Proud of how the server architecture of mastodon.social and the code of Mastodon is keeping up with the load, but wishing for this to transform into new Mastodon servers springing up.
If you were considering starting a Mastodon server, right now would be a pretty good time. Anyone can do it from source, see docs:
https://docs.joinmastodon.org/
There are also hosting providers (not affiliated with me) which are super easy to work with without technical knowledge, like masto.host and hostdon.jp
@Gargron Very, very impressive... Great work...
@Gargron when the app? Need it!
@ElMurphy Check out the "Mobile apps" link in the footer!
@Gargron
I can't find😩 ..
@ElMurphy No problem here's the link:
@Gargron
Already! Thank you.
@Gargron keeping a list of different mastodon hosting providers here https://www.are.na/fediverse/mastodon-hosts
@liaizon @Gargron https://app.spacebear.ee/mastodon is another mastodon (and also the hometown fork) hosting provider.
@Gargron i used masto.host for a while and Hugo provided top-notch service. he made it super simple, got the instance spun up in no time, and kept it running smoothly. big recommend, i plan to hire him again at some point
@Gargron honestly, I looked at it overnight. The thing holding me back right now - is that hosting costs are higher than a typical hobbyist can justify. I'd run it on a Raspberry Pi if I could, but multiple blog posts suggest it's a bit too resource hungry for that right now. I haven't given up though - I will keep looking in to this.
@asjmcguire @Gargron There are alternatives to Mastodon which can operate on something of that scale and scope.
@drwho @asjmcguire Not that user-friendly, unfortunately
@asjmcguire @Gargron Is there any particular reason that it /has/ to be Mastodon, and not something designed with lighter system requirements in mind?
@asjmcguire @Gargron I can give it a try tonight, I have a RasPi4 sitting at home right now.
@Gargron Are there any ressources on how to anonymously host Mastodon? When I think about hosting a public service like this, legal issues are my main concern.
@Gargron Hi again, what are the requeriments for a nice machine? I just discover this but it is brillant and I want to contribute ;)
So in the docs don't talk about the server requeriments...
@pribaqnet You'll need at least 2 CPUs and 2 GB RAM for it to run comfortably but it all depends on how many users will be on it at the same time!
@Gargron Another way to login with no email?
@Gargron Congratulations Eugen, I saw your other boosted post where mastodon was showed on the national tv. Also people in Italy is getting to know about your social network, you can pratically overcome in users Twitter just in the 2020 like an hurricane of users lol, good luck for the new year!
@Gargron It really does look like it's really well built. What programming language is it built on?
@Gargron better than python for sure imo. Why did you choose it over other programming languages? I'm studying computer engineering and everything around federated social networks just astonishes me
@laliberacion_de_berlin Well, I was a Ruby developer already. I love the language though. It might be slower than others but it's very pleasant to use. Saves so much time thanks to its ecosystem and it's very elegant to read and write.
@Gargron @laliberacion_de_berlin Do you recommend any book or page to learn how to use Ruby? I'm interested in this world but I don't know how I could start.
@nikov @laliberacion_de_berlin I've never read a book about Ruby... I learned from the Rails documentation, reading other open-source Rails projects code, reading code of Ruby gems, etc, over a long period of time. It was always as part of having something to build, so rather than abstractly learning the language, I needed to do x, so I looked up how to do that.
@Gargron @laliberacion_de_berlin I guess it's the best way to learn. Than you 🤔☺️
@Gargron really interesting, thank you!
@Gargron Congratulations, and thank you so much for your work!!
@Gargron ... and I wish to ask you something I couldn't find: real requirements for a server (hardaware)? I'm thinking about something small-medium...
@Gargron Thanks a lot!! These data include postgresql, redis, etc...? Really impressive, have to say. I’m thinking in 3 servers (containers ) like 4x you wrote , and Docker Swarm making its magic. Thanks again fornthe data 👍
@Gargron if I were to run my own instance, is it possible to disable federation to not show stuff from other servers? It's for a family group.
@vaasu Actually yes, it is possible. You'll need WHITELIST_MODE=true in the environment file.
@Gargron Literally setup a instance 48 hours ago to keep my skills in infra engineering sharp.
@pawelorzech @Gargron yeah. I have nagios and libre nms and grafana and a few other toilets configured. Will have auto failover running soon as well.
@pawelorzech @Gargron jusy noticed I got owned by autocorrect!
@Phazoning @Gargron I wish I knew what you meant!
@Gargron also because mastodon is amazing. Thank you for all your hard work.
@Gargron i have a question, (srry for muy English), I want to make an instance for role-playing games, what would you advise me, Debian or Ubuntu for the server?
@SimplementeYo Our documentation is centered on Ubuntu, it's a good system.
@Gargron It's amazing, I wish I have a project like this in the future
@Gargron Just have a question. Iran faced an internet blackout a few weeks ago and our internet became some sort of interanet. BTW, some of our servers had access to international internet. We started discussing about making a mastodon instance on one of those servers, and we had a big question mark in mind. Will it be connected with other instances? So we can spread the news about Iran in case of an internet blackout ...
@haghiri75 It depends on how it's setup. If the Mastodon server is on a machine that has connection to the outside world, then it will federate with other servers just fine, and your users from Iran will be able to access it and talk to people from the rest of the world.
If the machine is cut off as well, it'll be in the intranet.
@Gargron Thank you very much for quick reply. So, It makes us sure about the case of internet blackouts here.
@haghiri75 @Gargron can a country do a full blackout tho? What happens if you try to SSH out for example?
🔵
@sergiogmn @haghiri75 @Gargron Or Tor? That should work.
(If you can't download the Tor browser and it's blocked, get either the Brave Browser or the Dissenter Browser. Not a fan of Dissenter personally, but both come with Tor, and usually aren't blocked by most firewalls.)
@sergiogmn @Gargron Yeah SSH was our solution back then.
@haghiri75 @Gargron if it has internet access still and local internet. Yes.
Server run by the main developers of the project 
It is not focused on any particular niche interest - everyone is welcome as long as you follow our code of conduct!
☝️ If you started a new server for the Spanish community, let me know and I'll give you a shout out.
There's a few basic requirements for it to be listed on joinmastodon.org as well, such as having a backup admin ("bus factor" 😅) and having some basic rules against harassment, so if you pass those as well I'll gladly put your server on joinmastodon.org.
Here those requirements are spelled out:
https://joinmastodon.org/covenant