running a fediverse instance on a seven year old blackberry nuggetphone
Exactly one month ago, Ivy had the worst idea. A fediverse instance on a seven year old Android BlackBerry nuggetphone.
It hosts a rather simple single-user (well, technically three users; one Ivy, one bot, and one other) GoToSocial instance, along with one Markov bot, which tries to mimic Ivy's thought process.. and somehow follow more logical trains of thought than he does.
To the uninitiated: GoToSocial is an ActivityPub-compliant social network server. As with all other ActivityPub servers, GoToSocial servers can federate with other ActivityPub servers such as Mastodon, Misskey, or Akkoma; as part of the Fediverse. GoToSocial is different from the formerly-mentioned examples in that it is designed to be lightweight, to be able to run on low-powered devices, and aimed at small or single-user instances.
Turns out it was a relatively simple process* (will get to that in a bit).
Ivy just got a domain, installed Debian through Termux PRoot (due to it being a BlackBerry device, rooting is impossible), and installed GoToSocial.
The part which wasn't very simple, was getting it on the net. Ivy couldn't really get his hands on a static IP address; so Ivy used dynamic DNS. Then he realised he would be exposing his entire house to the entire internet for the sake of one nugget.
And so, a friend of Ivy's – who already operates their own homelab – offered to reverse-proxy Ivy's traffic through their network. This turned out to be exactly what Ivy needed; the nugget currently has its traffic routed through said network via Tailscale.
The total cost seems to be pretty low too:
- Domain: 1 USD.
- Nugget: Handed down, free of charge (original cost: 125 USD).
- Electricity: Just about as much as a seven year old phone would use (not much).
Of course, an SBC like a Raspberry Pi would generally be more viable as an option if you want to go cheap, but if one does not have an SBC and wants to give a nugg a purpose; this is a pretty hilarious way of doing it.
The nugget currently sits next to Ivy's oven, and has happily been running for one month. Ivy hopes it doesn't blow up. To this note, it only hosts a privy account of Ivy's, and has zero public posts; as such, Ivy doesn't feel he should post the URL to it here. His current fediverse account however, remains the same as it's always been.
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