There’s way too much drama with Twitter nowadays, so the alternatives are looking more attractive than ever. Setting up your own Mastodon server is a fun project, and also a potential alternative to Twitter. In this video, Jay walks you through the entire process of setting up your own Mastodon server on a Debian-based VPS.

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## Individual sections:
00:00 – Intro
01:40 – What do you need for this tutorial?
06:13 – Building the cloud instance for Mastodon
08:58 – Adding an “A record” in DNS to point to our Mastodon domain
10:52 – Connecting to the server instance via ssh
11:47 – General instance setup tweaks and recommended practices
12:11 – Adding a non-root local user account
12:51 – Enabling sudo access for our user account
14:02 – Installing updates
15:04 – Adding the domain name to the instance
17:17 – Installing the required development packages for Mastodon
20:08 – Creating the PostgreSQL database we’ll be using for Mastodon
23:27 – Creating a system user for Mastodon to run under
24:02 – Downloading Mastodon from the git repository
26:10 – Setting the ownership of the mastodon directory
27:49 – Adding the mastodon directory to git’s safe list
29:48 – Installing the bundler gem, and adding additional settings
31:09 – Running Mastodon’s configuration script to adjust its settings
36:06 – Installing Mastodon’s service files
38:28 – Setting up an NGINX reverse proxy for Mastodon
42:10 – Adding a Let’s Encrypt certificate to protect our Mastodon server
46:39 – Setting up unattended upgrades
48:53 – Installing CrowdSec to help protect our Mastodon instance

## Video-specific links
– Official blog post for this video ➜ https://www.learnlinux.tv/?p=2278

The following were helpful articles for figuring out some of the missing commands I needed:
– How to install Mastodon on Ubuntu 22.04/20.04 server ➜ https://www.linuxbabe.com/ubuntu/how-to-install-mastodon-on-ubuntu
– How to Install Mastodon Social Network on Ubuntu 22.04 ➜ https://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-install-mastodon-social-network-on-ubuntu-22-04/

## Recommended evergreen videos:
– How to create a bootable flash drive for installing Linux ➜ https://linux.video/flash-usb
– Understanding Linux permissions ➜ https://linux.video/perms
– OpenSSH Guide ➜ https://linux.video/ssh
– LVM Deep-dive ➜ https://linux.video/lvm
– How to better secure OpenSSH ➜ https://linux.video/secure-ssh

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– Community ➜ https://community.learnlinux.tv

## About the host
– Personal blog ➜ https://www.jaylacroix.com
– Twitter ➜ https://learnlinux.link/twitter

## FAQ
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– My recording gear (commissions earned) ➜ https://learnlinux.link/recording-stuff

Disclaimer: LearnLinuxTV provides technical content on YouTube that will hopefully be helpful to you and teach you something new. However, this content is provided without any warranty (expressed or implied). LearnLinuxTV is not responsible for any damages that may arise from any use of this content. The viewer is expected to follow best judgement and to make his/her/their best decisions while working with production or non-production systems and hardware.

#debian #mastodon #twitter