Dear Fedi friends,
Lately I have been a rollercoaster of emotions regarding my self-hosting journey.
I had been experiencing real highs, feeling immense pride over the ability to install and maintain a Ghost blog using commands. Me! A non-dev!
But recently, I've been feeling some new anxieties.
The Highs
Here is a list of tasks I managed to accomplish in the past 6 months:
- install and run Ghost via CLI
- get comfortable tweaking Nginx settings in Terminal
- install Fail2Ban via CLI
- install Varnish Cache via CLI (to prevent the “Mastodon Hug of Death”)
- tweak settings via CLI to enable newsletter sending via MailGun
All this took weeks of trial and error. For the initial setup of the blog via Ghost CLI I even had to wipe my VPS three times and start over.
But I eventually succeeded.
I felt a real sense of accomplishment and delighted in using a Ghost blog and newsletter that I had installed on my own. I even updated to a new version via CLI!
So far so good. Everything has been running so smoothly.
New Anxieties
I had been eagerly awaiting the release of Ghost 6 because of its new features, namely: ActivityPub federation for self-hosted Ghost blogs.
I read the announcement - feeling so much excitement - when I was vacationing with family in a remote place with spotty internet. I was honored beyond words to see that the Ghost team included my avatar in the announcement banner and showed someone recommending my blog in a little video they embedded on the changelog page. I was on cloud nine for days - as I truly love Ghost so much.
John O’Nolan
Since I had no working internet in the vacation home I thought: no problem, I will update to Ghost 6 and turn on federation once I'm back home. Easy peasy!
Not so fast Ele.
As I read about new tech requirements I realized sadly I won’t be able to update to Ghost v6 or to federate my site anytime soon. Why?
The new version requires moving the Ghost CLI site to Docker in order to turn on ActivityPub federation.
Not only that, but in the announcement for developers Ghost revealed that they will be sunsetting Ghost CLI in the next version (v7). People self-hosting Ghost will only be able to do so via Docker in the future. I completely get it - it’s far more efficient to take advantage of Docker containers to run complex services like ActivityPub (and troubleshoot issues while preserving the integrity of a site). Thing is: I know NOTHING about Docker.
I’m feeling a little dejected - and it needs to be emphasized, this is not at all Ghost’s fault, the product is AMAZING - but it’s all on me. I am not a developer. I attempted to self-host Ghost and I was able to do so following their crystal clear, easy instructions for Ghost CLI. Thing is, it’s as if I thought I climbed to the top of Mount Everest… but then was told I was only on camp 2, with more climbing to do.
On my new to do list:
- Learn Docker, get comfortable with it for a few months
- Move my Ghost CLI site to Docker
- Adjust Mailgun settings (probably, I guess?)
- Protect my Ghost (on Docker) site with Fail2Ban
- Protect my Ghost site with Varnish Cache
Oh and also test drive the premium Ghost theme I am using to see if it's compatible with Ghost 6.
And these are just some basic tasks before we even get to discuss ActivityPub.
I spent days browsing the Ghost Forum to gauge what self-hosters’ experience has been. I saw reports of issues with federation. From what I understand, you can either take advantage of Ghost (Pro)’s ActivityPub server (which comes with usage limitation - normal) or self-host your own instance. And in order for it to run correctly you need to adjust reverse proxy settings and other things (which go over my head, as a non-dev).
A new ascent
Now I regard moving my Ghost CLI installation to Docker as climbing up to Everest Camp 3… and enabling ActivityPub (self-hosted probably?) as going up to Camp 4.
None of these things will happen anytime soon.
For Mount Everest, you can’t just go to the base camp without training and start the ascent. You need months of physical and mental training. Similarly, I’m giving myself till the end of the year to learn Docker, with the goal of moving my Ghost site there in late December / early January. By then hopefully many ActivityPub bugs will have been sorted out.
I feel compelled to share all this because I have been a very vocal fan of Ghost and ActivityPub. I still am! If you wonder why my blog isn’t federated yet, well, now you know why. I need to learn many new things in order to accomplish that.
Forever smitten with my Ghost site, now on to a new challenge.
Onwards and upwards,
Elena
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