snac2

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      1 .Dd $Mdocdate$
      2 .Dt SNAC 8
      3 .Os
      4 .Sh NAME
      5 .Nm snac
      6 .Nd snac administration
      7 .Sh DESCRIPTION
      8 The
      9 .Nm
     10 daemon processes messages from other servers in the Fediverse
     11 using the ActivityPub protocol.
     12 .Pp
     13 This is the admin manual. For user operation, see
     14 .Xr snac 1 .
     15 For file and data formats, see
     16 .Xr snac 5 .
     17 .Ss Special cares about your snac you must know beforehand
     18 .Nm
     19 makes heavy use of hard links and link reference counts for its work, so
     20 don't even think of using it on a filesystem that doesn't support this
     21 feature. Most UNIX-like operating systems (Linux, the BSDs, the old DEC
     22 Ultrix machine in your grandfather basement, probably MacOS) support hard
     23 links on their native filesystems. Don't do fancy things like moving the
     24 subdirectories to different filesystems. Also, if you move your
     25 .Nm
     26 installation to another server, do it with a tool that keeps hard
     27 links, like
     28 .Xr tar 1
     29 or
     30 .Xr rsync 1
     31 with the -H switch. Remember:
     32 .Nm
     33 is a very UNIXy program that loves hard links.
     34 .Ss Building and Installation
     35 A C compiler must be installed in the system, as well as the development
     36 headers and libraries for OpenSSL (or compatible) and curl. To build
     37 .Nm ,
     38 run
     39 .Bd -literal -offset indent
     40 make
     41 .Ed
     42 .Pp
     43 And, after that, run as root
     44 .Bd -literal -offset indent
     45 make install
     46 .Ed
     47 .Ss Data storage Initialization
     48 Once
     49 .Nm
     50 is properly installed on the system, designate a directory where
     51 the server and user data are to be stored. This directory
     52 must not exist yet.
     53 .Nm
     54 must always be run as a regular user; you can create one for
     55 it or use your own. To initialize the data storage, execute
     56 .Bd -literal -offset indent
     57 snac init $HOME/snac-data
     58 .Ed
     59 .Pp
     60 A small set of questions will be asked regarding the installation,
     61 specially the host name it will run under, the local network address
     62 and port
     63 .Nm
     64 will listen to, the optional path prefix and possibly other things.
     65 .Pp
     66 Since version 2.57, if the 'network address' starts with /, it's
     67 assumed to be a UNIX-like socket (please take note that the http proxy
     68 must have full read and write access to this socket; this is a common
     69 pitfall. Permissions will break your heart).
     70 .Pp
     71 You can launch the
     72 .Nm
     73 process by running
     74 .Bd -literal -offset indent
     75 snac httpd $HOME/snac-data
     76 .Ed
     77 .Pp
     78 Log messages are sent to the standard error stream. By default, only
     79 relevant information is written there. You can increase the debugging
     80 level by editing the 'dbglevel' field in the
     81 .Pa server.json
     82 file or by setting a numeric value between 0 and 3 to the DEBUG
     83 environment variable, see below.
     84 .Pp
     85 If you operate a Linux systemd-enabled system, OpenBSD, FreeBSD or NetBSD, there are
     86 startup scripts and configuration data in the
     87 .Pa examples
     88 directory.
     89 For other operating systems, please read the appropriate documentation
     90 on how to install a daemon as a non-root service.
     91 .Ss Upgrading to a new version
     92 Sometimes, the data storage disk layout changes between versions. If there
     93 is such a change,
     94 .Nm
     95 will refuse to run and require an upgrade. Do this by running
     96 .Bd -literal -offset indent
     97 snac upgrade $HOME/snac-data
     98 .Ed
     99 .Pp
    100 Take special care to execute this upgrade operation without any
    101 .Nm
    102 processes serving on the same folder. You can break everything. I know
    103 this because Tyler knows this.
    104 .Pp
    105 .Ss Server Setup
    106 .Pp
    107 An http server with TLS and proxying support must already be
    108 installed and configured.
    109 .Nm
    110 runs as a daemon and listens on a TCP/IP socket, preferably
    111 on a local interface. It can serve the full domain or only
    112 a directory. The http server must be configured to route to the
    113 .Nm
    114 socket all related traffic and also the webfinger standard
    115 address. The Host header must be propagated.
    116 See the examples below.
    117 .Ss Adding Users
    118 .Pp
    119 Users must be created from the command line.
    120 You can do it by running
    121 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    122 snac adduser $HOME/snac-data
    123 .Ed
    124 .Pp
    125 All needed data will be prompted for. There is no artificial limit
    126 on the number of users that can be created.
    127 .Ss Customization
    128 The
    129 .Pa server.json
    130 configuration file allows some behaviour tuning:
    131 .Bl -tag -width tenletters
    132 .It Ic host
    133 The host name.
    134 .It Ic prefix
    135 The URL path prefix.
    136 .It Ic address
    137 The listen network address. If it starts with /, it's assumed to be
    138 a UNIX-like socket instead.
    139 .It Ic port
    140 The listen network port (unused if address is a UNIX socket).
    141 .It Ic dbglevel
    142 The debug level. An integer value, being 0 the less verbose (the default).
    143 .It Ic layout
    144 The disk storage layout version. Never touch this.
    145 .It Ic queue_retry_max
    146 Messages sent out are stored in a queue. If the posting of a messages fails,
    147 it's re-enqueued for later. This integer configures the maximum count of
    148 times the sending will be retried.
    149 .It Ic queue_retry_minutes
    150 The number of minutes to wait before the failed posting of a message is
    151 retried. This is not linear, but multiplied by the number of retries
    152 already done.
    153 .It Ic queue_timeout
    154 The maximum number of seconds to wait when sending a message from the queue.
    155 .It Ic queue_timeout_2
    156 The maximum number of seconds to wait when sending a message from the queue
    157 to those servers that went timeout in the previous retry. If you want to
    158 give slow servers a chance to receive your messages, you can increase this
    159 value (but also take into account that processing the queue will take longer
    160 while waiting for these molasses to respond).
    161 .It Ic def_timeline_entries
    162 This is the default timeline entries shown in the web interface.
    163 .It Ic max_timeline_entries
    164 This is the maximum timeline entries shown in the web interface.
    165 .It Ic timeline_purge_days
    166 Entries in the timeline older that this number of days are purged.
    167 If you don't want any timeline purging and enjoy your data drives
    168 fill up with old crap and finally burst in flames, you can disable
    169 purging by setting this to 0.
    170 .It Ic local_purge_days
    171 Same as before, but for the user-generated entries in the local timeline.
    172 .It Ic cssurls
    173 This is a list of URLs to CSS files that will be inserted, in this order,
    174 in the HTML before the user CSS. Use these files to configure the global
    175 site layout.
    176 .It Ic disable_cache
    177 If set to true, timeline caching is not done. This is only useful for
    178 debugging purposes; don't enable it unless you know what do you want, as
    179 it makes everything slower.
    180 .It Ic disable_openbsd_security
    181 If running under OpenBSD,
    182 .Nm
    183 makes use of the enhanced security functions
    184 .Xr unveil 2
    185 and
    186 .Xr pledge 2 .
    187 Setting this to true disables their usage. These functions limit severely
    188 what an intruder can do in case of a security vulnerability, so only enable
    189 this option if something is very broken.
    190 .It Ic num_threads
    191 By setting this value, you can specify the exact number of threads
    192 .Nm
    193 will use when processing connections. Values lesser than 4 will be ignored.
    194 .It Ic disable_email_notifications
    195 By setting this to true, no email notification will be sent for any user.
    196 .It Ic disable_inbox_collection
    197 By setting this to true, no inbox collection is done. Inbox collection helps
    198 being discovered from remote instances, but also increases network traffic.
    199 .It Ic http_headers
    200 If you need to add more HTTP response headers for whatever reason, you can
    201 fill this object with the required header/value pairs.
    202 .It Ic show_instance_timeline
    203 If this is set to true, the instance base URL will show a timeline with the latest
    204 user posts instead of the default greeting static page. If other information
    205 fields are set (see below), they are also shown.
    206 .It Ic admin_email
    207 The email address of the instance administrator (optional).
    208 .It Ic admin_account
    209 The user name of the instance administrator (optional).
    210 .It Ic short_description
    211 A textual short description about the instance (optional).
    212 .It Ic short_description_raw
    213 Whether to interpret short_descript as raw string or convert to HTML (optional).
    214 .It Ic fastcgi
    215 If set to true,
    216 .Nm
    217 will use the FastCGI interface to communicate with the upper level
    218 http server, that must be configured accordingly.
    219 .It Ic disable_history
    220 If set to true, history monthly snapshots are not served nor their links shown.
    221 .It Ic shared_inboxes
    222 This boolean value selects if shared inboxes are announced or not. Enabling
    223 shared inboxes helps (somewhat) in optimizing incoming traffic for instances
    224 with a large number of users.
    225 .It Ic min_account_age
    226 If this numeric value (in seconds) is set, any activity coming from an account
    227 that was created more recently than that will be rejected. This may be used
    228 to mitigate spam from automatically created accounts.
    229 .It Ic protocol
    230 This string value contains the protocol (schema) to be used in URLs. If not
    231 set, it defaults to "https". If you run
    232 .Nm
    233 as part of a hidden network like Tor or I2P that doesn't have a TLS /
    234 Certificate infrastructure, you need to set it to "http". Don't change it
    235 unless you know what you are doing.
    236 .It Ic hide_delete_post_button
    237 If set to true, the button to delete a post is not shown. It's not very
    238 useful and somewhat clutters the already crowded button space.
    239 .It Ic disable_block_notifications
    240 If set to true, notifications about 'Block' activities are never sent.
    241 .It Ic strict_public_timelines
    242 If set to true, public timelines only show posts and boosts originating
    243 from an account (no conversation trees).
    244 .It Ic proxy_media
    245 If set to true, links to all image, audio or video media from other accounts'
    246 posts will not be direct ones, but proxied by
    247 .Nm .
    248 This way, remote media servers will not see the user's IP, but the server one,
    249 improving privacy. Please take note that this will increase the server's incoming
    250 and outgoing traffic.
    251 .It Ic badlogin_retries
    252 If incorrect logins from a given IP address reach this count, subsequent attempts
    253 from it are rejected until the lock expires (default: 5 retries).
    254 .It Ic badlogin_expire
    255 The number of seconds a blocked IP address is ignored in login attempts
    256 (default: 300 seconds).
    257 .It Ic disable_sandbox
    258 This boolean toggle allows disabling Linux Landlock sandboxing. Confining a
    259 program in a sandbox limits the directories and resources it can use, so it's
    260 recommended for security. Support for Linux sandboxing must be compiled in, and you
    261 need at least a Linux kernel version 5.13.0.
    262 .It Ic max_public_entries
    263 The maximum number of entries (posts) to be returned in user RSS feeds and outboxes
    264 (default: 20).
    265 .It Ic max_attachments
    266 The maximum number of attachments per post (default: 4).
    267 .It Ic enable_svg
    268 Since version 2.73, SVG image attachments are hidden by default; you can enable
    269 them by setting this value to true.
    270 .It Ic smtp_url
    271 Since version 2.76, email notifications can be sent via direct connection to an
    272 SMTP server instead of the traditional behaviour of piping the message to
    273 .Pa /usr/sbin/sendmail .
    274 Set this value to the SMTP url to be used for sending email notifications
    275 (for example, smtp://localhost). It may include a port number if it's not running on
    276 the usual one, like in smtp://mail.example.com:587.
    277 .It Ic smtp_user
    278 .It Ic smtp_password
    279 To be filled if the SMTP server defined by the previous directive needs credentials.
    280 .It Ic rss_hashtag_poll_hours
    281 The periodic number of hours hashtag RSS are polled (default: 4). It has a minimum
    282 value of 1 to avoid hammering servers.
    283 .It Ic disable_notify_webhook
    284 Since version 2.78, users can set a webhook URL to receive notifications. Set this
    285 to true if you don't want your users to have this privilege.
    286 .El
    287 .Pp
    288 You must restart the server to make effective these changes.
    289 .Pp
    290 If a file named
    291 .Pa greeting.html
    292 is present in the server base directory, it will be returned whenever
    293 the base URL of the server is requested. Fill it with whatever
    294 information about the instance you want to supply to people
    295 visiting the server, like sign up requirements, site policies
    296 and such. The special %userlist% mark in the file will cause
    297 the list of users in this instance to be inserted.
    298 .Pp
    299 Users can change a bit of information about themselves from the
    300 web interface. See
    301 .Xr snac 1
    302 for details. Further, every user can have a private CSS file in their
    303 .Pa static/style.css
    304 that will be served instead of the server-wide one.
    305 It's not modifiable from the web interface to avoid users
    306 shooting themselves in the foot by destroying everything.
    307 .Ss Custom Emojis
    308 From version 2.51, support for customized Emojis in posts is available
    309 (previously, they were hardcoded). Emojis are read from the
    310 .Pa emojis.json
    311 file in the instance base directory, as a JSON object of key / value
    312 pairs (if this file does not exist, it will be created with
    313 the predefined set). Each key in the object contains the text to be found (e.g.,
    314 the :-) for a smiling face), and its associated value, the text string that
    315 will replace it (in this example case, the HTML entity for the Unicode codepoint
    316 for the smiley or the Emoji itself as text).
    317 .Pp
    318 Emoji values can also be URLs to image files; in this case, they will not be
    319 substituted in the post content, but added to the 'tag' array as an ActivityPub
    320 standard 'Emoji' object (it's recommendable that the Emoji key be enclosed in
    321 colons for maximum compatilibity with other ActivityPub implementations, like
    322 e.g. :happydoggo:). These images can be served from an external source or from the
    323 .Pa static
    324 directory of the instance admin.
    325 .Pp
    326 If you want to disable any Emoji substitution, change the file to contain
    327 just an empty JSON object ({}).
    328 .Ss SPAM Mitigation
    329 There have been some SPAM attacks on the Fediverse and, as too many
    330 instances and server implementations out there still allow automatic
    331 account creation, it will only get worse.
    332 .Nm
    333 includes some (not very strong) tools for trying to survive the SPAM
    334 flood that will eventually happen.
    335 .Pp
    336 The 
    337 .Ic min_account_age
    338 field in the main configuration file allows setting a minimum age (in
    339 seconds) to consider too recently created accounts suspicious of being
    340 a potential source of SPAM. This is a naïve assumption, because spammers
    341 can create accounts, let them dormant for a while and then start to use
    342 them. Also, some ActivityPub implementations don't even bother to return
    343 a creation date for their accounts, so this is not very useful.
    344 .Pp
    345 From version 2.50, post content can be filtered out by regular expressions.
    346 These weapons of mass destruction can be written into the
    347 .Ic filter_reject.txt
    348 file in the server base directory, one per line; if this file exists,
    349 all posts' content will be matched (after being stripped of HTML tags)
    350 against these regexes, one by one, and any match will make the post to
    351 be rejected. Use lower case, the regex will be case insensitive by default. 
    352 If you don't know about regular expressions, don't use this
    353 option (or learn about them inw some tutorial, there are gazillions of
    354 them out there), as you and your users may start missing posts. Also,
    355 given that every regular expression implementation supports a different
    356 set of features, consider reading the documentation about the one
    357 implemented in your system.
    358 .Ss ActivityPub Support
    359 These are the following activities and objects that
    360 .Nm
    361 supports:
    362 .Bl -tag -width tenletters
    363 .It Vt Follow
    364 Complete support, on input and output.
    365 .It Vt Undo
    366 For
    367 .Vt Follow ,
    368 .Vt Like
    369 and
    370 .Vt Announce
    371 objects, on input and output.
    372 .It Vt Create
    373 For
    374 .Vt Note ,
    375 .Vt Question ,
    376 .Vt Page ,
    377 .Vt Article ,
    378 .Vt Event
    379 and
    380 .Vt Video
    381 objects on input, and for
    382 .Vt Note
    383 and
    384 .Vt Question
    385 on output.
    386 .It Vt Accept
    387 For
    388 .Vt Follow
    389 objects, on input and output.
    390 .It Vt Like
    391 For
    392 .Vt Note
    393 objects, on input and output.
    394 .It Vt EmojiReact
    395 For
    396 .Vt Note
    397 objects, on input.
    398 .It Vt Announce
    399 For
    400 .Vt Note
    401 objects, on input and output.
    402 .It Vt Update
    403 For
    404 .Vt Note ,
    405 .Vt Question ,
    406 .Vt Page ,
    407 .Vt Article ,
    408 .Vt Event
    409 and
    410 .Vt Video
    411 objects on input, and for
    412 .Vt Note
    413 on output.
    414 .It Vt Delete
    415 Supported for
    416 .Vt Note
    417 and
    418 .Vt Tomsbtone
    419 objects on input, and for
    420 .Vt Note
    421 objects on output.
    422 .It Vt Move
    423 For actor-like objects, for input and output.
    424 .El
    425 .Pp
    426 The rest of activities and objects are dropped on input.
    427 .Pp
    428 There is partial support for
    429 .Vt OrderedCollection
    430 objects in the
    431 .Pa /outbox 
    432 (with the last 20 entries of the local timeline shown). No pagination
    433 is supported. Intentionally, the
    434 .Pa /followers
    435 and
    436 .Pa /following
    437 paths return empty lists.
    438 .Ss Migrating from snac to Mastodon
    439 Since version 2.60, you can migrate your
    440 .Nm
    441 account to other ActivityPub instances. What is described here is the process to do it from
    442 .Nm
    443 to Mastodon; on other software implementations, it will surely be somewhat different. All
    444 the steps regarding your
    445 .Nm
    446 account must be done from the command line. For the sake of the example, let's
    447 say that you want to migrate from an account named @origin@snac.example.org to
    448 another one named @destination@mastodon.example.com and that both of them
    449 already exist. I've used this very informative page as a guideline:
    450 .Pp
    451 .Lk https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server/
    452 .Pp
    453 1. On your
    454 .Nm
    455 server, first export your data to CSV by running:
    456 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    457 snac export_csv $SNAC_BASEDIR origin
    458 .Ed
    459 .Pp
    460 You'll find the following CSV files in the
    461 .Pa export/
    462 subdirectory inside the user directory:
    463 .Pa bookmarks.csv ,
    464 .Pa blocked_accounts.csv ,
    465 .Pa lists.csv , and
    466 .Pa following_accounts.csv .
    467 .Pp
    468 2. In the web interface of your new Mastodon account, click on
    469 .Vt Preferences
    470 >
    471 .Vt Import and Export
    472 >
    473 .Vt Import
    474 and upload the CSV files one at a time. You must specify the type of
    475 file you are uploading.
    476 .Pp
    477 3. Still in the web interface of your new Mastodon account, click on
    478 .Vt Preferences
    479 >
    480 .Vt Account
    481 >
    482 .Vt Moving From a Different Account ,
    483 then click on
    484 .Vt Create an account alias
    485 and follow the instructions. (When it asks you to
    486 write your old account’s handle, it needs to include the @ at the start
    487 as well as the @ in the middle; as of our example, @origin@snac.example.org).
    488 It seems this step is not performed immediately, you must wait an unspecified
    489 number of minutes for this to be effective.
    490 .Pp
    491 4. Meanwhile, you must tell
    492 .Nm
    493 about your new account by creating an alias from your current one.
    494 So, on your
    495 .Nm
    496 server, run
    497 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    498 snac alias $SNAC_BASEDIR origin "@destination@mastodon.example.com"
    499 .Ed
    500 .Pp
    501 5. Finally, you must order
    502 .Nm
    503 to start the migration process, that will consist in iterating all the
    504 people that follows your account and sending them a
    505 .Vt Move
    506 message, that acts as a suggestion to unfollow your old account
    507 and follow the new one. The command is
    508 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    509 snac migrate $SNAC_BASEDIR origin
    510 .Ed
    511 .Pp
    512 This process can be very long and unreliable; any destination server may be down,
    513 too busy, disconnected or gone. I recommend you to read the document I linked
    514 above to know about all the sorrows awaiting. 
    515 .Pp
    516 Also, please take note that the
    517 .Nm
    518 account you migrated from is not disabled nor changed in any way, so can still
    519 use it as it no migration was done. This behaviour may or may not match what other
    520 ActivityPub implementations do.
    521 .Pp
    522 .Ss Migrating from Mastodon to snac
    523 Since version 2.61, you can migrate accounts on other ActivityPub instances to your
    524 .Nm
    525 one. What is described here is the process to do it from
    526 Mastodon; on other software implementations, it will surely be somewhat different. All
    527 the steps regarding your
    528 .Nm
    529 account must be done from the command line. For the sake of the example, let's
    530 say that you want to migrate from an account named @origin@mastodon.example.com to
    531 another one named @destination@snac.example.org and that both of them
    532 already exist. I've used this very informative page as a guideline:
    533 .Pp
    534 .Lk https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server/
    535 .Pp
    536 1. On the web interface of your origin Mastodon account, click on
    537 .Vt Preferences
    538 >
    539 .Vt Import and Export
    540 >
    541 .Vt Export
    542 and download the CSV files under the "Follows", "Lists", "You Block" and "Bookmarks"
    543 labels. After being downloaded, you should find the following files on your download
    544 directory:
    545 .Pa bookmarks.csv ,
    546 .Pa blocked_accounts.csv ,
    547 .Pa lists.csv , and
    548 .Pa following_accounts.csv .
    549 .Pp
    550 2. Copy all those files to the
    551 .Pa import/
    552 subdirectory of the user's directory inside the server base directory, and run
    553 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    554 snac import_csv $SNAC_BASEDIR destination
    555 .Ed
    556 .Pp
    557 This process may take some time because it depends on the availability / responsiveness
    558 of all the ActivityPub servers involved (webfinger, accounts, posts, etc.). Some errors
    559 may be transient and retried later. Also, if
    560 .Nm
    561 complains that it can't find any of these files, please check that they are really
    562 stored in the
    563 .Pa import/
    564 subdirectory and that their names match exactly. Some of them may be
    565 empty (for example, if you didn't create any list) and that's fine.
    566 .Pp
    567 3. Again on your
    568 .Nm
    569 server, run
    570 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    571 snac alias $SNAC_BASEDIR destination "@origin@mastodon.example.com"
    572 .Ed
    573 .Pp
    574 Check that no errors were shown. If they do, the origin Mastodon server may be
    575 busy or down; try again later.
    576 .Pp
    577 4. Move back to the web interface of the origin Mastodon account, go to
    578 .Vt Preferences
    579 >
    580 .Vt Account
    581 >
    582 .Vt Move To A Different Account ,
    583 and follow the instructions there. Set the handle of the new account to your
    584 .Nm
    585 one; as of our example, @destination@snac.example.org. This will start the migration
    586 process: it's the duty of your old Mastodon instance to send an automatic
    587 .Vt Move
    588 message to every one of your followers. Eventually, you will start receiving follow notifications to your
    589 .Nm
    590 account from all accounts that followed the Mastodon one. According to the great document
    591 I linked above, this process may or may not start immediately, and its success may depend
    592 heavily on how all the servers involved behave. Just cross your fingers and hope for the best.
    593 .Pp
    594 .Ss Instance blocking
    595 Full instances can be blocked. This operation must be done from
    596 the command-line tool. See
    597 .Xr snac 1 .
    598 .Pp
    599 .Ss Bad login throttling
    600 Since version 2.67, a simple logic to avoid brute force attacks against user passwords
    601 has been implemented: if, from a given IP address, the number of failed logins reaches
    602 a given threshold, further tries from that IP address are never successful until a timer
    603 expires. The maximum number of retries can be configured in the 
    604 .Pa server.json
    605 file by setting the
    606 .Ic badlogin_retries
    607 variable, and the number of seconds the IP address unlock timer expires, in
    608 .Ic badlogin_expire .
    609 Please take note that, for this system to work, you must setup your web server proxy
    610 to pass the remote connection address in the
    611 .Ic X-Forwarded-For
    612 HTTP header (unless you use the FastCGI interface; if that's the case, you don't have
    613 to do anything).
    614 .Pp
    615 .Ss Subscribing to Fediverse Relays
    616 Since version 2.69, a
    617 .Nm
    618 instance can subscribe to LitePub (Pleroma-style) Fediverse Relays. Doing this improves
    619 visibility and allows following hashtags. To do this, you must create a special user named
    620 relay and, from it, follow the relay actor(s) like you do with regular actor URLs. This
    621 special user will start receiving boosts from the relay server of posts from other instances
    622 also following it. If any other user of the same
    623 .Nm
    624 instance follows any of the hashtags included in these boosted posts coming from the relay,
    625 they will be received as if they were for them.
    626 .Pp
    627 Example:
    628 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    629 snac adduser $SNAC_BASEDIR relay # only needed once
    630 snac follow $SNAC_BASEDIR relay https://relay.example.com/actor
    631 .Ed
    632 .Pp
    633 Users on your instance do NOT need to follow the local relay user to benefit from following
    634 hashtags.
    635 .Pp
    636 Please take note that subscribing to relays can increase the traffic towards your instance
    637 significantly. In any case, lowering the "Maximum days to keep posts" value for the relay
    638 special user is recommended (e.g. setting to just 1 day).
    639 .Ss Web interface language
    640 Since version 2.73, the web UI can be localized via simple .po files (they are directly
    641 parsed, no support for gettext is needed).
    642 .Pp
    643 No language file is installed by default; the administrator must copy any desired .po files
    644 to the
    645 .Pa lang/
    646 subdirectory in the base directory. Once the server is restarted, users can select the
    647 new language from the user settings. The
    648 .Nm
    649 source distribution may include .po files in the
    650 .Pa po/
    651 subdirectory. You don't need to copy the English language one, as it's the default.
    652 .Pp
    653 To create new language files, create a copy of
    654 .Pa po/en.po ,
    655 rename it to a reasonable value like
    656 .Pa pl.po
    657 or
    658 .Pa pt_BR.po ,
    659 change the translator in the header to yourself and fill the msgstr strings with your
    660 translation. If you have any doubt on how to modify .po files, there are many tutorials
    661 out there. If you want your language file to be included in the standard
    662 .Nm
    663 distribution, please send me a link to it via the Fediverse to @grunfink@comam.es
    664 or make a PR via the Git repository.
    665 .Sh ENVIRONMENT
    666 .Bl -tag -width Ds
    667 .It Ev DEBUG
    668 Overrides the debugging level from the server 'dbglevel' configuration
    669 variable. Set it to an integer value. The higher, the deeper in meaningless
    670 verbiage you'll find yourself into.
    671 .El
    672 .Sh EXAMPLES
    673 You want to install the
    674 .Nm
    675 Fediverse daemon in the host example.com, that is correctly configured
    676 with a valid TLS certificate and running the nginx httpd server.
    677 The service will be installed under the
    678 .Pa fedi
    679 location. Two users, walter and jessie, will be hosted in the system.
    680 Their Fediverse presence addresses will be
    681 .Lk https://example.com/fedi/walter
    682 and
    683 .Lk https://example.com/fedi/jesse ,
    684 respectively. They will be known
    685 in the Fediverse as @walter@example.com and @jesse@example.com. The
    686 .Nm
    687 daemon will run as the user snacusr in the system and listen to the
    688 localhost:8001 network socket. All data will be stored in the
    689 .Pa /home/snacusr/fedidata
    690 directory.
    691 .Pp
    692 Log into the system as snacusr and execute:
    693 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    694 snac init /home/snacusr/fedidata
    695 .Ed
    696 .Pp
    697 Answer "example.com" to the host name question, "/fedi" to the path
    698 prefix question, "localhost" to the address and "8001" to the port.
    699 .Pp
    700 Create the users
    701 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    702 snac adduser /home/snacusr/fedidata walter
    703 snac adduser /home/snacusr/fedidata jesse
    704 .Ed
    705 .Pp
    706 Answer the questions with reasonable values.
    707 .Pp
    708 Execute the server:
    709 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    710 snac httpd /home/snacusr/fedidata
    711 .Ed
    712 .Pp
    713 Edit the nginx configuration and add the following snippet to the
    714 example.com server section:
    715 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    716 # nginx configuration example
    717 
    718 # main web access point
    719 location /fedi {
    720     proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
    721     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    722     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    723 }
    724 # webfinger
    725 location /.well-known/webfinger {
    726     proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
    727     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    728     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    729 }
    730 # Mastodon API (entry points)
    731 location /api/v1/ {
    732     proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
    733     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    734     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    735 }
    736 location /api/v2/ {
    737     proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
    738     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    739     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    740 }
    741 # Mastodon API (OAuth support)
    742 location /oauth {
    743     proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
    744     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    745     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    746 }
    747 # optional
    748 location /.well-known/nodeinfo {
    749     proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
    750     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    751     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    752 }
    753 # optional (needed by some Mastodon API clients)
    754 location /.well-known/host-meta {
    755     proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
    756     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    757     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    758 }
    759 # optional (Mastodon-like link share entrypoint)
    760 location /share {
    761     proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
    762     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    763     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    764 }
    765 # optional (Mastodon-like "authorize interaction" entrypoint)
    766 location /authorize_interaction {
    767     proxy_pass http://localhost:8001;
    768     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    769     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    770 }
    771 .Ed
    772 .Pp
    773 Restart the nginx daemon and connect to
    774 .Lk https://example.com/fedi/walter .
    775 The empty, default screen will be shown. Enter the admin section with the
    776 credentials defined for this user. Search people, start following
    777 them, engage in arid discussions and generally enjoy the frustrating
    778 experience of Social Media.
    779 .Pp
    780 This is an example of a similar configuration for the Apache2 web server:
    781 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    782 # apache2 configuration example
    783 
    784 ProxyPreserveHost On
    785 
    786 # Main web access point
    787 <Location /fedi>
    788     ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8001/social
    789 </Location>
    790 
    791 # WebFinger
    792 <Location /.well-known/webfinger>
    793     ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8001/.well-known/webfinger
    794 </Location>
    795 
    796 # Mastodon API (entry points)
    797 <Location /api/v1/>
    798     ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8001/api/v1/
    799 </Location>
    800 
    801 <Location /api/v2/>
    802     ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8001/api/v2/
    803 </Location>
    804 
    805 # Mastodon API (OAuth support)
    806 <Location /oauth>
    807     ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8001/oauth
    808 </Location>
    809 
    810 # NodeInfo (optional)
    811 <Location /.well-known/nodeinfo>
    812     ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8001/.well-known/nodeinfo
    813 </Location>
    814 
    815 # host-meta (optional, needed for some Mastodon API clients)
    816 <Location /.well-known/host-meta>
    817     ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8001/.well-known/host-meta
    818 </Location>
    819 
    820 # optional (Mastodon-like link share entrypoint)
    821 <Location /share>
    822     ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8001/share
    823 </Location>
    824 
    825 # optional (Mastodon-like "authorize interaction" entrypoint)
    826 <Location /authorize_interaction>
    827     ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8001/share
    828 </Location>
    829 .Ed
    830 .Pp
    831 Since version 2.43,
    832 .Nm
    833 supports communicating from / to the front end http server using the FastCGI
    834 protocol. There is no special advantage in using this, only that some servers
    835 allow for simpler configuration. For example, in the case of nginx, you can
    836 replace the two 'proxy_pass' and 'proxy_set_header' lines in the example
    837 above with just
    838 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    839 fastcgi_pass localhost:8001;
    840 .Ed
    841 .Pp
    842 The only thing to change on
    843 .Nm
    844 is to the set 'fastcgi' value to true in
    845 .Pa server.json .
    846 .Pp
    847 Further, using the FastCGI interface allows a much simpler configuration
    848 under OpenBSD's native httpd, given that it's natively implemented there
    849 and you no longer need to configure the complicated relayd server. This is
    850 an example:
    851 .Bd -literal -offset indent
    852 # OpenBSD httpd configuration example
    853 
    854 # other server configuration
    855 [...]
    856 
    857 location "/fedi/*" {
    858     fastcgi socket tcp "127.0.0.1" 8001
    859 }
    860 
    861 location "/.well-known/webfinger" {
    862     fastcgi socket tcp "127.0.0.1" 8001
    863 }
    864 
    865 location "/oauth/*" {
    866     fastcgi socket tcp "127.0.0.1" 8001
    867 }
    868 
    869 location "/api/v1/*" {
    870     fastcgi socket tcp "127.0.0.1" 8001
    871 }
    872 
    873 location "/api/v2/*" {
    874     fastcgi socket tcp "127.0.0.1" 8001
    875 }
    876 
    877 location "/.well-known/nodeinfo" {
    878     fastcgi socket tcp "127.0.0.1" 8001
    879 }
    880 
    881 location "/.well-known/host-meta" {
    882     fastcgi socket tcp "127.0.0.1" 8001
    883 }
    884 
    885 location "/share" {
    886     fastcgi socket tcp "127.0.0.1" 8001
    887 }
    888 
    889 location "/authorize_interaction" {
    890     fastcgi socket tcp "127.0.0.1" 8001
    891 }
    892 .Ed
    893 .Sh SEE ALSO
    894 .Xr snac 1 ,
    895 .Xr snac 5
    896 .Sh AUTHORS
    897 .An grunfink Lk https://comam.es/snac/grunfink @grunfink@comam.es
    898 .Sh LICENSE
    899 See the LICENSE file for details.
    900 .Sh CAVEATS
    901 JSON files are fragile when modified by hand. Take care.