What is Mastodon?
Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub where users can follow friends and discover new ones. On Mastodon, users can publish anything they want: links, pictures, text, video. All Mastodon servers are interoperable as a federated network (users on one server can seamlessly communicate with users from another one, including non-Mastodon software that implements ActivityPub)! -https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon
Installing Docker
Log into the Linux based device
Run the following commands in the terminal
# install prerequisites sudo apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common gnupg-agent -y # add docker gpg key curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/$(awk -F'=' '/^ID=/{ print $NF }' /etc/os-release)/gpg | sudo apt-key add - # add docker software repository sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture)] https://download.docker.com/linux/$(awk -F'=' '/^ID=/{ print $NF }' /etc/os-release) $(lsb_release -cs) stable" # install docker sudo apt install docker-ce docker-compose containerd.io -y # enable and start docker service sudo systemctl enable docker && sudo systemctl start docker # add the current user to the docker group sudo usermod -aG docker $USER # reauthenticate for the new group membership to take effect su - $USER
Generating SSL Certificate with Let's Encrypt
NOTE: In order for Let's Encrypt to verify ownership of the DNS name, the host certbot is running from must be accessible via port 80 (http) or port 443 (https). For homelab users, this will normally involve port forwarding from the router to the certbot host, which is beyond the scope of this tutorial. Just note, I have forwarded port 80 on my router to the host running certbot for this handshake to complete successfully.
Continue with the following commands in a terminal window
# remove apt version of certbot if installed sudo apt remove certbot -y # install snapd sudo apt install snapd -y # install snap core and update sudo snap install core; sudo snap refresh core # install certbot snap sudo snap install --classic certbot # create certbot symbolic link sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot # if a web server process is currently using port 80, stop it before proceeding # generate a certificate sudo certbot certonly --standalone --preferred-challenges http -d <%DNS NAME%>
When prompted, enter an email address and agree to the terms of service
Choose whether to share your email and receive emails from certbot
Certbot will output information regarding the location of the certificate files
Continue with the following commands in a terminal window
# create ssl-certs group sudo groupadd ssl-certs # add $USER and root users to group sudo usermod -aG ssl-certs $USER sudo usermod -aG ssl-certs root # verify the members of ssl-cert getent group ssl-certs # set owner group of /etc/letsencrypt sudo chgrp -R ssl-certs /etc/letsencrypt # set permissions on /etc/letsencrypt sudo chmod -R g=rX /etc/letsencrypt
Running the Mastodon Container Stack
Now that Docker is installed, run the following commands to setup the Mastodon Docker containers
# create working directories mkdir ~/docker/postgres -p && mkdir ~/docker/redis -p && mkdir ~/docker/mastodon/public/system -p && mkdir ~/docker/nginx/conf -p # pull the mastodon web container docker pull tootsuite/mastodon # generate secrets, run this 2 times docker run --rm -it tootsuite/mastodon bundle exec rake secret # generate VAPID keys docker run --rm -it tootsuite/mastodon bundle exec rake mastodon:webpush:generate_vapid_key # create a mastodon .env file # copy the generated secrets and keys into the .env file # make sure to set the LOCAL_DOMAIN as this cannot be changed later nano ~/docker/mastodon/.env
Paste the following into the .env file, then edit the LOCAL_DOMAIN, WEB_DOMAIN, PostgreSQL, Secrets, Web Push and SMTP settings
NOTE: A full example .env file can be find at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/.env.production.sample
# This is a sample configuration file. You can generate your configuration
# with the `rake mastodon:setup` interactive setup wizard, but to customize
# your setup even further, you'll need to edit it manually. This sample does
# not demonstrate all available configuration options. Please look at
# https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/config/ for the full documentation.
# Note that this file accepts slightly different syntax depending on whether
# you are using `docker-compose` or not. In particular, if you use
# `docker-compose`, the value of each declared variable will be taken verbatim,
# including surrounding quotes.
# See: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/16895
# Federation
# ----------
# This identifies your server and cannot be changed safely later
# ----------
LOCAL_DOMAIN=i12bretro.local
# ----------
# Optional, if different than LOCAL_DOMAIN
# ----------
#WEB_DOMAIN=toots.webredirect.org
# Redis
# -----
REDIS_HOST=redis
REDIS_PORT=6379
# PostgreSQL
# ----------
DB_HOST=postgres
DB_USER=mastodon_rw
DB_NAME=mastodon
DB_PASS=Ma5toD0n!
DB_PORT=5432
# Secrets
# -------
# Make sure to use `rake secret` to generate secrets
# -------
SECRET_KEY_BASE=
OTP_SECRET=
# Web Push
# --------
# Generate with `rake mastodon:webpush:generate_vapid_key`
# --------
VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY=
VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY=
# Sending mail
# ------------
SMTP_SERVER=smtp.example.com
SMTP_PORT=25
SMTP_LOGIN=
SMTP_PASSWORD=
SMTP_FROM_ADDRESS=mastodon@example.com
# IP and session retention
# -----------------------
# Make sure to modify the scheduling of ip_cleanup_scheduler in config/sidekiq.yml
# to be less than daily if you lower IP_RETENTION_PERIOD below two days (172800).
# -----------------------
IP_RETENTION_PERIOD=31556952
SESSION_RETENTION_PERIOD=31556952
Press CTRL+O, Enter, CTRL+X to write the changes to .env
Continue with the following steps in the terminal
# set owner of docker directory sudo chown "$USER":"$USER" ~/docker -R # create containers docker network create containers # run the postgesql container docker run -d --name postgres -e POSTGRES_USER=mastodon_rw -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=Ma5toD0n! -e POSTGRES_DB=mastodon -v ~/docker/postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data --network containers --restart=unless-stopped postgres:latest # run the redis container docker run -d --name redis -v ~/docker/redis:/data --network containers --restart=unless-stopped redis # initialize the mastodon database docker run --rm -it --network containers --env-file ~/docker/mastodon/.env tootsuite/mastodon rails db:migrate # run the mastodon frontend container docker run -d --name mastodon --env-file ~/docker/mastodon/.env -p 3000:3000 -v ~/docker/mastodon/public/system:/mastodon/public/system --network containers --restart=unless-stopped tootsuite/mastodon bash -c "rm -f /mastodon/tmp/pids/server.pid; bundle exec rails s -p 3000" # connect to shell inside mastodon container docker exec -it mastodon /bin/bash # set the RAILS_ENV variable RAILS_ENV=production # create an owner/admin account # copy the password output for later bin/tootctl accounts create <%username%> --email <%email address%> --confirmed --role Owner # exit the container exit # run the mastodon streaming container docker run -d --name mastodon-stream --env-file ~/docker/mastodon/.env -p 4000:4000 --network containers --restart=unless-stopped tootsuite/mastodon node ./streaming # run the mastodon sidekiq container docker run -d --name mastodon-sidekiq --env-file ~/docker/mastodon/.env --network containers -v ~/docker/mastodon/public/system:/mastodon/public/system --restart=unless-stopped tootsuite/mastodon bundle exec sidekiq
Setting Up the Nginx Proxy Server
Now that all the pieces of Mastodon are running, we'll configure an nginx proxy server
# download the default mastodon nginx configuration wget -O ~/docker/nginx/conf/mastodon.conf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mastodon/mastodon/main/dist/nginx.conf # replace some options to work running in docker containers sed -i "s/try_files \$uri =404;/try_files \$uri @proxy;/" ~/docker/nginx/conf/mastodon.conf # update the server_name with the URL being used to reach mastodon # make sure to replace WEB_DOMAIN sed -i "s/server_name example.com;/\server_name <%WEB_DOMAIN%>;/" ~/docker/nginx/conf/mastodon.conf # update mastodon frontend server sed -i 's/server 127.0.0.1:3000/server mastodon:3000/' ~/docker/nginx/conf/mastodon.conf # update mastodon stream server sed -i 's/server 127.0.0.1:4000/server mastodon-stream:4000/' ~/docker/nginx/conf/mastodon.conf # update the ssl certificate path # make sure to replace DNS NAME sed -i 's/# ssl_certificate\s*\/etc\/letsencrypt\/live\/example.com\/fullchain.pem;/ssl_certificate\t\/etc\/letsencrypt\/live\/<%DNS NAME%>\/fullchain.pem;/' ~/docker/nginx/conf/mastodon.conf # update the ssl key path # make sure to replace DNS NAME sed -i 's/# ssl_certificate_key\s*\/etc\/letsencrypt\/live\/example.com\/privkey.pem;/ssl_certificate_key\t\/etc\/letsencrypt\/live\/<%DNS NAME%>\/privkey.pem;/' ~/docker/nginx/conf/mastodon.conf # create nginx proxy container docker run --name nginx -p 80:80 -p 443:443 --network containers -v ~/docker/nginx/conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d:ro -v /etc/letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt:ro -d nginx
Open a web browser and navigate to https://<%WEB_DOMAIN%>
Click Sign in then login using the owner email and generated password from earlier
Select Preferences from the lower right of the user interface
Select Account from the left navigation menu
Enter the generated password in the Current password field, then enter and confirm a new password for the current user > Click Save Changes
Select Logout from the left navigation menu
Log back in using the owner account email address and updated password
Welcome to Mastodon