Mastodon Onion Instance VPS
Mastodon on a Tor onion is supported but operationally complex because Mastodon's federation model assumes clearnet HTTP between instances. An onion-only Mastodon can talk to other onion-only Mastodons via Tor SOCKS proxy. AnubizHost provides VPS preconfigured for this deployment when your federation requirements match.
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Federation Constraints
Mastodon servers federate via ActivityPub over HTTPS. An onion-only instance can federate with other onion-only instances if both sides route their ActivityPub deliveries through Tor SOCKS. Federating with clearnet Mastodon servers from an onion is operationally fragile.
Hardening Setup
Rails (Mastodon) on unix socket, PostgreSQL local, Redis local. nginx terminates the onion. Sidekiq's outbound HTTP for federation routes through Tor SOCKS. We provide the configuration in welcome docs.
Mostly-Single-Instance Mode
The most stable onion Mastodon deployment is single-instance with closed registration. Users are your community; no federation, no inbound spam, no public timeline pollution. Mastodon's UI works fine in this mode.
Crypto Billing
BTC and XMR.
Related: Matrix homeserver, Nostr relay, WordPress onion, Tor hosting parent, Cwtch server.
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