Custom processing of videos and GIFs

Masto.host server resources are shared between Mastodon servers. This offers some optimisation in terms of resource usage for concurrent active users, as people access at different times and peak active users per Mastodon server is very different depending on the location of most of its users. Still, the sharing of resources also causes a problem in terms of federation. When … Read More

New 2020 plans for Masto.host

I decided to create a new Pricing structure for Masto.host plans. Nothing will change for current subscriptions and you can use them at the same price and conditions to which you subscribed. Also, if you have an active subscription using the former plans, you will still be able to upgrade and downgrade using the old plans, plus the option to … Read More

Privacy Policy Changes

I have made the following changes to the Privacy Policy: The following line changed from : “I currently rely on two sub-processors MailGun and OVH.” to “I currently rely on four sub-processors MailGun, CloudFlare, ClouDNS and OVH.”. I added the following: CloudFlare provides CDN (Content Delivery Network) for media files. The usage of a CDN is intended to improve load … Read More

Full-text search add-on option available

Mastodon provides an optional feature called “Full-text search” and that allows you and the users on your server to: search posts the user made search posts the user has favourited search posts in threads the user was mentioned search posts in direct messages to the user This is pretty handy but it requires a significant amount of resources and the … Read More

Changes to the Terms of Service

I have added the following to the terms of service: ——— I will not accept to host Mastodon servers that promote or that become a gathering of users around the following topics: Sexual content involving minors, including artistic depictions Gore and extremely graphic violence, including artistic depictions National Socialism Nazism Holocaust denial Racism Alt right, including under the disguise of … Read More

Sidekiq and Web limits

Both Sidekiq and Web limits only limit the concurrency, meaning how much “work” they can do simultaneously. As an example, a limit of 2 Sidekiq threads will only allow at any given time a maximum of 2 Sidekiq jobs to be running. The same goes for the Web process but the Web process allows for multiple workers. In theory a … Read More

New Masto.host Plans

I decided to stop offering Dedicated Hosting plans and to make a new Pricing structure for Masto.host Shared Hosting Nothing will change for current subscriptions and you can use them at the same price and conditions you have up until today. In the future, if you have a subscription that started before this change, you will still be able to … Read More

DNS provider change + starting the CDN testing

Since my last post, I got some questions and concerns from admins and users of Masto.host hosted instances and as I was also having second thoughts about the testing, I decided to take a couple more days to think about it. About the DNS provider, it was simple. I just ended up moving to ClouDNS and I am happy with … Read More

Testing CDN for media files and changes to DNS provider

For the past weeks, I have been thinking of implementing a CDN solution for Masto.host shared hosting media files. This could speed up image/video loading on countries that are far from Europe and could also reduce the requests/downloads from OVH Object Storage. As I pay per GB downloaded having a CDN (cheaper than OVH) and that could speed up the … Read More

I had to block some external instances

There is a bug that in a very specific situation, instances running version 2.3.x (not sure if others) can get a stuck Sidekiq request to /users/___username___/collections/featured This causes an endless loop of that request and could bring my servers to an halt. So, I had to make the decision to block several instances that were causing a massive amount of … Read More