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Thinking about this further… I would like your advice and wisdom on how I should self-host my many bots.

All one one sub-domain?
@bot1@bots.edent.tel
@bot2@bots.edent.tel

Separate sub-domain for each?
@bot@bot1.edent.tel
@bot@bot2.edent.tel

Buy a new domain for each?
(LOL nope!)

Something else?
(What?)

Thinking about creating a Mastodon instance only for automated accounts.

Wouldn't have to deal with replies, following accounts, or anything complicated.

I even had a comedy name picked out for it - but someone beat me to it.

https://masto.bot/

OK! Want to self-host your own bots now #BotsInSpace is going away?

I've made the *simplest* possible server just for you!

https://gitlab.com/edent/activity-bot/

Upload two files to your server (index.php and .htaccess), fill in a couple of details, and… that's it!

This is designed for write-only bots. It isn't interactive, it won't store or reply to messages sent to it, but it will post hashtags, links, mentions, and images.

You can see the sample bot @bot

Feedback very welcome!

Update!

You can now move followers from your old bot accounts to your new self-hosted ones.

So now @solar@botsin.space points at @solar@solar.bots.edent.tel - and all the followers have moved!

Source code at https://gitlab.com/edent/activity-bot/

OK! My self-hosted ActivityPub Bot works with a few hundred followers.

I'm going to try and move @colours which has over 1,000 followers (WHY?!?!) and see if it copes with that.

All the code's at https://gitlab.com/edent/activity-bot/

Hmmm. About 1,000 followers have moved over to the new account - @colours

I can see my messages being sent. But they don't seem to be received. Not entirely sure what's going on and am half a bottle of Malbec into the evening, so probably shouldn't be futzing around with code.

One for the morning, I fear!

OK. What is going on here?

A bunch of people can see the posts sent out by @colours - but lots of people can't.

As far as I can see, Mastodon.social isn't sending me back an HTTP response when I send to a shared inbox. But other Mastodon-based servers happily accept it.

Here are the headers
https://gist.github.com/edent/1f41d1b2a50ab497e5d5f8d9e851caf1

Any help #ActivityPub friends?

Hmmm. My cURL Multi Handle is only showing 32 successful requests.

That *feels* like a suspicious number!

Yup. Weird cURL Multi Handle bug. Sending 1,000 at a time didn't work. Sending 15 did.

A bit slower, but not disastrous.

Alrighty! Next silly #ActivityPub question.

Why can't Mastodon see my followers?

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/list-of-followers-isnt-available-to-mastodon/4717

I *think* I've got this #ActivityPub syntax correct.

http://colours.bots.edent.tel/followers

That should be paginated followers, but I can't see the followers in any Mastodon client.

@Edent Ever find any new info about this? I'm creating my follower endpoint now and curious if I need to do something undocumented

@Edent Followers count is working for @colours. Did you eventually make a change or did a cache just clear?