I've just published version 2.82 of #snac, the simple, minimalistic #ActivityPub instance server written in C. It includes the following changes:

The language in which a post is written can now be set from the UI; you must configure the list of languages you usually post in in the User Settings.

Added support for bullet points in posts (lines starting with an asterisk or a hyphen, plus a space).

Added Dutch (nl_NL) translation (contributed by martijndeb).

Added Western Frisian (fy_NL) translation (contributed by martijndeb).

Mastodon API: Fixed repeated entries in timelines.

Added nodeinfo 2.1 support.

Fixed boosts from the command line not showing in the public timeline (contributed by xvello).

Updated several language files (contributed by zen and daltux).

Retrieving a post's replies is now possible via ActivityPub.

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider buying grunfink a coffee or contributing via LiberaPay.

#snacAnnounces #FrugalFediverse

Alright I've got myself a 1GB RAM VPS for $12 for the year (a 4x increase over the Pi 😆). It's in London and everything for super low latency! I managed to get #alpinelinux installed through some hackery and migrate my blog and #snac instance to it.

One slightly weird thing I had is that inbound #ipv6 traffic on both SSH and HTTPS was returning a "connection reset by peer" for a while. It seems to be working now, but if some IPv6 folks can check https://cablespaghetti.dev loads properly over v6 for them now, it would put my mind at rest.

In unsurprising #snac on a #raspberrypi news. I am increasingly fed up of having to restart it when it crashes due to running out of memory. It happens quite often when I post and sometimes when I don’t. I think this is due to having more content on disk than when I first set it up.

I may have to move it to slightly more powerful hardware for my own sanity…

Thanks to whoever figured out that my #snac server configuration with Lighttpd opened me up to filling up the in-memory root partition and crashing the machine by POSTing a large file. Free pen testing is always appreciated. 😆

In snac on an ancient Raspberry Pi news, I switched from XFS to Btrfs and my memory pressure issues are now a thing of the past. As a bonus I can use snapshots for backups instead of taring up the many small files that snac generates (it has no traditional database).

I tried tuning various parameters but after some reading came to the conclusion that lots of small files with very little RAM is about the worst case scenario for XFS.

#linux #snac #btrfs

I love independent proposals, so next release of #snac will include support for Webmention. It's a protocol built on top of web standards and part of the IndieWeb. It helps web page maintainers and bloggers to know when one of their URLs are mentioned in other platforms by providing a webhook to receive notifications. In snac's case, all links written in a Fediverse post (directly or using the Markdown format) will be tested for Webmention endpoints and notified if they exist.

I don't know how many web sites out there implement Webmention (I guess very few), but given that it has been very simple to implement, here it is.

Long live the non-big-tech Internet.

#Webmention #IndieWeb

In an unsurprising development, my 256MB Raspberry Pi hosted #snac server decided to get OOMKilled this morning just before I boarded a steam train in Wales.

I quickly restarted the service from the platform but then it got killed again and I didn’t notice until this evening. I have now rebooted the server, maybe that will help until I get home from my camping trip with my kids.

For those who don’t care about my latest ADHD obsession, don’t worry I’m sure I’ll move on to a different one soon, and here’s a steam train…

Time for another blog post, about hosting a fediverse instance on my ancient Raspberry Pi. Obviously I had to share it on the fediverse.

https://cablespaghetti.dev/hosting-a-fediverse-instance-on-an-original-raspberry-pi.html

#snac #snac2 #alpinelinux #linux #raspberrypi

Well that's interesting. #snac tells me in the notifications tab when people block me. I don't think there's a way to find out in Mastodon if you've been blocked. I just got blocked by someone who seems to post regularly but has 0 followers and 0 following over on defcon.social. How strange!

I think this is why #snac crashed last night when I posted the link to my blog post. The combination of the load from sending out to many ActivityPub servers and all those servers trying to generate a thumbnail card thing by hitting the website was just too much for the little Pi. I'll have to see if I can do anything to optimise caching...

If you’re reading this you have been successfully migrated as a follower to my stupidly underpowered Raspberry Pi hosted #snac instance. Let’s see how it does with nearly 700 followers. 😆

Part of running a #snac instance on a 256MB Raspberry Pi is working out how to do "stuff" without installing more #alpinelinux packages than you have RAM for.

Here's a script to backup to Backblaze B2 with just Jq as an additional dependency (and the included curl, tar, openssl etc.). It works so far...

https://gist.github.com/cablespaghetti/01862b9d8252223719cbe2586145f686

Starting to play with #snac a bit more seriously on a 256MB Raspberry Pi 1 with a 40GB IDE laptop hard disk attached for reasons...