One Small Step into Geminispace

When I first announced it, several people asked if I had any plans to make a #GeminiProtocol capsule. I wasn't really considering it at the time since I felt like I was accomplishing all I wanted to do with Gopher, but now I've decided I want to give it a shot. I installed Solderpunk's Molly Brown server (which I chose because it was the only one in Debian's repo) and, after much struggle with cert permissions, got it up and running.

For content, I went with the same thing as with Gopher: a gemlog powered by a snac-to-Gemini exporter. snac uses Markdown for formatting, which is of course very similar to Gemtext. I went back and edited my earlier blog posts to make them more Gemtext-like, which mostly meant adding header lines. The only real complication was inline links: I would need to strip them out of the Markdown source. Since I'm doing this all with shell scripts (as opposed to something like Python that'd probably work better), an actual Markdown parser wasn't really an option, so I decided to do it with a regex. The thing is, I'm not very good at writing regexes. After many, many fruitless searches trying to find an existing solution I came across a bash script that did what I wanted. The script itself was obvious vibe-coded filth, but it did contain a sed -E command that did exactly what I needed.

The exporter is a comically-inept hackjob and has a backslash-itis problem (which I imagine is coming from the JSON parser I'm using) but it does, somehow, work. Some day I'll see about redoing the whole thing in Python, but for now it's good enough.

Take a look if you're interested: gemini://gemini.n8fq.org

#blog

I've had that when the Auth was aborted. A new window // clean cache should fix it

#snac

It’s not Tuesday yet, but it will be soon.
And I want to thank @grunfink for creating and maintaining snac. Tomorrow I’ll talk about FediMeteo at DevConf, and it would never have come to be if it weren’t for snac and for the help the author gave me in fixing some things to optimize its use.

True Open Source, made with passion, by people who do things for the love of the things themselves.

#ThankYouTuesday #snac #FediMeteo #Fediverse

@82mhz @rl_dane @daj that's why I like solutions like #snac. No nonsense decisions, but a specific idea behind.

Added a new admirations entry point to the web UI, containing a timeline of liked, boosted and reacted posts. Please take note that, after installing the new version, it will start empty, and be filled with subsequent reactions (contributed by violette).

It's now possible to disable showing posts in a given set of languages.

Nested quoted posts are limited up to 3 levels.

New configuration knob: by setting keep_replies_posts to true in server.json, remote posts that a local user has replied to are retained in the public timeline, preventing them from being purged (contributed by hanchan).

New configuration knob: by setting keep_replied_me to true in server.json, remote replies to local posts are retained in the public timeline, preventing them from being purged (contributed by hanchan).

Ensure actors' public key PEM never includes anything after the end marker.

Fixed some memory leaks (contributed by inz).

Several additional keyId checks (many thanks to lainsoykaf for bringing this to my attention).

Fixed crash in the JSON parser (many thanks to nullenvk for bringing this to my attention).

Mastodon API: fixed lost custom emojis after edition (contributed by e0w0e).

Updated French, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Spanish translations (contributed by dragondaddy, daltux, zen).

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider buying grunfink a coffee or contributing via LiberaPay.

#snacAnnounces #FrugalFediverse

RE: https://poliversity.it/@devconf/116792507141709633

A tutti gli amici che parteciperanno alla DevConf Italia: potrete seguire le previsioni meteo di Pavia direttamente dal Fediverso e da Delta Chat, nonché da sito web o feed RSS, da FediMeteo.

Sito: https://it.fedimeteo.com/pavia
Account Fediverse: @pavia
Canale Delta Chat: https://i.delta.chat/#39D39283B059D042F8991D73E3BA5DA4B5C5143B&v=3&x=EkZVVGPtEQe7P29NGC0Cj5Dd&j=RHh2965YcHFa4mVgfzS_rjxk&s=yR1k6-A0Swj-ZBL3VR9REow4&a=qpe4x4nnk%40chatmail.bsd.cafe&n=FediMeteo+Italy&b=FediMeteo+·+Pavia

Vi ricordo inoltre che il 7 Luglio alle ore 16:25 presenterò "FediMeteo, i BSD e il Fediverso: sotto il sole, senza nuvole, liberi e connessi" - proprio su FediMeteo e sugli strumenti di comunicazione liberi e decentralizzati.

Non mancate!

#DevConf #DevConfItalia #FediMeteo #DeltaChat #snac #snac2 #Fediverso #Fediverse #OwnYourData

#runsnac #snac2 #fediverse #alternatives #opensource
CC: @VasiliWz@hachyderm.io

Two things you can see here... It's pretty hot! That's why I stayed home and implemented a missing feature into snac. That's what you can also see - it finally sends push notifications to devices! In this case, we can see notifications coming from #MastoBlaster App for iPhone.

What we can also see, it's still a bit faulty and not the expected content, but a first success here at least ;) I'll make some further adjustments when there's time and get in touch with @grunfink@comam.es to check if we can get this upstream. Thanks to @stefano@bsd.cafe for testing with me :)

#fediverse #mastodon #fedi #activitypub #snac2 #c #programming #clang #MastoBlaster

Alt...

snac2 sending push notifications to a user via MastoBlaster App on iPhone

#snac

ps -ww -p 88163 -u | awk '{for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) a[i,NR]=$i} END {for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) { val=a[i,2]; if(a[i,1]=="VSZ" || a[i,1]=="RSS") { val=sprintf("%.2f MB", val/1024) } print a[i,1] ":\t" val }}'

#snac

It only lacks auto-complete of handles and tags.

#snac

@df I love this idea and the software. I'm a great supporter of #snac exactly for the same reason. You don't need beefy hardware to have your own Fediverse home.
Starling is a nice because it can be used without setting up a proper server - just a php installation and a domain.

I'll keep this testing instance on and continue to test it with MastoBlaster.

This is a major release that merges several different development branches I've been working on, bringing together a lot of moving parts into a single build. A long, sleepless night…

Here is what changed:

• Full Drafts Support: A complete end-to-end draft flow. It includes auto-save, the ability to edit existing drafts, and a smart cancel confirmation that either discards a new draft or restores the original state if you were editing. It supports replies, quotes, polls, and media metadata.

• Trending Posts: Added a new trending timeline type with proper offset pagination support.

• Timeline Position Improvements: Added extra protection to stop SwiftUI from overwriting your saved scroll position when the view disappears or goes to the background. If a saved post can't be found in the cache, the app will now try a direct status fetch before giving up.

• UI & Navigation Fixes: Tapping Content Warnings (CW), "Show Filtered Post", or "Show More" now goes through an inline-action guard, fixing the bug where tapping them would accidentally trigger row navigation into the thread. Filtered posts also get proper bottom padding so the list separator doesn't sit on top of the button.

• Instance Compatibility & Tweaks: Added customizable timeout settings for slower instances (like snac on older hardware). I also fixed the 405 error when setting alt text on GoToSocial, and updated marker sync to strictly align with Mastodon’s documented form shape.

• Testing focus: I've implemented search fixes ensuring queries stay locked to the account you are searching from. If you are on GoToSocial, please test this thoroughly and let me know how it behaves. Since this build is the result of a massive merge, keep an eye out for any regressions.

Coming next week: a post about the FediMeteo bot, how it works, how it has evolved, and the overall structure of jails. The following week: caching the BSD Cafe Mastodon instances on nginx.

Stay tuned on ITNotes!

#ITNotes #haproxy #nginx #FreeBSD #Mastodon #snac

But, you can have snac running from a subdirectory of your main domain (which, as far as I know, no other fediverse implementation does). I.e. you can have your snac root in example.com/social and then you can identify as you@example.com . So you have no unnecessary subdomain just to be you.

Which is what I do for this very domain.

CC: @mms@bsd.cafe

FediMeteo, HAProxy, and the art of not wasting snac threads

How FediMeteo uses HAProxy caching, static pages, and small FreeBSD jails to keep snac quiet and serve ActivityPub traffic efficiently.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2026/05/18/fedimeteo-haproxy-and-the-art-of-not-wasting-snac-threads/

#FediMeteo #snac #snac2 #haproxy #freebsd #it #sysadmin #ITNotes

Announcing FediMeteo – Weather in the Fediverse!

UPDATE: I have created an account for updates and other information on FediMeteo - follow the account @admin to stay updated!

UPDATE: Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland have just been added

Weather has always influenced our lives: from agriculture to outdoor activities, to extreme events that, thanks to modern technology, can now be predicted with greater reliability. Personally, weather plays a significant role in my daily decisions, which is why I decided to create a service tailored for the Fediverse.

FediMeteo uses Open-Meteo data to publish updates every 6 hours, including current weather conditions, forecasts for the next 12 hours, and predictions for the upcoming days. Each country is served by its own dedicated instance (e.g., it.fedimeteo.com for Italy), managed through snac to ensure simplicity and efficiency in publishing.

You can follow FediMeteo directly in the Fediverse (on Mastodon and compatible platforms), via RSS, or by visiting the dedicated page for your city (e.g., fr.fedimeteo.com/paris).

Currently supported countries include:
Austria, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, – with many more regions coming soon!

FediMeteo is hosted on a FreeBSD-based VPS, with each country isolated in its own jail to ensure security and scalability.

Visit the main site to explore the national instances and start following your local weather updates today:
https://fedimeteo.com

Happy weather monitoring to all! 🌦️

FediMeteo is dedicated to my grandfather, who every evening would give me the weather forecast based on TV, radio, and his personal experience. He would convince me that the weather would be bad, so he had an excuse to accompany me to school instead of me going alone.

#FediMeteo #Announcements #FreeBSD #FediMeteo #WeatherForecasts #Weather #Meteo #snac #Fediverse #Mastodon

#snac2 #fediverse #frugalfediverse

The #BSDCafe #snac instance has been updated to 2.92

#BSDCafeServices #BSDCafeUpdates

Changed default: for newly created instances, disable_inbox_collection is set to true (see snac(8) for more information). The reason is because it seems to be used for harrasing people.

Changed default: for newly created instances, disable_history is set to true (see snac(8) for more information). The reason is because archived history files don't reflect reality after posts are deleted or modified (they always have been an ugly kludge).

Changed default: in previous versions, posts with a scope of unlisted were shown in public pages and RSS feeds. Now, they are no longer shown. If you want to get back to previous behaviour, use a new toggle in the User Settings section (see snac(1) for more information).

New admin configuration option: if the purge_static value is set to true in server.json, each user's static directory is explored and those files there that are no longer attached to any post or referenced anywhere are deleted. See snac(8) for more information about those cases where you may not want to enable this option.

Allow serving files from subdirectories of the static/ subdirectory (contributed by la_ninpre).

Minor tweak to webfinger code to handle Hubzilla's peculiarities.

Fixed a search case where URLs to GotoSocial statuses were misidentified as accounts.

Accounts that follow you are now marked with a thumb-up emoji, because followers are adorable people.

Fixed some account export errors.

Fixed an incorrect hash in post links.

Show an account's location link in the people page, if they have one.

Mastodon API: Fixed hashtags loosing the link after editing a post, minor tweak in access token processing (contributed by trondd555).

Drop usage of PATH_MAX (contributed by sergiodj).

New Polish translation (contributed by kpm).

Updated German and Czech translations (contributed by zen and pmjv).

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider buying grunfink a coffee or contributing via LiberaPay.

#snacAnnounces #FrugalFediverse

I sincerely love you weirdos. <3

#Fediverse #Mastodon #GoToSocial #snac #snac2 #honk #meme #AVIF

Alt...

A combination of two "X all the Ys!" memes with a "Pawn Stars best we can do" meme in the middle: "X all the Y" guy: I want an amazing community of noble-minded people to study ethics with and change the world!! Pawn Stars with the faces of the fediverse logo, the mastodon logo, and the logos for snac2 GoToSocial, and Honk in the background: Best we can do is a bunch of cool weirdos with similar nerdy interests "X all the Y" guy's reply: I'll take it!!!

The #BSDCafe #snac instance has been updated to 2.91

#BSDCafeInstance #BSDCafeServices #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeAnnouncements

Fixed some local posts not being shown if the replied post is deleted.

Fixed web UI incorrect links to public posts for some configurations.

Fixed encoding bug in Mastodon-style share links.

Fixed an error that made imposible to leave empty the following hashtags or blocked hashtags from the web UI.

Include post attachments in the RSS feed entries.

Added some OpenBSD-specific documentation (contributed by oxzi).

Fixed some timezones (contributed by matoken).

Fixed some crashes (special thanks to Louis Merlin for helping me with this).

Updated Docker scripts to avoid generating a useless log file.

Fixed several memory leaks, key generation errors and HTML inconsistencies (contributed by dandelions).

Added ostatus.org and FEP-3b86 data to Webfinger objects.

Added a new CONTRIBUTING.md file. Among other guidelines, I explicitly say there that AI contributions are NOT accepted.

snac is now available as a Yunohost app. Thank you very much to Bruno Cesar Rocha for this.

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider buying grunfink a coffee or contributing via LiberaPay.

#snacAnnounces #FrugalFediverse

Thanks @grunfink@comam.es for the #snac server, @stefano@bsd.cafe for the blog posts that pointed me to it, @voron@snac.nya.pub for the theme and @manton@manton.org for motivating me with your book