Today I decided to try to make some old computers I have talk to each other.

The first thing I did was spin up a local web server. This gave me a website viewable over my local network.

Python web server

Using an old laptop running Linux (Manjaro), I ran

python3 -m http.server 8000

I found my ip address with ip address. It was something like 192.168.1.NNN, where N is some integer. I am just doing stuff on a wireless network, so I looked for my ethernet card thing.

I went onto a browser on another computer (a "normal" Windows machine) on this same network. I typed in the URL bar, 192.168.1.NNN:8000.

My files were visible! Web server started successfully! I have created my own little digital kingdom!

SSH server

Craving unlimited power, I followed a tutorial by Austin G. Walters on setting up an SSH server.

Basically this means, I can log into my Linux machine from another computer (terminal).

Meta Posting

This post is authored using the Linux machine from a Windows machine. Wow!

Motivation

What I'm trying to do is learn more about technology by using many of the tools already available to me. There are many trends in tech I don't really like—e.g. the "mobile-first" approach and bloated web apps everywhere. But clearly the Internet can be a very useful tool. So, by looking at networks and more "backend" type stuff I hope to get the skills to actively work on engineering the sort of Internet I would prefer.