[eric__cartman]

An iPhone 8 still has a lot of processing power for headless home server tasks. I use a much weaker ARM dev board as an ssh gateway and Wireguard VPN into my home network and it works just fine. The only thing I'd worry about is leaving the battery on the phone and having it puff up after being trickle charged for months on end.

But if you remove the battery and mod the phone to power it directly from an external power supply you're all set!