Using the Mastodon API (that means: not using the internal web server) makes the snac2 experience much snappier. That's expected: rendering and transmitting the html requires more time, no js involved at all.
Today, I'll be conducting more experiments with snac2. Until yesterday, I had been running it with 16 threads.
Today, I'll try with 32 to observe the load and how it responds when posting while simultaneously using the web interface. With 16 threads, there was a (slight) slowdown during queue processing; let's see if things change with 32.
I'll also delve into some more niche aspects - I've noticed a couple of details regarding boosts that don't always seem to be displayed by Mastodon (a behavior I've also encountered on Pixelfed).
I'll investigate.
The first day of using #snac2 is coming to an end. Here are my observations:
It benefits greatly from ZFS and its compression. Performance is much better compared to an equivalent VM with OpenBSD.
Enafore and Phanpy work well. I appreciate Enafore's ability to hide replies and boosts (which Mastodon allows natively and also reflects in the API results). As for Phanpy, I like its interface. Of course, not everything works since the Mastodon API is only partially implemented, but the essentials are there. I especially like its integrated interface for threaded replies and notification display.
The "everything is a file" approach is very interesting. Even queues are treated as files, making it easy to monitor what's happening.
There are no character limits, and Markdown is natively supported - which is rendered correctly by Mastodon as well.
I believe that with larger numbers, Mastodon can show significantly better performance, mainly due to the separation of queue management and the web interface, as well as caching with Redis. I'm not sure how it would behave with 100 users connected simultaneously, reading everything from files and directories (perhaps better than I imagine), but this project isn't designed for large numbers. It doesn't aim to compete with Mastodon but to demonstrate that, without dependencies and high hardware requirements, one can successfully manage a node in the Fediverse.
In short, a decidedly positive experience that I will continue to delve into in the coming days.
Congratulations for the very good result, @grunfink !
Look into my eyes and listen to only the sound of munching ... look DEEP into my EYES ... you have the urge to get me #SNAC, you can not wait to get me #SNAC, you must get me #SNAC NOW.
Skye: 👀 You rang?
Satori: Skye! We have an exciting day coming up tomorrow! It will be our Thirring Mastodon first year anniversary!
Skye: Will there be #snac? #SkyeLove
Casper giving me the "Mommy I don't have anything to eat I need a #snac" look. After not getting a treat, he eats the salad in front of him. Note that there are blueberries on his salad plate that are perfectly good treats. :Casper:
Every morning while I’m in the kitchen bustling about there is a silent, hopeful face peering over the couch trying to catch my eye (in the hopes I have #snac) 😂! #SkyeLove
Today is a great day (as any other one could be) to express my gratitude to those adorable persons that had bought me a coffee (sometimes more than one 😆), that have contributed patches to #snac source code or that just simply informed me of errors.
:Skye: ☎️ Skye’s answering service: I’m sorry, BunMum isn’t available to take your call right now, but if you leave a #snac after the thump I will be sure to pass along your message… #SkyeLove
(BunMum looks forward to catching up on mastodon soon! ❤️)
I'm glad to announce the release of version 2.42 of #snac, the simple, minimalistic #ActivityPub instance server written in C. It includes the following changes:
It's now possible to add profile metadata.
Accounts can be marked as 'private', so that they are not accesible from any non-authorized web UI (i.e. only through the Fediverse).
Outgoing connections that fail with a timeout are retried with a higher timeout limit. But, if the instance keeps timing out, it's penalized by skipping one retry.
If a post comes from a group or community (i.e. it has an audience field set), the buttons Follow Group or Unfollow Group are shown.
Pinned posts are never (incorrectly) purged.
Some RSS validation fixes.
Mastodon API: some tweaks to better match Mastodon behaviour in timeline entries and boosted posts are correctly returned, and some fixes for crashes.
Don't allow creating users which user name strings only differ in case. This was creating some problems (e.g. the webfinger interface doesn't allow case sensitivity).
Well, #snac has two areas where user posts are published via the web interface: the 'public' page and the server timeline (if the sysadmin has enabled it). Everybody can see this pages with no identification and they work as a microblogging service. If you set an account as private, posts from it are not shown in the public pages.