ServerBox
Turn a used Android phone into a Linux server, no root required.
An old phone is a small, quiet, low-power computer with a battery backup and Wi-Fi built in.
ServerBox puts a real Linux distribution on it and keeps an SSH server running, so you can use
it like any other box on your network: host services, run scripts and cron jobs, or tinker.
ServerBox is a fork of UserLAnd by
CypherpunkArmory (UserLAnd Technologies, LLC) and, like UserLAnd, is licensed under the
GPLv3.
What it does
- Linux distributions without root. Alpine, Arch, Debian, Kali and Ubuntu run in user space
through PRoot. Each one is a headless server image with an SSH server,
an editor and the usual tools. Install and uninstall ServerBox like any other app.
- SSH out of the box. Every session runs an SSH server on port 2022. The Sessions tab shows
how to connect (
ssh -p 2022 <user>@<phone's IP>), the user and the password. Turn on
Settings → Allow SSH from the network to reach it from other devices, and add your public
keys (optionally with Keys only).
- Stays up. Servers keep running with the screen off and after the app is closed: ServerBox
holds a wake lock and a Wi-Fi lock, restarts a server that dies unexpectedly, and can restart
your sessions after a reboot (Start on boot).
- Your services start with it. Executables in
/etc/serverbox/autostart.d inside the
distribution run each time its server starts (logs in /var/log/serverbox-autostart.log), which is
the place for databases, web servers and other daemons in guests without a working init.
- Phone storage. Shared storage is available at
/sdcard inside the distribution; ServerBox
asks for access to a folder the first time a program uses it.
- Coding agents, ready to go. The Claude and Codex apps are Debian with Anthropic's
Claude Code or OpenAI's
Codex CLI preinstalled, along with Node.js, git and ripgrep.
SSH in and run
claude or codex; you sign in with your own account or API key. 64-bit phones
only.
- Virtual machines where supported. On phones with the Android Virtualization Framework,
distributions can also run in a real VM through a companion app.
Screenshots
| Apps |
New filesystem |
Server settings |
 |
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Download
Get the APK from Releases. ServerBox needs
Android 8.0 or later. Every distribution is available for 64-bit ARM (nearly all current phones)
and x86_64; 32-bit support varies by distribution.
Releases are signed with this certificate (SHA-256), which you can check with
apksigner verify --print-certs serverbox-<version>.apk:
55:40:C1:F2:4F:5D:44:86:C5:96:EF:76:0A:8C:E9:8C:8E:68:FE:45:AF:C9:E9:54:1C:C6:3D:EF:3E:7A:76:B5
Builds from before 1.0 were signed with a different key, so Android can't update them to a
release: uninstall the old build first. Uninstalling deletes its distributions and sessions.
Getting started
- Install ServerBox and open it.
- Pick a distribution on the Apps tab. ServerBox downloads it (the setup log shows each
step) and opens a terminal.
- Open the Sessions tab for the SSH command, user and password.
- To connect from your computer, turn on Settings → Allow SSH from the network, then run the
command shown on the Sessions tab.
Keeping the server running
Android pauses background apps to save battery, which makes a server stop answering once the
screen is off. When ServerBox first runs a server it asks to be exempted from battery
optimization; allow it. Some vendors add their own restrictions on top:
- Xiaomi / HyperOS / MIUI: in ServerBox's app settings, set Battery saver to
No restrictions and turn on Autostart. The default "smart" restriction cuts off
background networking.
- Android 12 and later: the phantom process killer can stop long-running processes. ServerBox
offers to turn it off through Wireless debugging (Settings → Stop Android killing session
processes).
Keep the phone on a charger, and consider reserving its IP address in your router so the SSH
address stays the same.
Building
Builds need JDK 17.
./gradlew :app:assembleServerBoxDebug
./gradlew testServerBoxDebugUnitTest :terminal:testDebugUnitTest lintServerBoxDebug
Instrumented tests (Room migrations and DAOs, the terminal's PTY) run on a connected device or
emulator:
./gradlew :library:connectedServerBoxDebugAndroidTest :terminal:connectedDebugAndroidTest
./gradlew :app:assembleServerBoxRelease signs the release APK when a keystore is configured in
local.properties (or the same names as environment variables); without one it builds unsigned:
KEYSTORE_PATH=/path/to/keystore
KEYSTORE_PASSWORD=...
KEY_ALIAS=...
KEY_PASSWORD=...
The distribution images are built in madeye/ServerBox-Images
and published to ghcr.io/madeye/serverbox-<distro>.
Credits
ServerBox is forked from UserLAnd and its
library (UserLAndLibrary) by
CypherpunkArmory (UserLAnd Technologies, LLC), who hold the copyright on the original code.
ServerBox's changes are copyright Max Lv. Like UserLAnd, ServerBox is released under the
GNU General Public License v3; the full text is in LICENSE and the copyright
notices are in COPYRIGHT.
ServerBox 是一款 Android 应用，无需 root 就能把旧手机变成 Linux 服务器，运行 Alpine、Arch、Debian、Kali 或 Ubuntu，并带有常驻的 SSH 服务器。