When can I host a website and install a domain name server on my mobile phone?

Question

My question is about hosting small personal sites that do not have much traffic.

The biggest reasons we (regular PC users) pay for web hosting services (please correct me if I am wrong):

• We do not keep our PCs turned on all the time.
• Some / most of us do not have static IP addresses.

However, modern cell phones are nothing more than small PCs that are permanently stored. If they can also have static IP addresses, why can't we install a web server on them?

Is this technology currently available?
If so, how widely is it currently in use? And when is he going to beat the classic remote paid web servers? If not, when and how will it be available? What equipment (type of cell phone) will we need to use?

Answer 1

You can already get a web server that runs on your SIM card called a Smartcard web server (SCWS) if you have a GSM phone. It works in a part called SIM application software, which is a really cool area of ​​your SIM card to run services. The web server is part of the OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) specification, so most (if not all) of the latest SIM cards support it. The web server can serve static and dynamic web pages, and you can also run some Java applets .

The problem is that it was intended for your mobile operator to serve the web pages on your phone, and not so that someone could remotely connect to your SIM card to view the content. For example, here in the UK, O2 uses this technology to provide a good interface for additional o2 features on my phone. I can choose traffic, football, etc. from the HTML menu, and then, when I expand through a small site running on my SIM card, I get a link that takes me to a deep-link site on the o2 main site.

I think there is a way to allow SCWS to be public, because in 2005 a press release was issued by Axalto (now Gemalto), where they stated that they have a SIM card that runs a personal blog for the user, and the user can take a picture on your phone, press the button to decide to publish it on your blog. Then his friends can have immediate access to him from a PC or mobile phone.

If you are working on remote viewing of SCWS, then the next problem is how to write files to your SIM card. Traditionally, you will need a kind of SIM card reader / writer that uses the ADPU protocol to talk to the card. However, the mobile network that issued your SIM card has remote access to the SCWS files on your SIM card, issuing commands over the air to your SIM card. This means that there is a way to remotely update files, and after a little copy, I think that security is based on a pre-shared key. Once you have the pre-shared key, you can send your own phone using an SMS message labeled Over Air Air, which will reprogram the SIM card to store new files for your web server. I can tell you how to get your pre-shared key if you send me a direct message.

So in short:

Is this technology currently available? - Sort. You can start the web server on your SIM card, and if you can open it for your public IP address, you can start the web server directly from the SIM card to the public.

How widely is it currently used? Operators use this quite a lot all over the world to serve you a little better value added on your phone. I have never heard of anyone other than Gemalto, using this to display public pages.

When is it going to benefit from classic remote paid web servers ? This is a difficult question. If you can get SCWS to work for open access, then the next step is an easy way to publish to a SIM card. When there is an easy way to publish on a SIM card, how do you get some kind of DNS system that works when a dynamic IP address from your network is issued to your phone.

What hardware (type of cell phone) will we need to use? . Since this is done on a SIM card and not on a phone, this is completely independent hardware, however SCWS is only available on later SIM cards (not CDMA phones).

More information here: http://smartcardwebserver.com/ and a good overview of how it works with Gemalto . Probably not bad to read the Resources section of the SCWS SIMalliance Working Group

Answer 2

A web server already exists . I’m not even going to look for a DNS server, because it is not very important and latency, combined with the extremely unlikely that the network provider will provide you with a static IP address, the likelihood that you will switch to Wi-Fi and change the IP Address and likelihood of a NAT and / or firewall on the network. The web server rarely runs its own DNS.

Perhaps you may have configured a tunnel from the phone to a fixed endpoint that calls back to you, but which still leaves you aloof from a third-party provider that provides some kind of hosting service.

Answer 3

as far as I know, you cannot directly connect to the cell phone web server, given all the reasons listed above. There was a Nokia application that I used in my old N95, which provided access to SMS, photos, a camera, etc. Not caring that you are behind a router, firewall, or using a Wi-Fi or cellular signal. But you had to set up an account earlier.

This application was called http://www.mymobilesite.net/ , I remember that it was open and was offered in sourceforge.net, but I could not find it again.

Answer 4

I am currently working in the same field for my PhD. Therefore, I think I can give you useful advice, although you have been asking for a long time.

It is very simple and inexpensive to have a mobile web server that can receive an HTTP request and respond accordingly. You can use Paw, KSWEB, i-jetty and many others for iOS and Android. Keep in mind that you do not need your browser to work if you want your mobile device to become a web server. Thus, the web server does not consume much power. While it is in the background, it can listen on the http port (usually 8080) and receive any request at any time. But at the moment, the problem is that managing a real site on a tiny mobile device is not a pleasant practice, especially when the data is huge. Another problem is the ability to respond to many concurrent requests, as mobile devices are still not fully mature.

A static IP address is also complex, but has a fix. You are always connected to cellular or Wi-Fi and can access the outside world of computing. Thus, even if your IP address is not static, you can send the IP address to a central server using Wi-Fi or cellular, when your IP address changes and people can find you. You need to simulate a specific type of DHCP server that monitors your mobile phone. However, researchers are working on a mobile IP phone, and in the near future many problems of mobile IP addresses will be resolved. Hope it helps. You can continue the discussion if it interests you.