Kailash Vetal

Homelab Journal

What is Mastodon and How I run it

an open laptop computer sitting on top of a wooden floor

—

by

Kailash Vetal

What is Mastodon

Mastodon is a free and open-source decentralized social network that offers an alternative to mainstream platforms like Twitter. It is part of Fediverse. The individual Mastodon instances are not isolated. They can communicate with each other using a standard protocol called ActivityPub. This interconnected network of servers, including Mastodon instances and other compatible platforms (like Pixelfed for photos or PeerTube for videos), is collectively known as the “Fediverse” (a portmanteau of “federation” and “universe”).

My motivation to Run Mastodon server

  • Its better twitter alternative for me.
  • I don’t like X’s latest policy decisions as a consumer.
  • X feels more authoritative, where people join to get updates from celebrity users. Normal users are second-class citizens, made to consume the tweets from celebrities.
  • Mastodon provides a publicly visible timeline without the user needing to create an account on any server.
  • If you own a Mastodon instance, you can show your favorite tags on the front page.

Result

Prerequisite in My Setup

  • Docker with Portainer
  • Cloudflare Tunnels
  • MobaXterm

How to Run

After briefed research I found most successful docker-compose file from internet was on blog by – Ben Tasker

Link to blog – https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/running-mastodon-in-docker-compose.html

My Docker compose

version: '3'

networks:
  toot_external_network:
  toot_internal_network:
    internal: true

services:
  toot-db:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: postgres:14-alpine
    container_name: toot-postgres
    shm_size: 256mb
    networks:
      - toot_internal_network
    healthcheck:
      test: ['CMD', 'pg_isready', '-U', 'postgres']
    volumes:
      - /mnt/docker/volumes/toot/postgres14:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
      - 'POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD=trust'

  toot-redis:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: redis:7-alpine
    container_name: toot-redis
    networks:
      - toot_internal_network
    healthcheck:
      test: ['CMD', 'redis-cli', 'ping']
    volumes:
      - /mnt/docker/volumes/toot/redis:/data

  toot-web:
    image: tootsuite/mastodon:v4.0.2
    restart: unless-stopped
    container_name: toot-web
    env_file: .env.production
    command: bash -c "rm -f /mastodon/tmp/pids/server.pid; bundle exec rails s -p 3000"
    networks:
      - toot_external_network
      - toot_internal_network
    healthcheck:
      test: ['CMD-SHELL', 'wget -q --spider --proxy=off localhost:3000/health || exit 1']
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    depends_on:
      - toot-db
      - toot-redis
    volumes:
      - /mnt/docker/volumes/toot/public/system:/mastodon/public/system

  toot-streaming:
    image: tootsuite/mastodon:v4.0.2
    restart: unless-stopped
    container_name: toot-streaming
    env_file: .env.production
    command: node ./streaming
    networks:
      - toot_external_network
      - toot_internal_network
    healthcheck:
      # prettier-ignore
      test: ['CMD-SHELL', 'wget -q --spider --proxy=off localhost:4000/api/v1/streaming/health || exit 1']
    ports:
      - 4000:4000
    depends_on:
      - toot-db
      - toot-redis

  toot-sidekiq:
    image: tootsuite/mastodon:v4.0.2
    restart: unless-stopped
    container_name: toot-sidekiq
    env_file: .env.production
    command: bundle exec sidekiq
    depends_on:
      - toot-db
      - toot-redis
    networks:
      - toot_external_network
      - toot_internal_network
    volumes:
      - /mnt/docker/volumes/toot/public/system:/mastodon/public/system
    healthcheck:
      test: ['CMD-SHELL', "ps aux | grep '[s]idekiq\\ 6' || false"]

References