Introduction to the Fediverse

Introduction to the Fediverse - especially Mastodon and ActivityPub

Transcript

1. VSHN – The DevOps Company
   Tobias Brunner, CTO
   Intro to Fediverse
   1
   

   View Slide

2. VSHN – The DevOps Company
   Fedi…​ What?
   Fedi
   Federation
   Verse
   Universe
   Sharing information over boundaries of instances
   Interoperability with open standard: ActivityPub (W3C) et.al.
   2
   

   View Slide

3. VSHN – The DevOps Company
   Re-decentralize the Internet
   Get rid of monopolies
   Own your data
   Set and enforce your rules
   Enable innovation
   Huge growth since November 2022: 10 Million+
   No algorithm telling you what to read
   But…​ Why?
   3
   

   View Slide

4. VSHN – The DevOps Company
   Join Mastodon
   4
   

   View Slide

5. VSHN – The DevOps Company
   To quickly get started on Mastodon:
   1. Choose a server:
   2. Register
   3. Enjoy
   4. Optional: Choose an App
   OK! How?
   joinmastodon.org/servers
   5
   

   View Slide

6. VSHN – The DevOps Company
   Mastodon was started 2016 in Germany
   Today it’s a gGmbH (non-profit)
   By far the most used wsoftware in Fediverse today
   Similar feeling to Twitter
   Live Demo now!
   Non-Fun-Facts: Ruby monolith, hard to scale and run
   Mastodon?
   6
   

   View Slide

7. VSHN – The DevOps Company
   Instances
   Identities
   Similarities to SMTP
   Server to Server: ActivityPub
   Client to Server: Usually the Mastodon API
   Webfinger
   Excourse: Concepts
   7
   

   View Slide

8. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Tons! 
   Takahē, GNU social, Pleroma (Microblogging)
   PixelFed (Photo sharing)
   PeerTube (Video sharing)
   Plugins to WordPress and others
   1)
   2)
   Alternatives
   delightful.club/delightful-fediverse-apps/
   fediverse.party/
   8
   

   View Slide

9. VSHN – The DevOps Company
   To find and follow people: Search!
   To boost: Search!
   Use "Content Warning" to mark "sensitive" content
   Write an image caption if you add one
   For direct messages use post visibility
   Know the difference between Favorites and Boosts
   There are no quote boosts like Twitter has
   Follow Hashtags for example for events
   Posts can be edited
   Practical Tips
   9
   

   View Slide

10. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    - based on Takahē
    Runs on APPUiO Cloud
    At VSHN
    vshn.social
    Why Takahē?
    Allows for multiple identities
    Easy to run
    Lightweight
    Currently missing
    Post scheduling
    Integration in marketing tools
    10
    

    View Slide

11. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Further Information
    fedi.tips/
    joinfediverse.wiki/
    fediverse.info/
    fediverse.observer/
    delightful.club/delightful-fediverse-clients/
    tobru.ch/how-to-mastodon/
    11
    

    View Slide

12. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Tobias Brunner, CTO –
    VSHN AG – Neugasse 10 – CH-8005 Zürich – +41 44 545 53 00 – –
    Thanks!
    tobias.brunner@vshn.ch
    vshn.ch info@vshn.ch
    12
    

    View Slide

13. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    Questions?
    13
    

    View Slide

14. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    curl "https://vshn.social/.well-known/webfinger?
    resource=acct:news@vshn.social" | jq .
    Backup Slide: Webfinger
    {
    
    "subject": "acct:news@vshn.social",
    
    "aliases": [
    
    "https://vshn.social/@news/"
    
    ],
    
    "links": [
    
    {
    
    "rel": "http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page",
    
    "type": "text/html",
    
    "href": "https://vshn.social/@news/"
    
    },
    
    {
    
    "rel": "self",
    
    "type": "application/activity+json",
    
    "href": "https://vshn.social/@news@vshn.social/"
    
    }
    
    ]
    
    }
    14
    

    View Slide

15. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    curl -H "Accept: application/ld+json"
    | jq .
    Backup Slide: Inbox
    vshn.social/@news@vshn.social/
    {
    
    "@context": [
    
    "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams"
    
    ],
    
    "id": "https://vshn.social/@news@vshn.social/",
    
    "type": "Person",
    
    "inbox": "https://vshn.social/@news@vshn.social/inbox/",
    
    "attachment": [
    
    {
    
    "type": "http://schema.org#PropertyValue",
    
    "value": "https://www.vshn.ch",
    
    "name": "Website"
    
    }
    
    ],
    
    "endpoints": {
    
    "sharedInbox": "https://vshn.social/inbox/"
    
    },
    
    "icon": {
    
    "type": "Image",
    
    "mediaType": "image/png",
    
    "url": "https://sos-ch-gva-2.exo.io:443/vshn-social-takahe-prod/profile_images/2023/1/17/lO9BeK_inFU48X1q
    },
    
    "name": "VSHN News"
    15
    

    View Slide

16. VSHN – The DevOps Company
    curl | jq .
    Backup Slide: Nodeinfo
    vshn.social/nodeinfo/2.0/
    {
    
    "version": "2.0",
    
    "software": {
    
    "name": "takahe",
    
    "version": "0.7.0"
    
    },
    
    "protocols": [
    
    "activitypub"
    
    ],
    
    "services": {
    
    "outbound": [],
    
    "inbound": []
    
    },
    
    "usage": {
    
    "users": {
    
    "total": 3
    
    },
    
    "localPosts": 7
    
    },
    
    "openRegistrations": false,
    
    "metadata": {}
    
    }
    16
    

    View Slide