AodeRelay

A simple and efficient activitypub relay

Installation

Docker

If running docker, you can start the relay with the following command: $ sudo docker run --rm -it \ -v "$(pwd):/mnt/" \ -e ADDR=0.0.0.0 \ -e SLED_PATH=/mnt/sled/db-0.34 \ -p 8080:8080 \ asonix/relay:0.3.85 This will launch the relay with the database stored in "./sled/db-0.34" and listening on port 8080

Cargo

With cargo installed, the relay can be installed to your cargo bin directory with the following command $ cargo install ap-relay Then it can be run with this: $ ADDR=0.0.0.0 relay This will launch the relay with the database stored in "./sled/db-0.34" and listening on port 8080

Source

The relay can be launched directly from this git repository with the following commands: $ git clone https://git.asonix.dog/asonix/relay $ ADDR=0.0.0.0 cargo run --release

Usage

To simply run the server, the command is as follows bash $ ./relay

Administration

NOTE: The server must be running in order to update the lists with the following commands

To learn about any other tasks, the --help flag can be passed ```bash An activitypub relay

Usage: relay [OPTIONS]

Options: -b A list of domains that should be blocked -a A list of domains that should be allowed -u, --undo Undo allowing or blocking domains -h, --help Print help information ```

To add domains to the blocklist, use the -b flag and pass a list of domains bash $ ./relay -b asonix.dog blimps.xyz To remove domains from the blocklist, simply pass the -u flag along with -b bash $ ./relay -ub asonix.dog blimps.xyz The same rules apply for allowing domains, although domains are allowed with the -a flag bash $ ./relay -a asonix.dog blimps.xyz $ ./relay -ua asonix.dog blimps.xyz

Configuration

By default, all these values are set to development values. These are read from the environment, or from the .env file in the working directory. env HOSTNAME=localhost:8080 ADDR=127.0.0.1 PORT=8080 DEBUG=true RESTRICTED_MODE=false VALIDATE_SIGNATURES=false HTTPS=false PRETTY_LOG=true PUBLISH_BLOCKS=false SLED_PATH=./sled/db-0.34 To run this server in production, you'll likely want to set most of them env HOSTNAME=relay.my.tld ADDR=0.0.0.0 PORT=8080 DEBUG=false RESTRICTED_MODE=false VALIDATE_SIGNATURES=true HTTPS=true PRETTY_LOG=false PUBLISH_BLOCKS=true SLED_PATH=./sled/db-0.34 RUST_LOG=warn API_TOKEN=somepasswordishtoken OPENTELEMETRY_URL=localhost:4317 TELEGRAM_TOKEN=secret TELEGRAM_ADMIN_HANDLE=your_handle TLS_KEY=/path/to/key TLS_CERT=/path/to/cert FOOTER_BLURB="Contact <a href=\"https://masto.asonix.dog/@asonix\">@asonix</a> for inquiries" LOCAL_DOMAINS=masto.asonix.dog LOCAL_BLURB="<p>Welcome to my cool relay where I have cool relay things happening. I hope you enjoy your stay!</p>" PROMETHEUS_ADDR=0.0.0.0 PROMETHEUS_PORT=9000 CLIENT_TIMEOUT=10 DELIVER_CONCURRENCY=8 SIGNATURE_THREADS=2

Descriptions

`HOSTNAME`

The domain or IP address the relay is hosted on. If you launch the relay on example.com, that would be your HOSTNAME. The default is localhost:8080

`ADDR`

The address the server binds to. By default, this is 127.0.0.1, so for production cases it should be set to 0.0.0.0 or another public address.

`PORT`

The port the server binds to, this is 8080 by default but can be changed if needed.

`DEBUG`

Whether to print incoming activities to the console when requests hit the /inbox route. This defaults to true, but should be set to false in production cases. Since every activity sent to the relay is public anyway, this doesn't represent a security risk.

`RESTRICTED_MODE`

This setting enables an 'allowlist' setup where only servers that have been explicitly enabled through the relay -a command can join the relay. This is false by default. If RESTRICTED_MODE is not enabled, then manually allowing domains with relay -a has no effect.

`VALIDATE_SIGNATURES`

This setting enforces checking HTTP signatures on incoming activities. It defaults to true

`HTTPS`

Whether the current server is running on an HTTPS port or not. This is used for generating URLs to the current running relay. By default it is set to true

`PUBLISH_BLOCKS`

Whether or not to publish a list of blocked domains in the nodeinfo metadata for the server. It defaults to false.

`SLED_PATH`

Where to store the on-disk database of connected servers. This defaults to ./sled/db-0.34.

`RUST_LOG`

The log level to print. Available levels are ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG, and TRACE. You can also specify module paths to enable some logs but not others, such as RUST_LOG=warn,tracing_actix_web=info,relay=info. This defaults to warn

`SOURCE_REPO`

The URL to the source code for the relay. This defaults to https://git.asonix.dog/asonix/relay, but should be changed if you're running a fork hosted elsewhere.

`REPOSITORY_COMMIT_BASE`

The base path of the repository commit hash reference. For example, /src/commit/ for Gitea, /tree/ for GitLab.

`API_TOKEN`

The Secret token used to access the admin APIs. This must be set for the commandline to function

`OPENTELEMETRY_URL`

A URL for exporting opentelemetry spans. This is mostly useful for debugging. There is no default, since most people probably don't run an opentelemetry collector.

`TELEGRAM_TOKEN`

A Telegram Bot Token for running the relay administration bot. There is no default.

`TELEGRAM_ADMIN_HANDLE`

The handle of the telegram user allowed to administer the relay. There is no default.

`TLS_KEY`

Optional - This is specified if you are running the relay directly on the internet and have a TLS key to provide HTTPS for your relay

`TLS_CERT`

Optional - This is specified if you are running the relay directly on the internet and have a TLS certificate chain to provide HTTPS for your relay

`FOOTER_BLURB`

Optional - Add custom notes in the footer of the page

`LOCAL_DOMAINS`

Optional - domains of mastodon servers run by the same admin as the relay

`LOCAL_BLURB`

Optional - description for the relay

`PROMETHEUS_ADDR`

Optional - Address to bind to for serving the prometheus scrape endpoint

`PROMETHEUS_PORT`

Optional - Port to bind to for serving the prometheus scrape endpoint

`CLIENT_TIMEOUT`

Optional - How long the relay will hold open a connection (in seconds) to a remote server during fetches and deliveries. This defaults to 10

`DELIVER_CONCURRENCY`

Optional - How many deliver requests the relay should allow to be in-flight per thread. the default is 8

`SIGNATURE_THREADS`

Optional - Override number of threads used for signing and verifying requests. Default is std::thread::available_parallelism() (It tries to detect how many cores you have). If it cannot detect the correct number of cores, it falls back to 1.

'PROXY_URL'

Optional - URL of an HTTP proxy to forward outbound requests through

'PROXY_USERNAME'

Optional - username to provide to the HTTP proxy set with PROXY_URL through HTTP Basic Auth

'PROXY_PASSWORD'

Optional - password to provide to the HTTP proxy set with PROXY_URL through HTTP Basic Auth

Subscribing

Mastodon admins can subscribe to this relay by adding the /inbox route to their relay settings. For example, if the server is https://relay.my.tld, the correct URL would be https://relay.my.tld/inbox.

Pleroma admins can subscribe to this relay by adding the /actor route to their relay settings. For example, if the server is https://relay.my.tld, the correct URL would be https://relay.my.tld/actor.

Supported Activities

Accept Follow {remote-actor}, this is a no-op
Reject Follow {remote-actor}, an Undo Follow is sent to {remote-actor}
Announce {anything}, {anything} is Announced to listening servers
Create {anything}, {anything} is Announced to listening servers
Follow {self-actor}, become a listener of the relay, a Follow will be sent back
Follow Public, become a listener of the relay
Undo Follow {self-actor}, stop listening on the relay, an Undo Follow will be sent back
Undo Follow Public, stop listening on the relay
Delete {anything}, the Delete {anything} is relayed verbatim to listening servers. Note that this activity will likely be rejected by the listening servers unless it has been signed with a JSON-LD signature
Update {anything}, the Update {anything} is relayed verbatim to listening servers. Note that this activity will likely be rejected by the listening servers unless it has been signed with a JSON-LD signature
Add {anything}, the Add {anything} is relayed verbatim to listening servers. Note that this activity will likely be rejected by the listening servers unless it has been signed with a JSON-LD signature
Remove {anything}, the Remove {anything} is relayed verbatim to listening servers. Note that this activity will likely be rejected by the listening servers unless it has been signed with a JSON-LD signature

Supported Discovery Protocols

Webfinger
NodeInfo

Known issues

Pleroma and Akkoma do not support validating JSON-LD signatures, meaning many activities such as Delete, Update, Add, and Remove will be rejected with a message similar to WARN: Response from https://example.com/inbox, "Invalid HTTP Signature". This is normal and not an issue with the relay.

Contributing

Feel free to open issues for anything you find an issue with. Please note that any contributed code will be licensed under the AGPLv3.

License

AodeRelay is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

AodeRelay is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. This file is part of AodeRelay.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with AodeRelay. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.