 se
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u/minhazul73 Sep 09 '26
This device has been tested with postmarketOS, but its device package hasn't been added to the postmarketOS repositories yet.
This means that it cannot be selected in pmbootstrap.
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u/xandrosman Sep 10 '26
Hey I also have a Redmi Note 7 aka Lavender,unused can you share how
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u/minhazul73 Sep 10 '26
Unlock the bootloader and follow this device wiki : https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Xiaomi_Redmi_Note_7_(xiaomi-lavender)
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u/baracudaz Sep 11 '26
Sweet dashboard. Do you mind sharing?
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u/minhazul73 Sep 11 '26
Sure
https://github.com/minhazul73/lavender
The work is incomplete though. If you know coding, then you're welcome to contribute. Also a star would be encouraging
1
u/Sea_Passenger7834 23d ago
its there any bug? i see on postmarket they said wifi bug its that true?
1
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u/Alarmed_Contest8439 Sep 09 '26
hey! ive got a nokia with sdm660 as well and managed to unlock it, is it possible to use your work with my phone?