
Deploying Mastodon on Digital Ocean - tomcam
https://startuplab.io/post/deploying-mastodon-on-digital-ocean
======
daveid
FYI there's a more recent, and much more in-depth official installation
manual:
[https://docs.joinmastodon.org/administration/installation/](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/administration/installation/)

The documentation also includes various guides on horizontal scaling, using
pgBouncer etc.

~~~
davidcollantes
I don't see any reference to running Mastodon using Docker on the official
installation manual. If there is, could you point me to the right direction?

~~~
angristan
See here:
[https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Runni...](https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Running-
Mastodon/Docker-Guide.md)

For some reason Eugen didn't port everything to the new doc website.

~~~
davidcollantes
Right, but is that up-to-date? The parent to my reply states that "more
recent, and much more in-depth official installation manual" exists, but
without Docker. Does it means Docker will no longer be officially supported?

~~~
egypturnash
The new docs site is definitely a WIP, every upgrade guide still has notes for
how to upgrade both with and without Docker.

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beardicus
Nice tutorial!

> Now let's add docker to the sudo group, that will allow us to run all the
> docker commands without sudo

This command is actually adding the current user to the docker group, not
adding docker to the sudo group. Same end result though.

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amelius
Why do we still need to manage domain names and DNS settings through web
interfaces? Isn't there a command-line tool for this? I'm asking because every
provider uses a different web interface, which is very inconvenient.

~~~
megous
Choose provider that offers API. It doesn't have to be the VPS provider
itself. And probably shouldn't be.

~~~
amelius
Ok, is the API standardized?

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codetrotter
No, but choosing a tool that implements support for multiple providers will
give you a common interface.

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module0000
I see what you snuck in there...(last item)

from TFA: `sudo apt-get install nginx emacs`

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open-source-ux
At the risk of hijacking this discussion, why is installing server-side web
apps so ludicrously complicated? It's madness.

I'd love to see more developers succeed with their self-hosted web apps. But
it simply will not happen when the barrier to installation is so high. Too
many developers vastly underestimate just how complicated installation is.

Or maybe they prefer the complications because it makes SaaS a much more
attractive option to customers when there _isn 't_ a simple one-click install
option?

I asked this question previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385497](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385497)

I just find the situation exasperating. Would love to hear why people think
this is a non-issue. And let me repeat: a simple, easy-to-install option for
server-side software would unlock countless opportunities for developers.

~~~
gambler
_> Would love to hear why people think this is a non-issue._

Most developers have never seen anything better. They start working within an
artificially complicated ecosystem, get used to it and perpetuate all of the
assumptions the ecosystem makes when they create their own products.

And when you point this out, most people just get angry, because for them it
suggests they have been doing something wrong for as long as they've done
engineering. This is why you always hear things like "buy my website is an
application" or "but it has to be complicated to use, because it had
complicated functionality".

Simplicity is not easy or intuitive.

I've only started to learn the principles of designing simple systems that do
complex things around 10-12 years in my career, after accidentally discovering
certain people's talks online (Alan Kay, Rich Hickey) and learning a bit about
old-school AI systems. Most people aren't familiar with any of that stuff and
don't really care.

One thing I personally cannot comprehend is why web applications are almost
universally installed and managed through command line, rather than web
interfaces. The only advantage of a command-line interface is pipe chaining,
and it's never uses installation/configuration. There is nothing fundamental
about command line. It's just a software simulation of a teletype terminal.

~~~
duggan
The command line has the advantage of presenting portable, terse and editable
instructions that can be cobbled together into a recipe which can be
abstracted and automated.

It's a very powerful interface.

~~~
gambler
Web interfaces are used by half the population of the planet. Any command you
run in a shell can be represented by a URL, an HTML tag or a form. URLs and
HTML have editable text representations, and they also have semantics,
standard composition rules and generic UI.

Any "recipe" you're getting is likely something you get from a web page to
begin with. That can be a tool for composition and automation on it own.

~~~
kaishiro
So very few of those web interfaces used by half the population of the planet
actually utilize semantics, standard composition rules, and generic UIs - even
though they're available.

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purplezooey
How about stop buying back so many freaking shares all the time. So tired of
companies spending so much money on this.

