So, I experimented with running a mastodon instance on another domain. Due to issues with the "cache" directory actually requiring persistence, and thus somehow making all custom emojis 404, I decided to wipe it and try a different fediverse server on that domain. I didn't know about or expect to need to run tootctl...
I expect that should be fine, but there's a URL signature scheme that is apparently involved, I'm worried that should I turn up a new instance, it won't federate with e.g. mastodon.social
It's easy to discover communities on my instance via the dedicated page in the hamburger menu. But let's say I want to follow a community on another instance, such as !lemmy . I might have found its name mentioned in a post or comment. When I click on the provided link, I'm thrown on that instances web page, from which I of...
At the simplest I feel a chrome extension or similar would be straightforward. A more native flow doing some sort of faux login/modal that could subscribe on the primary host would be better.
I'm not a frontend dev, and I feel like CORS stuff comes into play here, but it should be possible to do something like the "Sign In With Facebook" or "Pay with Paypal" type of redirect after asking the user for their host. At very worst it should be possible to have Instance B's backend send a call to Instance A after the user provides it with the name of the other instance, but you need to be careful about validating the legitimacy of the request in that case. There's a lot of room for better cryptography/signatures in activitypub I'd imagine that could help.
I haven't used it yet, but I wrote a small service to combine webfinger from subdomains into a primary domain, and ended up abandoning it. You'd need to handle more than just the webfinger stuff, and be able to route activity pubs as well, and I'm still learning about the protocol enough to see if this is possible. I think the best case is that locally you might be name@someinstance.example.com, but would federate as name@example.com, and webfinger/mentions would work for that, and something at example.com would route activity pubs appropriately to the "real" hosts with name rewriting.
Your reverse proxy is doing websockets incorrectly, there's some bogosity in the spec for websockets that makes them single hop and the proxy needs to propagate the upgrade request. Search for "nginx reverse proxy websocket", e.g. https://www.nginx.com/blog/websocket-nginx/
This site is currently struggling to handle the amount of new users. I have already upgraded the server, but it will go down regardless if half of Reddit tries to join....
The backend especially is not too demanding (thanks to using a compiled binary via Rust). The database demands probably scale, but postgres scaling is relatively well understood. I think right now the least scalable parts look like the frontend node and websocket stuff, but that can be improved. I'm not sure how I feel about Activity Pub protocol wise, it feels pretty chatty, so transit scalability might be something else to consider.
If Twitter were a store, people would have no problem boycotting it. I think the mentality change that is necessary for the 2020s is that you have a choice where to "spend" your generated content, just like you have a choice where to spend your money (ostensibly at least: ISPs, privatized utilities need not apply).
I've seen lots of discussion on reddit of users trying to get others to join Lemmy and the prevailing reply is that it is too difficult to navigate and comprehend. Having to answer multiple questions and wait for manual verification is combersome and is limiting growth at a time when nothing should be standing in Lemmy's way....
Another problem with "everyone just joins lemmy.ml" is that eventually it becomes the weakest link, and other instances will either accept the hordes for the volume/content, or be forced to isolate. It's much better if we hide the cost of decentralization from users but also keep the decentralization as much as possible. It's not an easy problem, but it's worth solving.
Intended way to federate
What is the current workflow of federating with other communities?...
Mastodon federation & reinstallation
So, I experimented with running a mastodon instance on another domain. Due to issues with the "cache" directory actually requiring persistence, and thus somehow making all custom emojis 404, I decided to wipe it and try a different fediverse server on that domain. I didn't know about or expect to need to run tootctl...
how long does a 502 error usually last? (midwest.social) (lemmy.one)
I'm trying to sign in to create a community
Following remote communities is hard.
It's easy to discover communities on my instance via the dedicated page in the hamburger menu. But let's say I want to follow a community on another instance, such as !lemmy . I might have found its name mentioned in a post or comment. When I click on the provided link, I'm thrown on that instances web page, from which I of...
Is docker documentation up to date?
I'm trying to deploy my own instance following install with docker but seems it's not up to date. Or am I missing something?...
lemmy.ml is overloaded, use other instances instead
This site is currently struggling to handle the amount of new users. I have already upgraded the server, but it will go down regardless if half of Reddit tries to join....
what brought you to Lemmy?
I'm just another reddit refugee to be honest
The time to streamline Lemmy onboaring is now. Let's do it like mastodon did. (blog.joinmastodon.org)
I've seen lots of discussion on reddit of users trying to get others to join Lemmy and the prevailing reply is that it is too difficult to navigate and comprehend. Having to answer multiple questions and wait for manual verification is combersome and is limiting growth at a time when nothing should be standing in Lemmy's way....