So, I Created Yet Another Mastodon Server

I've always been curious about the Fediverse. The idea of decentralized social networks intrigued me, and I wanted to explore it in the most hands-on way possible by setting up my own Mastodon server. Instead of just signing up on an existing instance, I decided to dive in and see what it takes to run one myself.

So, I registered a new domain, spun up a small Linux server on Linode, followed the installation steps, did the usual system setup and, after some troubleshooting, bughunter.social was born.

The Setup Experience

To me setting up Mastodon was quite smooth a lot of fun. The official documentation is detailed and does a great job of explaining everything step by step. Since I wanted to keep it separate from my homelab, I installed it directly on my cloud server without involving my existing setup. This made things much simpler because I did not have to deal with extra forwarding rules, VPNs, or SSL termination on my end.

The only real concern for now is resource management. While a small Mastodon instance does not need much at first, media storage and background jobs can pile up very quickly over time. I guess time will tell how well it scales.

Overall, the setup process was smooth, and the moment I saw the first posts appear on my timeline, I knew I had built something cool.

To Keep or Not to Keep?

At first, this was just an experiment, something to tinker with for a few days before shutting it down. But as I started using it more, I realized I wanted to keep it running. Mastodon feels different from traditional social media. I have full control over my data, it is more community-driven, free from algorithmic shenanigans, and the (admittedly few, for now) people I have interacted with so far have been genuinely friendly and supportive.

What’s Next?

I plan to keep improving the instance, optimizing performance, tweaking moderation settings, and making it a great place for discussions. If you are into cybersecurity, networking, homelabs or just tech in general, feel free to check it out. Who knows? You might end up enjoying the Fediverse as much as I did.

See you in the Fediverse!