@tux Running a pretty reasonable stack now ...

FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE-p5
Mastodon 4.5.8
PostgreSQL 18.3
Valkey 9.0.1
Opensearch (fork of Elastic) 3.2.0

28,4 GB PostgreSQL Database size
162 GB Media Files
4,88 GB Search Index size

#mastodon #mastoadmin

Did quite some maintenance on burningboard.net Mastodon instance today ..

Updated servers and jails to FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE-p5

1.
proxy_cache_path (S3 media cache) was already on a ZFS dataset with autosnapshot disabled .. But proxy_temp_path and client_body_temp_path (both nginx temp folders) weren't. Leading to extremely bloated daily ZFS snapshots for the Nginx jail. Changed those and cleaned old snapshots -> 31GB reclaimed space

2.
Cleaned up Database Snapshots and did a pg_repack on prod to reclaim deleted database pages -> 3GB reclaimed space

3.
Fixed issue with backend path over gif tunnel to Elasticsearch (6in6). Turned out to be a MSS issue (clamp-mss to 1140 solved it!)

4.
Fixed IPv6 routing issue for Prometheus Monitoring after reboot (rc.d static_routes != ipv6_static_routes)

All in all, our instance is in very good shape again :-)

#mastodon #mastoadmin #socialmedia #fediverse #freebsd #unix @tux

Just finished optimizing and checking things after being away from this machine in particular for a while. Our server stack could theoretically handle 5k more registered users and about 1500-2000 monthly active users before we'd need to start thinking about scaling up.

Right now, we have 889 users and around 410 monthly active ones and we're running at roughly 25-30% capacity. Plenty of space to grow.

We're federating with nearly 42000 other servers, which is actually the heaviest part of running an instance, not the local users. Every boost, reply, and follow across the fediverse adds work for our servers.

It was never my intention to grow this server this much or even have this many users, but now we have regular people, authors, political parties, organizations, YouTubers, and more. I'm still amazed about this. Yet I'm keeping a low profile because, even though we have our own admin team, at the end of the day this is still my hobby project organized by me and my wife.

That said, I've done my best to keep things as flexible as possible, and our finances are stable. I'm really glad my "hobby project" has brought so much joy to so many people.

If you know someone looking for a Mastodon home, we've got room 🏠

#MementoMoriSocial #MastoAdmin

Fediverse admins,

You can get a headstart on moderating your server by using ready-made server blocklists. There are many different lists to choose from, pick the one that suits your server's needs the best.

There's a guide for admins about using ready-made server blocklists on Mastodon here:

➡️ https://fedi.tips/importing-ready-made-server-blocklists-on-mastodon

There's a good roundup of many different blocklists by @oli at:

➡️ https://writer.oliphant.social/oliphant/the-oliphant-social-blocklist

#FediAdmin #MastoAdmin #Moderation

The Universeodon relay is now back up and running and migrated to our new environment.

I'll keep an eye for a little longer just to make sure everything continues to work as expected but it should be fine as far as I can see.

#MastoAdmin

Just as a quick note for the #MastoAdmin community - The Universeodon relay is about to be migrated to new infrastructure.

I'm expecting there to be a short blip where the relay will be down while I move the config and DB from the relay to the new server and switch our load balancer to use the new server.

This will then be the final item on our legacy server cluster that needs migrating (Which is frankly long overdue!)

@evan Wait, what? If I follow hashtags on one instance, I only see stuff from that instance? Something is rotten in the state of Denm... Eh, Mastodon. #mastodon #mastoadmin #mastolivre #masto

This instance will be shut down on 2026-04-12 for legal reasons.

Why? I (@alxhu) came across the Mastodon Trademark Guidelines about one month ago, which prophibit the usage of the Mastodon wordmark in the domain name without written permission by the Mastodon GmbH.

When I created this instance, I didn't knew this. I immediatly asked for permission but didn't recieve an answer (even after messaging multiple times again), so I assume the answer is no

#instanceshutdown #mastoadmin #mastodon

@mastodonlgbt @alxhu Just so you know: When they released the trademark policy they made statements saying that they would permit instances that use the mastodon name in good faith and predated the policy.

I'm not aware of a change of that position since.

My own instance use mstdn in the url (IIRC also covered by the trademark) and based on this statement I am keeping my instance up.

May @andypiper can advise?

#mastoadmin

RE: https://mastodon.lgbt/@mastodonlgbt/116318629726348167

I will shut down mastodon.lgbt in about two weeks.

This instance (greifswald.lgbt) is NOT affected.

#instanceshutdown #mastoadmin #mastodon

mastodon.lgbt-Administration » 🌐 2026-03-30 / 2026-03-30
@mastodonlgbt@mastodon.lgbt

This instance will be shut down on 2026-04-12 for legal reasons.

Why? I (@alxhu) came across the Mastodon Trademark Guidelines about one month ago, which prophibit the usage of the Mastodon wordmark in the domain name without written permission by the Mastodon GmbH.

When I created this instance, I didn't knew this. I immediatly asked for permission but didn't recieve an answer (even after messaging multiple times again), so I assume the answer is no

#instanceshutdown #mastoadmin #mastodon

Hi Mastodon-Admins,

I'm the admin of an instance running on v4.3.21 and would like to upgrade to v4.5.0. In the 4.5.0 release notes I can see the update steps for v4.4.8.

Is there any chance I can update directly from v4.3.21 to v4.4.8 or do I have to sequentially update through all the minor releases v4.4.0-v4.4.8?

#mastoadmins #mastoadmin #sysadmins

@paul @maddad @mastodonmigration @chad what could I do as #mastoadmin to prevent known mastodon AI commercial scrapers to harvest data posted by members of our community?

@gubi @paul @maddad @mastodonmigration @chad Preventing known AI scrapers is easy as #mastoadmin: Just block the User Agent (in this case Zeitgeist/1.0 (social feed summarizer; https://github.com/seldo/zeitgeist)).

(see https://github.com/seldo/zeitgeist/blob/57e5bd5f012be31c90df1602de37d8b4e7aa143b/lib/mastodon.ts#L1 for source)

For unknown ones it's much harder ...

My test mastodon instance has been upgraded to v4.5.8, easy peasy.

Stop Services
ProxMox Snapshot
Fetch 4.5.8
Build
Start Services

Now that I say it was easy I have cursed myself tho.

Also I hate that I can't use checkbox emojis now because it looks like AI wrote the post. Batman it is.

#Homelab #MastoAdmin

We just released Mastodon 4.5.8, 4.4.15, and 4.3.21.

These versions contain various bug fixes, including fixes for medium severity security issues.

Full release notes and update instructions are available on the GitHub releases page.

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases

#mastoadmin