from Hacker News

Blog hosted on a Nintendo Wii

by edent on 4/21/25, 6:29 PM with 104 comments

  • by tech234a on 4/21/25, 8:19 PM

    For those unaware, the "SSL Added and removed here!" image is a reference to a diagram describing unencrypted communications between Google datacenters that leaked from the NSA in 2013 [1].

    [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/new-docs-show-ns...

  • by spauka on 4/22/25, 1:01 AM

    One of the coolest revelations to me, just looking at the status page [1] is that the Wii only had 88 MB of RAM - split between 24 MB built in to the SoC and 64 MB of GDDR3.

    Given that this is the case, ntpd using 15% of the system memory means it was using about 13 MB of RAM - hardly a huge chunk by today's standards but not small either. I wonder if reducing the number of time servers would improve this much? On my system I can see I'm tracking about 9 servers from the debian pool.

    Compare this to the XBox 360 which even at the time had 512 MB, it's really amazing how much they managed to squeeze out of such a tiny chip.

    [1] - https://blog.infected.systems/status/

  • by greeniskool on 4/21/25, 8:04 PM

    > Rebooting NetBSD reboots the whole console, and not just the NetBSD ‘app’, so you’ll find yourself back at the Wii Menu after any kernel patch or system upgrade.

    This can be mitigated by installing Priiloader, and having it autoboot into either the Homebrew Channel or the NetBSD .dol file

  • by kn100 on 4/22/25, 1:47 AM

    I love this sorta stuff! I once had my blog hosted on a docker container on my Robot Vacuum. I switched back to a saner host when I started getting uptime alerts when the vacuum went under my bed and lost wifi signal!

  • by janvdberg on 4/22/25, 5:24 AM

    This reminds me of a project I saw more than 24 (!) years ago. Someone made a webserver for the GBA.

    It seemed magical to me at the time and I still remember going to this site often to see updates (that's why I remember the URL).

    Thankfully the Wayback Machine still has it:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20030204043536/http://fivemouse....

  • by joseda-hg on 4/21/25, 7:09 PM

    Based on previous experience with Wii homebrew, you could probably circumvent the (expected) reliability issues of the smaller SD by swapping to a regular USB thumbdrive post exploit, ports are only 2.0 but you're bound by processor anyway

  • by sadeshmukh on 4/21/25, 9:14 PM

    FYI - instead of Photo Booth you can use Quicktime Player and "create new movie recording". I believe that should fix the image flipping problem.

  • by RockRobotRock on 4/21/25, 7:19 PM

    >I was doing this bit using a capture card and Photo Booth on macOS which doesn’t actually support disabling the image-flip on the video feed

    Please use OBS

  • by jandrese on 4/21/25, 7:58 PM

    Performance is not bad. It's clear they aren't using Nintendo's TCP stack, as it was notoriously terrible on the Wii.

  • by bennydog224 on 4/21/25, 7:29 PM

    Not to be a stickler, but the blog isn't actually FULLY hosted on the Wii until you move that Caddy instance to it or drop it :)

    Nice work.

  • by benwilber0 on 4/21/25, 6:57 PM

    got hugged.

    Maybe the next post will say "Blog is hosted on a Nintendo Wii (running Varnish)"

  • by OuterVale on 4/22/25, 1:35 AM

    The writer's post on the fediverse announcing this post gave me a good chuckle when it came across my feed.

    https://infosec.exchange/@alexhaydock/114377262481451962

  • by zoezoezoezoe on 4/22/25, 2:00 PM

    > https://blog.infected.systems/posts/2025-04-21-this-blog-is-...

    Didnt think I'd ever be id'd so accurately on a blog about running a webserver on a WII.

  • by chandlerswift on 4/21/25, 7:25 PM

  • by Bluecobra on 4/21/25, 8:12 PM

    Really impressed by how low the load average is (0.06 @15 min).

  • by allegrotim on 4/21/25, 7:24 PM

    this is pure beauty. Do you think something like this can be done on a NES? like a simple CGI website

  • by msephton on 4/22/25, 4:55 AM

    Very cool and fun. Regarding power draw, later Wii revisions improved this. My OG Wii runs much "hotter" than my later one.

  • by onefreecomputer on 4/21/25, 9:43 PM

    Hey, if anyone wants Wii colo on public address space in New York, get in touch. We gotchu.

    https://wtfhost.onefreecomputer.org

    We also have android dedis.

  • by ObscureScience on 4/21/25, 7:13 PM

    Anyone knows if the Starlet co-processor is accessible from NetBSD?

  • by rubatuga on 4/21/25, 6:57 PM

    Cool, but I sense a slowdown!

  • by SuperHeavy256 on 4/21/25, 10:21 PM

    edent, my question is what tool did you use to make the Wii ASCII art?

  • by breadchris on 4/22/25, 12:16 AM

    incredible! great job!

  • by ee99ee on 4/21/25, 10:30 PM

    Interesting how the times don't update with each refresh... CDN?

  • by cdplayer96 on 4/22/25, 5:16 AM

    this is so dope

  • by _blk on 4/22/25, 5:40 AM

    Try using ZZ to exit vim ;)

    ...Then the hardest part is only remembering what layout you're on if you regularly swap keyboard layouts between QWERTY and QWERTZ

    ..or wait are you even on a keyboard there?

  • by spl757 on 4/22/25, 1:03 AM

    Are you still looking for PS2 Linux?

  • by jarbus on 4/21/25, 6:58 PM

    beautiful

  • by CommenterPerson on 4/21/25, 7:23 PM

    Interesting work! Definitely deserved the #1 spot on HN