pub, a tiny ActivityPub to Mastodon bridge

What is pub?

pub is an ActivityPub host intended for a single actor. To interact with ActivityPub, pub implements the Mastodon¹ api for use with various apps.

pub is not intended to host an ActivityPub community, rather it is aimed at enabling someone who owns their own domain, and thus controls their identity, to participate in the fediverse.

What doesn't it do?

pub doesn't have much of a web interface beyond what ActivityPub requires, you're expected to interact with it via a Mastodon compatible app.

Getting started

Warning: pub is still in development, if it breaks, you can keep the pieces.

Pre-requisites

• Go
• MariaDB (if you want to use MariaDB)

Installation (MySQL/MariaDB)

Create a database and user for pub:

CREATE DATABASE pub;
CREATE USER 'pub'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'pub';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON pub.* TO 'pub'@'localhost';

Install pub:

For Mysql/MariaDB

go install -tags mysql github.com/davecheney/pub@latest

For Sqlite

go install -tags sqlite github.com/davecheney/pub@latest

Create/migrate the database:

pub --dsn 'pub:pub@/pub' auto-migrate

Setup

Create an instance for pub:

pub --dsn 'pub:pub@/pub' create-instance --domain domain.com --title "Something cool" --description "Something witty" --admin-email admin@domain.com

This will create an instance, and an admin account for that instance.

Create your first user

pub --dsn 'pub:pub@/pub' create-account --email you@domain.com --name you --domain domain.com --password sssh

This will create an account for you to act as acct:you@domain.com

Running

Start pub:

pub --log-http --dsn 'pub:pub@/pub' serve 

Getting online

pub doesn't have a web interface, so you'll need to use a Mastodon app to interact with it. You'll need to put pub behind a reverse proxy, and configure the reverse proxy to forward requests to pub. TLS is also required, so you'll need to configure TLS for your reverse proxy, probably using Let's Encrypt.

See the examples directory for sample configurations for nginx.

Acknowledgements

pub would not be possible without these amazing projects:

• Chi
• GORM
• Kong
• Requests

Contribution policy

pub is currently open to code contributions for bug fixes only. This may change in the future, but at the moment please do not send pull requests with new features.

If you have a feature request, or a bug report, please open an issue. If you're really adventurous, you can contact me via @dfc@cheney.net.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Footnotes

1. Mastodon is a trademark of Mastodon gGmbh. pub is not affiliated with Mastodon gGmbH. pub is not a Mastodon server. ↩