Get a Mastodon instance running

[simonw]

• https://aeracode.org/2022/11/01/fediverse-custom-domains/
• https://jacobian.org/til/my-mastodon-instance/

[simonw]

OK, I got an account on masto.host and set up a CNAME in Cloudflare:

https://fedi.simonwillison.net/ is live now!

I'll have to jump through some extra hoops to get simonwillison.net working. I think I'll follow Andrew's method: https://aeracode.org/2022/11/01/fediverse-custom-domains/

[simonw]

I created an account manually through the welcome screen there, then used this interface to set myself as an administrator:

https://my.masto.host/hosting -> find "Change User Role"

[simonw]

Looks like that unlocked this interface for me: https://fedi.simonwillison.net/admin/dashboard

[simonw]

Changing https://fedi.simonwillison.net/admin/settings/edit a bit - only I can sign up for starters.

Bit annoyed that "business email" is required and gets shown publicly on https://fedi.simonwillison.net/about/more

I'm going to create a throwaway email address for that using icloud.

[simonw]

Playing with the API - I could automate posting TILs to it.

https://fedi.simonwillison.net/settings/applications/new

https://fedi.simonwillison.net/settings/applications/2

Gives me:

[simonw]

I'm following Andrew and Jacob but their content isn't showing up yet in my instance. Caching issue?

[simonw]

I changed https://fedi.simonwillison.net/settings/preferences/appearance to light:

[simonw]

I want to publish my blog content and TILs to it automatically.

https://github.com/edsu/feediverse looks like an easy way to do that.

[simonw]

That script didn't work for me... on digging around I spotted this error by adding more prints to it:

feed obj is {'bozo': True, 'entries': [], 'feed': {}, 'headers': {}, 'bozo_exception': URLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:997)'))}

Something went wrong with pipx install feediverse then.

[simonw]

Tried this fix: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40666767/how-to-fix-ssl-certificate-verify-failed-feedparser

# Added to the top of feediverse.py
import ssl
ssl._create_default_https_context=ssl._create_unverified_context

This almost worked! Got an error from Mastodon instead though:

mastodon.Mastodon.MastodonUnauthorizedError: ('Mastodon API returned error', 401, 'Unauthorized', 'The access token is invalid')

(The fix to that was that I had some trailing whitespace in my config file).

[simonw]

Just got my first post from someone I follow, from Jacob! Looks like following doesn't back-fill their previous posts, it only shows new posts they submit after you follow them.

[simonw]

Also managed to get all my blog and TIL content published using that feediverse script (with the ssl patch).

[simonw]

Here's the config file I used:

access_token: 6HT_Vhu4qETbQ_VMBLXFtwXUnM1y0JRQqDkQoeQNUs8
client_id: ...
client_secret: ...
feeds:
- template: '{title} {url}'
  url: https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/
- template: '{title} {link}'
  url: https://til.simonwillison.net/tils/feed.atom
name: feediverse
updated: '2022-11-01T02:51:46+00:00'
url: https://fedi.simonwillison.net

I had to use {title} {link} for my TILs feed - {title} {url} posted the ID elements instead.

[simonw]

Reported the issue here:

• bozo_exception': URLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED edsu/feediverse#33

[simonw]

Annoyingly, running fediverse command multiple times seems to publish multiple entries - it's not supposed to do that, not sure what's going wrong.

[simonw]

Spotted this at the bottom of https://fedi.simonwillison.net/web/@[email protected]

[simonw]

Got rate limited trying to delete my duplicate TILs! Can't find an admin option to relax the rate limit, so I guess I have to wait a few minutes to finish deleting them.

Despite being rate limited on deletes I can still post new statuses.

[simonw]

I'm going to roll my own mechanism for posting my stuff to Mastodon - which I'll setup with the goal of posting to other things too in the future.

[simonw]

Last step: vanity simonwillison.net thing as seen in https://aeracode.org/2022/11/01/fediverse-custom-domains/

[simonw]

https://simonwillison.net/.well-known/nodeinfo works correctly now.

[simonw]

https://simonwillison.net/@simon now correctly redirects to https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon

[simonw]

Wasn't sure how to get @[email protected] working.

Got some tips here: https://fedi.simonwillison.net/web/@simon/109276632711038471

https://masto.host/mastodon-usernames-different-from-the-domain-used-for-installation/

I think I need to email them. Done.

[simonw]

They fixed that for me within minutes! @[email protected] now works.

[simonw]

https://simonwillison.net/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:[email protected] returns this:

{
  "subject": "acct:[email protected]",
  "aliases": [
    "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon",
    "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon"
  ],
  "links": [
    {
      "rel": "http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page",
      "type": "text/html",
      "href": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon"
    },
    {
      "rel": "self",
      "type": "application/activity+json",
      "href": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon"
    },
    {
      "rel": "http://ostatus.org/schema/1.0/subscribe",
      "template": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/authorize_interaction?uri={uri}"
    }
  ]
}

[simonw]

curl 'https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon' -H 'Accept: application/json' | jq

{
  "@context": [
    "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
    "https://w3id.org/security/v1",
    {
      "manuallyApprovesFollowers": "as:manuallyApprovesFollowers",
      "toot": "http://joinmastodon.org/ns#",
      "featured": {
        "@id": "toot:featured",
        "@type": "@id"
      },
      "featuredTags": {
        "@id": "toot:featuredTags",
        "@type": "@id"
      },
      "alsoKnownAs": {
        "@id": "as:alsoKnownAs",
        "@type": "@id"
      },
      "movedTo": {
        "@id": "as:movedTo",
        "@type": "@id"
      },
      "schema": "http://schema.org#",
      "PropertyValue": "schema:PropertyValue",
      "value": "schema:value",
      "discoverable": "toot:discoverable",
      "Device": "toot:Device",
      "Ed25519Signature": "toot:Ed25519Signature",
      "Ed25519Key": "toot:Ed25519Key",
      "Curve25519Key": "toot:Curve25519Key",
      "EncryptedMessage": "toot:EncryptedMessage",
      "publicKeyBase64": "toot:publicKeyBase64",
      "deviceId": "toot:deviceId",
      "claim": {
        "@type": "@id",
        "@id": "toot:claim"
      },
      "fingerprintKey": {
        "@type": "@id",
        "@id": "toot:fingerprintKey"
      },
      "identityKey": {
        "@type": "@id",
        "@id": "toot:identityKey"
      },
      "devices": {
        "@type": "@id",
        "@id": "toot:devices"
      },
      "messageFranking": "toot:messageFranking",
      "messageType": "toot:messageType",
      "cipherText": "toot:cipherText",
      "suspended": "toot:suspended",
      "focalPoint": {
        "@container": "@list",
        "@id": "toot:focalPoint"
      }
    }
  ],
  "id": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon",
  "type": "Person",
  "following": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon/following",
  "followers": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon/followers",
  "inbox": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon/inbox",
  "outbox": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon/outbox",
  "featured": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon/collections/featured",
  "featuredTags": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon/collections/tags",
  "preferredUsername": "simon",
  "name": "Simon Willison",
  "summary": "<p><a href=\"https://simonwillison.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"invisible\">https://</span><span class=\"\">simonwillison.net/</span><span class=\"invisible\"></span></a></p>",
  "url": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon",
  "manuallyApprovesFollowers": false,
  "discoverable": true,
  "published": "2022-11-02T00:00:00Z",
  "devices": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon/collections/devices",
  "publicKey": {
    "id": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon#main-key",
    "owner": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/users/simon",
    "publicKeyPem": "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\nMIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAzfQLsIvjI2C0oFHAXMgQ\nk77HQ5zz7bwS/mOFSfudlOl15hQHBfShQKRD09Q+Vqn3N4NLs0QcdlKxHhJ7KcZR\nYNdulI6Jd5G5jWE2J8ETWRqnibo0DnQmpXzNhdSg/y4XAwRBf6ZXjm3s/+EQDy7D\nkNFpmE2BX8oOqgwDTDcxPa2IvUykZS1LxuUVy3LfTLzI7LSm2xKH0C/BJSz6LOIA\nRQ0Pz9By9SwM5WjUBcoWdXVqpP3hF2q9G1GIiLAsXMquU1oAoycgEndtNW/4wPHp\nh98BIzqexGfJlq8yi3rTnF8/G/Ih9VQFe4aiNRubv08oI3K98OBNYWHI58SK56En\nHwIDAQAB\n-----END PUBLIC KEY-----\n"
  },
  "tag": [],
  "attachment": [
    {
      "type": "PropertyValue",
      "name": "Blog",
      "value": "<a href=\"https://simonwillison.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer me\"><span class=\"invisible\">https://</span><span class=\"\">simonwillison.net/</span><span class=\"invisible\"></span></a>"
    },
    {
      "type": "PropertyValue",
      "name": "GitHub",
      "value": "<a href=\"https://github.com/simonw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer me\"><span class=\"invisible\">https://</span><span class=\"\">github.com/simonw</span><span class=\"invisible\"></span></a>"
    },
    {
      "type": "PropertyValue",
      "name": "Twitter",
      "value": "<a href=\"https://twitter.com/simonw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer me\"><span class=\"invisible\">https://</span><span class=\"\">twitter.com/simonw</span><span class=\"invisible\"></span></a>"
    },
    {
      "type": "PropertyValue",
      "name": "TIL",
      "value": "<a href=\"https://til.simonwillison.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer me\"><span class=\"invisible\">https://</span><span class=\"\">til.simonwillison.net/</span><span class=\"invisible\"></span></a>"
    }
  ],
  "endpoints": {
    "sharedInbox": "https://fedi.simonwillison.net/inbox"
  },
  "icon": {
    "type": "Image",
    "mediaType": "image/jpeg",
    "url": "https://cdn.masto.host/fedisimonwillisonnet/accounts/avatars/109/276/369/291/252/172/original/210673cf3d17fda9.jpg"
  },
  "image": {
    "type": "Image",
    "mediaType": "image/jpeg",
    "url": "https://cdn.masto.host/fedisimonwillisonnet/accounts/headers/109/276/369/291/252/172/original/e8b97aaf13f1291d.jpeg"
  }
}