mastodon.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

Administered by:

Server stats:

279K
active users

Introducing: "my so-called sudo life"

a new series tracking my journey towards greater digital sovereignty.

"Instead of wallowing in this grief and anger, I have resolved to make this time – these 4 years – matter. It makes me feel better and more empowered to set some high goals, so that by January 2029 I could look back and think to myself: I have grown and helped others during these tumultuous 4 years. I made good use of that time."

elenarossini.com/2024/12/intro

follow the blog: @ele

Elena Rossini · Introducing: my so-called sudo life — Elena Rossini
More from Elena Rossini

It’s happening!!! I signed up for a and I’m about to install . Exciteeeeeeed (and slightly scared).

I’m so early in my journey but I was emboldened after watching a video walkthrough of YunoHost, with the narrator repeating time and time again « it’s so easy a child could do it ».

Let’s see if « it’s so easy a Linux newbie could do it».

Wish me luck! 😅

Update: yes, it was SO EASY a child (or a newbie) could do it.

I now have installed on my ! 🥳

I wish I had timed how long it took - it was less than 5 minutes! This update comes 2 hours later because I've been dealing with other work stuff in the meantime.

All this to say: a HUGE thank you to the @yunohost team for creating such a phenomenal resource. Donation-as-thank-you coming soon 😊

🔗: yunohost.org

Good morning Fedi Friends! It’s 6:53am in Paris and I am taking advantage of my child being asleep to continue my setup and tweak DNS records.

A bit risky since I’ve only had one coffee but here we go.

Wishing you all a lovely day!

To add an extra layer of difficulty to my journey, there is the issue of scarce free time.

Now I have 20 minutes before I need to cook for my child and then go pick her up from nursery school. Editing DNS records with the clock ticking is not for the faint of heart 😅

If struggling with DNS is a rite of passage, I am ready to jump over this hurdle and get to the next!

Jokes aside, I'm super grateful for 's crystal clear instructions.

Good morning Fedi Friends!

Self-hosting journey day 3 – I'm about to check my setup to see if the records have finally propagated.

Massive massive respect for sysadmins and selfhosts who have to deal with this stuff all the time (and for critical jobs!)

Wish me luck 😅

Elena Rossini ⁂

My NEW idea of living dangerously: adding (or tweaking?) a PTR record for my VPS setup – because the last warnings I have on have to deal with reverse DNS.

✨ Just yesterday I had no idea what this all meant, LOL ✨

BTW if you find all these messages annoying, I recommend you mute my hashtag 🤗

And HUGE thanks to all the people who have provided brilliant tips so far!

Now REALLY wish me luck 😅

Good morning from Italy!

Taking advantage of the fact my parents are giving breakfast to my 3-year-old to do more tweaking.

I just ran the diagnostics and my jaw is ON THE FLOOR. I see GREEN ALL OVER - including "Email" (my nemesis) !!! 🥳

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

Good morning Fedi friends!

Now that my VPS is set up correctly with , all I have to do is select the first app to install.

I was certain I would go with (as I'm totally smitten with it) but I'm now having a case of cold feet and wondering if I should pick instead.

Do I select something beautiful and fun to use... or the most advanced software (with an old UX/UI)?

I'm currently the embodiment of the hard choice meme 😅

Update: we now have a new candidate in the running: . Thank you to everyone who suggested it to me.

I've been looking at its documentation and I find it really impressive. Its "reply controls" are an amazing feature: docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/ (amongst many others)

Will read up about it and seriously consider it 😅

docs.gotosocial.orgHomeNone

📣 Major update: I'm now hosting my own instance 🥳

It's hard to believe that when I wrote this post just 17 DAYS ago, I would reach one of my goals so soon: elenarossini.com/2024/12/intro

On 12/5 I wrote that I wished to become so proficient I could host my own Fediverse instance.

Well, thanks to the magic of I reached that goal today. I will share more details as soon as I beef up security and finish setting up.

P.S.: special thanks to my Fedi mentors ❤️

Elena Rossini · Introducing: my so-called sudo life — Elena Rossini
More from Elena Rossini

My self-hosted instance (thank you and ) is giving me so much joy! ✨

I haven't had much time to properly set it up because Christmas family celebrations got in the way, but I'm finally starting to tinker with it and it's SOOO COOL.

I'm currently at the stage of setting up my own custom emojis 💁‍♀️

My husband checks in every once in a while, asking: "what are you up to, geeking out?" and I invariably reply "yes", smiling from ear to ear.

day 12 - progress update 📰

I'm now running the amazing on my server. I plan to use it as the web client for my instance.

It was a super easy, 1-click install with . It took maybe 2 minutes to set up (create a subdomain, add app).

ℹ️ Typical resource usage: 10M RAM, 15M disk (so light!)

🙏 thank you @cheeaun for your incredible work on this!

@_elena good luck from a fellow self hosted who happens to be an idiot.

@_elena what's PTR record? I guess I'm newbie :P

@_elena I absolutely do not find these annoying even if I’ve been doing this stuff for a very long time. I’ve been on that side and had zero clues of what I’m doing. When I started out my information source was a friend I met from time to time at a subway station and I could ask my questions.
It’s for one a nice reminder of my starting times and also it’s a source of interesting projects. I’ve already discovered two projects I had no idea about.

@_elena that's a good way to start the day!

@_elena wow very brave, I gave up on emails

@_elena

You have time to set up or tweaking YunoHost. The time to be with your parents is little and the most precious.

@_elena Congratulations! What services are you planning to start self hosting with?

@_elena

Fan-tas-tic! :flan_hurrah: Selfhosting and decentralisation FTW!

@_elena The best to self-host, especially because it is very light and optimized for single-person instances, is definitely @gotosocial.

I tested it on my YunoHost server while it was still in alpha, and it worked wonderfully already.

Software like #Friendica and #Sharkey work at their best for communities of friends, in my opinion.

Tommi’s mindAby
More from Tommi 🤯

@_elena
Oh that looks like a nice thing to play with! Thanks for mentioning it

@_elena reminds me, that i wanted to update mine. just running on a pi at home.

@_elena gotosocial user here on my own instance. I haven't tried the others, but it works real well.
It does have trouble federating with Threads, so bear that in mind.

@_elena Goto è 💙

Ping me if you want to test and don't find an instance :cat_keyboard:

@_elena with a good database it works. The only remark I have is the lack of filtering tools, like in Pleroma the MRF filter.

By example, I wish I could filter out "uspol", but I can't here, while using Pleroma I was able to.

@_elena Congratulations on achieving this goal 🎉

@_elena@mastodon.social Fantastic news! I hope to follow in your footsteps!

@_elena Congrats! Looking forward to your writeup of the process.

@_elena congratulations :) 🎉 this is the best way to taste the water !

@_elena nicely done! And good luck on your self-hosting journey

@_elena Same here. Mastodon is bit bumpy on Yunohost, espacially the updates

@_elena the life of a geek is that of power and “hell yes!”

@_elena @cheeaun in 12 days you're already going farther in the self hosting adventure than me after 12 years 😂
Bravo !

@_elena I might have to look into yunohost myself somewhen next year. *-*
Sound helpful!

@_elena ooooh I had no idae there was a phanpy yunohost app! I'll give it a try, thank you!

@cheeaun

@_elena Very cool :) ! I used yunohost for quite some time in the past. It's excellent for single host.

Oh, do they provide a backup solution with it as well ?

@_elena @CyborgHT If you are looking for a personal/single-user Fediverse server, definitely go with GtS. I’ve been using it for almost a month, and I’m in love with it. So easy to set up and use!

I’m currently self-hosting it on a Raspberry Pi in my basement. Feel free to reach out if you want to know more about my experience.