Willkommen im Weblog von Yves Luther

Tooting @yves@luther.social

With Twitter heading south by crippling third-party Twitter clients and offering a comfy home for nazis, I decided it’s time again to evaluate alternatives if the bottom is hit for me.

Micro.blog

Since Manton Reece’s Kickstarter for Micro.blog went beta, I am on his microblogging service – btw you can find me here. In theory with its much more polite audience, I should be well prepared when the nazis take-over Twitter completely. Though one can never be sure which microblogging service becomes the go-to service of the resistance in the future. Ello tried and failed, Vero tried and failed too. And maybe many more nobody has heard of.

Mastodon

Raise the curtain for Mastodon. Mastodon keeps popping up in my timelines lately but it has never convinced me enough to let me go through the troubles of setting up my own instance. What is an instance you may say? Well let me explain Mastodon in my words:

  • it is kind of a microblogging service, where you can post text and images and can follow other users and send direct messages to them
  • the posts are called “Toots”
  • Toots can have up to 500 characters
  • since the software for running Mastodon is Open Source everybody can run their instance on her own
  • instances can be used to build smaller communities but you can also follow users from other instances

There’s also a nice explainer video for Mastodon.

So with Steven Frank’s Tweet two days ago I thought “Let me have a look again at what it takes to get Mastodon up and running”.

Linode

According to the Mastodon Production Guide for a standalone installation it first of all needs of an Ubuntu Server. Sad trombone: My provider of choice is a CentOS die-hard – there is no way he would let me run an Ubuntu Server on my rented servers. So equipped with an ATP.fm coupon code (atp2018) I headed over to Linode (Marco’s provider of choice).

Lucky me, they also have have Linodes in Germany, Frankfurt to be exact – yeah. I started with a “Nanode 1GB” server but ran into problems towards the end of the Mastodon setup (see below). The next bigger shoe size, a “Linode 2GB”, behaved better – so this is the one to chose.

Setting up a Linode server is pretty straight forward mostly thanks to the intuitive Linode Manager and the good documentation.

Problems

The first hurdle missed was caused by the first sentence of the Mastodon Production Guide:

This guide was written for Ubuntu Server 16.04, you may run into issues if you are using another operating system.

Well, as I learned after two failed attempts and later found under the Prerequisites: it needs an Ubuntu Server 18.04. Both images can be selected to be deployed on a Linode server so keep an eye on the fine-print.

The second hurdle I missed was when some dependencies need to be added as the Mastodon and not the root user. RTFM.

The next hoopla: there are four instances where you need to replace “example.com” in the nginx configuration – not two, not three, but four.

And it continues: During the Mastodon Application Configuration the assets of the app are compiled. The setup script failed repeatedly since it ran out of memory on the smaller “Nanode 1GB”. With the next bigger “Linode 2GB” server the script finished successfully (and added five bucks to the monthly bill.)

The Mastodon handle

Mastodon handles differ from Twitter handles. Mine on Twitter is @yves_io (they won’t let me reclaim the free handle @yves since you are not allowed to have four letter handles anymore – assholes). On Mastodon I am @yves@luther.social – why? Well a Mastodon handle always consists of a user name and the name of the instance you are part of: @username@some-fancy-instance-name.social. So in theory and practice my name @yves may be taken on other instances but not on another or my own. BTW the second level domain could be anything – the .social is quite often found therefore I chose this one to go with.

Also, because I can’t run my web server and the Mastodon server under the same domain, I needed to find a new one. Since I don’t intend to run a public Mastodon instance and at max may share it with my family, I thought luther.social would be a nice idea. Bad luck for me: “luther.social” is a “premium” domain name, meaning 129 € instead of 39 € – thanks Obama.

I don’t now if Mastodon becomes a success or my family would ever like to join my instance (hey Audrey, what about @audrey@luther.social?) but for now I intend to keep it. Though I need to switch my Mastodon instance from a single to a multi-user setup some time in the future – another of the many problems nobody made me aware of during the Mastodon setup.

Mailgun

Another surprise during the Mastodon Application Configuration was the need for a mail server. The default server in Mastodon is Mailgun.com. Unknown to me but maybe not to serious developers, I chose the free plan which is good for 10.000 emails per month. Please be aware that for making the Mailgun fire you need some serious DNS configuration skills.

Remote Media Attachment Cache Cleanup

Sounds like Klingon, doesn’t it? Well at least for me as an ordinary spaceman. Unfortunately this section of the Mastodon Production Guide lacks of detail compared to the rest. What I did was to switch to the Mastodon system user with sudo su - mastodon, typed crontab -e and then added the two and the three lines to the crontab file. Sounds right? If not, please give me a hint.

The End

So in the end I’ve got my instance up and running and have a nice Mastodon profile:

https://luther.social/@yves

Please add me and follow my tooting adventure. I promise to be a little bit more dialogue-oriented here and on Micro.blog. Simple cross-posting won’t make the cut for these platforms nor will it make Twitter less relevant or change its course.

The Final End

So everybody who intends to run an own instance of Mastodon needs at least these (or comparable) things:

  • a “Linode 2GB” server
  • running the “Ubuntu Server 18.04” image
  • an unused domain
  • some DNS skills
  • a Mailgun.com account
  • the will to follow the “Mastodon Production Guide” meticulously
  • and lastly some hours to spare

Philips Hue Outdoor Lightstrip ↦

It’s designed to withstand all weather conditions, meaning that you can’t extend it or make it smaller. It’s available in both 7-foot and 16-foot versions.

Als Kind der Neon-Generation finde ich die natürlich am coolsten. Armes Familienbudget.

Instapaper mit Premium-Abo und DSGVO-Konformität ↦

In addition to getting access to Premium features, your Instapaper Premium subscription will help ensure that we can continue developing and operating Instapaper. Our goal is to build a long-term sustainable product and business, without venture capital, and we need your help to achieve that goal.

[…]

Additionally, today we are bringing back Instapaper to European Union users. Over the past two months we have taken a number of actions to address the General Data Protection Regulation, and we are happy to announce our return to the European Union.

In meinem Herzen möchte ich Instapaper gern als Indi-Developer unterstützen. Aber europäische User über Wochen ausperren geht gar nicht. Und: Mein Hirn ist einfach für dieses “Read-later”-Prinzip nicht gemacht. Ich speicher Tonnen an Artikeln und lese die nie. Vielleicht sollte ich mal wieder an mir arbeiten.

Wohnen wie im Film ↦

Wer das nötige Kleingeld hat und sein Zuhause zum Hilton im Film 2001: Odyssee im Weltraum umgestalten möchte, bekommt bei “Film an Furniture” die passenden Einrichtungstipps. Natürlich gibt es auch eine Quelle für den ikonischen Teppich aus dem Overlook-Hotel.