NGINX Configuration

Mastodon comes with a sample configuration file that you can copy over for NGINX to use. So set up your sites directory for NGINX:

mkdir /etc/nginx/sites-available

and copy it over:

cp /home/mastodon/live/dist/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/mastodon

You will also have to enable it by creating a soft link in the nginx/sites-enabled directory:

mkdir /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/mastodon /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mastodon

Edit the file to adapt it to your instance (see Listing 5), and add the following line:

include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;

in the /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file within the http section.

.
.
.
server {
 listen 80;
 listen [::]:80;
server_name [your domain here];
 root /home/mastodon/live/public;
 location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ { allow all; }
 location / { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; }
}
.
.
.

When you visit your page, you should see an error screen with an angry mammoth bashing a keyboard (Figure 12).

Figure 12: An angry mammoth banging a keyboard is really good news.

Don't panic! This is really good news. The error is there because you still have to start the Mastodon services. To get everything up and running, Mastodon starts three services: Sidekiq, for Ruby jobs Mastodon has to run in the background; Streaming for the feeds; and the Web service.

To start the services, use systemd. Copy over the Mastodon service files to systemd's service folder:

cp /home/mastodon/live/dist/mastodon-*.service /etc/systemd/system/

and start and enable Mastodon's services:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable --now mastodon-web mastodon-sidekiq mastodon-streaming

You are done! Reload your Mastodon, and happy tooting.

Post Install Setup

You can now log in using the email you set up and the password that was provided during the Mastodon configuration step.

Visiting Preferences as admin will show you a bunch of settings not available to regular users. With your newly running instance, probably the most important section is Administration, and, under that, the Server Settings subsection. There you can change the name of the server, define who can register, and configure other settings.

Another important consideration is the set of rules you apply on your site. You can define rules against harassment, hate speech, toots about billionaire owners of competing platforms, and so on, by visiting Administration | Server rules.

To make sure rules are followed, visit the Moderation section, where you will be able to check reports from users, set up accounts with special roles (moderator, admin, owner), block certain domains from federating with your instance, and more.

There are many more options, of course, but most are self-explanatory. That said, if you need more information, your best source is the Mastodon docs themselves [13]. Federating with other instances it is more or less automatic: Find a user on another server you would like to follow, for example mailto:@linuxmagazine@fosstodon.org, and follow them. Bam! You're federated.

Conclusion

Despite the length of this article, there is more, much more, to Mastodon. How could there not be? At this moment of writing, Mastodon is just shy of 9 million accounts and has added 50 thousand new users in the past 24 hours. The landscape is constantly shifting, and new features are continually added to the platform.

This article will get you off to a good start, but be prepared to explore Mastodon and the Fediverse with an open mind, because tomorrow you will find exciting new things to play with.