On #2022/11/12 I have created a VPS running Debian 11. It is a CX41 from Hetzner.com, and I installed Yunohost on it using this description.
Yunohost then provides a GUI to maintain the VPS. It also does the diagnosis and provides the infromation to fix issues. The first experiences are encouraging.
From 2014 I’ve used a VPS for a few years, but it became too much of a chore, and in the end I shut down the entire VPS, because it became unmanageable. I stil haven’t fully deleted it, but I should.
Yunohost also supports the installation of all kinds of applications (like softaculous on cpanel for hosting environments), which makes things easier.
It’s an experimental space first and foremost.
I moved my (and E’s) Mastodon instance over to it (and save on the monthly fee I paid for Masto.host before, folding it into this one). I’m also interested to see if using e.g. Bookwyrm and Pixelfed over it brings use value. These are all AP based applications. Or it can be a testing ground for other projects, e.g. Linqurator.
I have installed Fresh RSS read on it, and a personal NextCloud instance on it, both for my own use as well as for experimenting with apps in Nextcloud, before running them in my business’ Nextcloud.
@ton @jorge I have been testing Yunohost for a while. It is getting better over time, but a lot of applications still don’t let you login automatically as a Yunohost user. That would be my primary requirement to consider running Yunohost in production.
It feels like we’re already rushing headlong to the end of the year. I’ve had conversations this week that made me realise how few weeks of work are left in this year, while the amount of stuff to get done hasn’t shortened in response. On top of that I’ve spent more time than I should have on playing with and conversing on Mastodon, with the new influx of people. And, on top of that, it’s the time of year I get a bit more reflective so I feel a strong urge to make lots of notes.
This week I
Had a meeting with my business partners, talking about what we see ahead in the coming 6 to 9 months.
Participated in a client meeting preparing for the official launch of an interprovinical digital ethics commission by the Minister for Digitisation.
Had the weekly client meetings
Did a session with a few provinces discussing the incoming EU data legislation
Had a meeting about the implementation process for the EU High Value Data list with the responsible Digital Society team at the Ministry for the Interior.
Prepared a meeting of the Dutch tactical council for EU data policy, which takes place next week
Had a session with the consortium that is doing the preparatory work for the Green Deal data space for the European Commission
Did some invoicing
Had a board meeting for the Open Nederland association, in preparation for the general assembly end of the month
Picked up the work again for the Dutch national flora and fauna database that is being restructured both technically and governance wise, as well as gaining a new role in the overall Dutch data infrastructure. It’s a database that contains data from both public and private sources and is used for both public tasks, research and commercial work (building sites e.g.). Those different angles creates interesting tensions w.r.t. organisation, open data, and governance.
Walked the neighbourhood with Y for St. Maarten, resulting in an impressive stash of sweets and candy for Y.
Installed a new VPS with Yunohost, as a sandbox for various indie and ActivityPub related things
Had a conversation with M who maintains a very fast growing Dutch Mastodon instance, about how to structure it’s growth, create a governance layer and ensure its sustainability while also creating a broader base for federated tools in general. To be continued in the next few weeks.
Today I moved my Mastodon account to a different server, and also changed the domain name (or rather the .tld).
I can now be found at https://m.tzyl.eu/@ton (previously m.tzyl.nl/@ton).
In 2018 I explored self-hosting Mastodon, but it was beyond what I could accomplish with my skills. I opted to host my personal Mastodon instance with Masto.host, based in Portugal. For 4 years this worked flawlessly, and I can recommend Masto.host to anyone.
I regard running one’s own instance (or one for a defined small group) as the logical endpoint of distribution and federation, like how a personal website is the most logical form of your web presence. As back when I started hosting m.tzyl.nl with Masto.host, the main considerations for me in running my own instance are those of control, flexibility and ease of use. Ease of use is what Masto.host gave me the past 4 years, beyond what I could accomplish myself. Ease of use is what I now also have on my VPS, thanks to Yunohost which provides me with a friendly interface to do server admin.
The change in domain name from the .nl tld to the .eu tld has two reasons. The primary reason was that I didn’t want to try my hand at moving my entire Mastodon server, and moving my account was the easiest path. But that requires an account to move to, while the one I’m moving from still exists. The second and secondary reason is that I prefer using a .eu domain. I’m based in the Netherlands, but I live in the EU, which I regard as ‘home turf’ in its entirety. My personal company site, my company site and various other sites I maintain use .eu domains.
There was one unexpected (because I didn’t think it through) effect of moving my account away from the Masto.host server: I’ve locked myself out of its back-end because my account is now marked inactive and moved, and it’s the account that has admin privileges. If I switch off the redirect to the new account I do have access so it’s not a problem. I do want to wait until the migration of the followed/follower lists is completed though, before cancelling the redirect. E is still on the m.tzyl.nl instance. She will likely move to her own domain and personal instance soon as well.
Once that is done, I will cancel my subscription with Masto.host. They’ve seen a large influx of new customers, which they are working to accommodate. Making a bit of room for those also looking to run their own instances is useful I think.
Brief overview of how I’m active in the fediverse.
My site
I would prefer this site to be the centerpoint of my fediverse presence. For now that isn’t fully feasible, but it will be over time. Already the building blocks for WordPress to be a fediverse actor exist. The Activity Pub (AP) plugin and Webfinger plugin by Matthias Pfefferle are useful, just not allowing enough granular control yet to my taste. For one, the AP plugin exposes actual usernames of my WP site, a disclosure I don’t like. I need to be able to set the actor names for AP, through the AP plugin and/or the Webfinger plugin. Second, the AP plugin allows sharing my blogposts but only all blogposts, and I want to be able to only publish certain categories of posts as well as individual posts marked for sharing through AP. Third, the AP plugin doesn’t yet take into account the interaction parts of AP (like follows etc.).
Mastodon
I run two Mastodon instances, one hosted at Masto.host. Masto.host has been a very reliable service since I started hosting with them in 2018. I ran a personal instance (m.tzyl.nl) with them until late November 2022, and started one for my company (m.tgl.eu) early November 2022. I run my personal instance of Mastodon on a VPS with Yunohost, at m.tzyl.eu
Discoverability hack
I have added simple text files to /.well-known/webfinger to both this site and my company website that allow discovery of my existing Mastodon profiles through my site’s and work e-mail addresses. This is just a hack, and I should replace it with actual functionality to disclose actors on both those sites.
Bookwyrm
Bookwyrm is the book reading application on AP. I have an account at the primary instance and supported them financially for a while, but haven’t used it much since spring 2022. This is one of the things I want to do myself through this site.
Potential AP projects
As said above I’d like to be able to share my reading through AP from this site. I would also like to be able to share my planned travel and/or check-ins through this site in AP. Specifically travel plans (Dopplr like) are of interest to me. AP, unlike this site, would allow non-public sharing of this information to followers only.