Is there any benefit to host my own instance?

  • UselesslyBrisk@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    Yes the ansible config worked fine for me. I worked for days to get an kbin instance up. Ansible worked first go.

    I have yet to get email working but otherwise its solid. Linode will block email btw if you account is new (and frankly may be blocking mine now). You just have to put in a case and justify and it should be fine. My account should be old enough to be exempt but I will likely do it anyhow. Their support is pretty good.

    Getting federation crawled and communities added is a bit slow. Mostly because the other instances are a bit slow.

    A few pointers if you havent done admin yet.

    1. Put nothing in the federation allow list unless you want to go whitelist only. Over time as other instances hit yours and you search others, the linked list of instances will grow. Just use the blocklist if you want to block certain instances. I havent found a good way to block the growing number of instances in case they have some illegal content like CSAM. So…i may just go whitelist anyhow

    2. Searching for instances seems to be CPU heavy on mine. Its not a problem though. You just cant simply plug in a URL of a community in another instance if you havent linked. You will get a 404 if you do. So you have to go to search, looking for that community by hitting search a few times until it shows up, then you can join and it will start crawling

    3. I have no idea what “Private instance” does other than i believe it will keep your instance form starting in the future if you have it checked AND federation turned on. I saw some logs in dockers startup when i did it but nothing in the UI.,

    • JCreazy@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      Thank you for the information. I’ve signed up for a 2GB shared linode and it’s running Debian 11. I assume I need to ssh into it, then run the ansible stuff. I have very basic knowledge of Linux and command line. I am not entirely sure how to fill out the config but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

      • UselesslyBrisk@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        Yeah how familiar are you with linux?

        You dont run the ansible stuff on the instance itself. You do it from your personal machine or something with ansible installed.

        Though I guess in theory you could run it on itself if you dont have another linux box, or something with ansible installed. https://www.middlewareinventory.com/blog/run-ansible-playbook-locally/

        But I am happy to walk you though the basics of setting up a securing the box.

        • JCreazy@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          I’m not super familiar with Linux, I’ve installed it on machines in the past, I know some very basic command line stuff. I’ve done raspberry pi stuff. I have a mini PC running Ubuntu right now that I am not using for anything so I can use that to run ansible. I probably won’t be able to work on it until after this weekend but once I get an moment to set down and do it I will shoot you a message if I have any questions. I really appreciate your help and I am excited to be a part of the fediverse.