8 ms·

Is there a SPOF for Mastadon? How does Mastadon handle database (multiple masters, etc)? Genuinely curious if this is truly decentralized platform or just a poo

Is there a SPOF for Mastadon? How does Mastadon handle database (multiple masters, etc)? Genuinely curious if this is truly decentralized platform or just a poor man’s open source social networking app with some RSS type of functionality sprinkled on top of it, sort of like Wordpress in a sense in terms of hosting it.

Crespyl 8y ago
It is federated in a manner similar to traditional email. There are many different servers with many users on each one, it's straightforward to run your own server, and users on server A can easily communicate with users on server B. If your server goes down for some reason, much like email, you'll lose the ability to log in and post, but anyone on a different server will be unaffected. I don't believe there's any particularly special DB replication features in the reference server implementation, but there's nothing inherent in the system that would prevent someone writing a customized durable/distributed version of the server.
codewiz 8y ago
Mastodon is part of a federated network called the "fediverse": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse The fediverse works by propagating statuses a set of standard protocols: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub Typical Mastodon instances have one or more frontends (Ruby on Rails) backed by a PostgreSQL database (possibly replicated). Several cloud providers offer managed PostgreSQL instances which mitigate the SPOF of using an RDBMS backend. Accounts of users are bound to the instance where they were created, but recently Mastodon added a data export function that could be used to move an account to a different instance. I doubt you'd retain your followers in this case. Unboundling user identity from instances sounds like a difficult researh problem, given that users can upload considerable amounts of data.
- billions 8y ago
  So profile can be censored by taking down the instance hosting it?
  - codewiz 8y ago
    Of course, but the victim can create a new account on another instance and upload the same content again. Note that this also makes it hard to deal with spam and DoS attacks. As adoption grows, instances might voluntarily adopt protocols for sharing abuse data.
  - lokedhs 8y ago
    Yes. Pretty much exactly the same way a web page can be taken down by the web server being shut down.
  - SolarNet 8y ago
    It's basically like email. As it evolves, people will deal with those issues in different ways. The point is that unlike twitter people have options to choose different instances that are unlikely to censor them.
    - sintaxi 8y ago
      Mastodon is hotmail & gmail, not email. Accounts are centralized and therefore subject to censorship.
      - zaarn 8y ago
        You can setup your own Mastodon instance and nobody will delete the accounts there unless you want it. And it'll work with other mastodon instances. Mastodon isn't hotmail or gmail it's an MTA+MDA, anyone can setup those on their own servers and become reachable by email...
      - SolarNet 8y ago
        mastodon.social is like gmail.com ; Mastodon is like Postfix.
  - 8y ago
TheDong 8y ago
It's federated and decentralized to a degree via the fact that content is federated across instances, and regardless of the source instance being up or down that content will still be visible on other instances (assuming there are followers of that content there). Mastodon depends on postgres; whether your postgres is multi-master or such is entirely up to you, the instance admin. Hosting it is much like hosting any other modern rails app. Some admins use rds, some use postgres-in-docker on a single machine, etc etc. I'm sure some have more fascinating setups there. However, that's wholly outside of what mastodon claims to do or be; it's decentralized and federated in more meaningful ways; there is no central authority listing users or allowing logins.
progval 8y ago
> Is there a SPOF for Mastadon? No. > How does Mastadon handle database (multiple masters, etc)? Each node has a partial knowledge of the network. > Genuinely curious if this is truly decentralized platform or just a poor man’s open source social networking app with some RSS type of functionality sprinkled on top of it, sort of like Wordpress in a sense in terms of hosting it. Neither. It's federated, like emails. Users still have to subscribe to a server, but anyone can run a server.

Crespyl 8y ago

It is federated in a manner similar to traditional email. There are many different servers with many users on each one, it's straightforward to run your own server, and users on server A can easily communicate with users on server B. If your server goes down for some reason, much like email, you'll lose the ability to log in and post, but anyone on a different server will be unaffected. I don't believe there's any particularly special DB replication features in the reference server implementation, but there's nothing inherent in the system that would prevent someone writing a customized durable/distributed version of the server.

codewiz 8y ago

Mastodon is part of a federated network called the "fediverse": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse The fediverse works by propagating statuses a set of standard protocols: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub Typical Mastodon instances have one or more frontends (Ruby on Rails) backed by a PostgreSQL database (possibly replicated). Several cloud providers offer managed PostgreSQL instances which mitigate the SPOF of using an RDBMS backend. Accounts of users are bound to the instance where they were created, but recently Mastodon added a data export function that could be used to move an account to a different instance. I doubt you'd retain your followers in this case. Unboundling user identity from instances sounds like a difficult researh problem, given that users can upload considerable amounts of data.

billions 8y ago
So profile can be censored by taking down the instance hosting it?
- codewiz 8y ago
  Of course, but the victim can create a new account on another instance and upload the same content again. Note that this also makes it hard to deal with spam and DoS attacks. As adoption grows, instances might voluntarily adopt protocols for sharing abuse data.
- lokedhs 8y ago
  Yes. Pretty much exactly the same way a web page can be taken down by the web server being shut down.
- SolarNet 8y ago
  It's basically like email. As it evolves, people will deal with those issues in different ways. The point is that unlike twitter people have options to choose different instances that are unlikely to censor them.
  - sintaxi 8y ago
    Mastodon is hotmail & gmail, not email. Accounts are centralized and therefore subject to censorship.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      You can setup your own Mastodon instance and nobody will delete the accounts there unless you want it. And it'll work with other mastodon instances. Mastodon isn't hotmail or gmail it's an MTA+MDA, anyone can setup those on their own servers and become reachable by email...
    - SolarNet 8y ago
      mastodon.social is like gmail.com ; Mastodon is like Postfix.
- 8y ago

TheDong 8y ago

It's federated and decentralized to a degree via the fact that content is federated across instances, and regardless of the source instance being up or down that content will still be visible on other instances (assuming there are followers of that content there). Mastodon depends on postgres; whether your postgres is multi-master or such is entirely up to you, the instance admin. Hosting it is much like hosting any other modern rails app. Some admins use rds, some use postgres-in-docker on a single machine, etc etc. I'm sure some have more fascinating setups there. However, that's wholly outside of what mastodon claims to do or be; it's decentralized and federated in more meaningful ways; there is no central authority listing users or allowing logins.

progval 8y ago

> Is there a SPOF for Mastadon? No. > How does Mastadon handle database (multiple masters, etc)? Each node has a partial knowledge of the network. > Genuinely curious if this is truly decentralized platform or just a poor man’s open source social networking app with some RSS type of functionality sprinkled on top of it, sort of like Wordpress in a sense in terms of hosting it. Neither. It's federated, like emails. Users still have to subscribe to a server, but anyone can run a server.