Running a Mastodon relay requires careful tuning of Sidekiq worker counts. If you set the worker count too high, your server runs out of RAM and the relay becomes unresponsive. If you set it too low, incoming activities queue up and federation delays grow. This article explains how to calculate the correct Sidekiq worker count … Read more
Moving a Mastodon instance from one relay to another can disrupt federation if not handled correctly. Relays are servers that forward public posts between instances, and changing them improperly may cause missed updates or temporary unreachability. This article explains how to migrate relays smoothly while keeping your instance fully federated and available to users. You … Read more
When you set up a Mastodon relay to boost federation across instances, the relay server must authenticate itself to your instance before it can deliver public posts. Without proper authentication, the relay connection fails silently or produces a 401 Unauthorized error in the logs. This authentication relies on HTTP Signatures, a cryptographic handshake that proves … Read more
Mastodon relays let instances share public posts from one server to many others without each server manually following every user. Without a relay, each instance admin must subscribe to remote users individually, which becomes impractical as the federation grows. The Activity-Relay project provides an open-source, self-hosted solution that acts as a central hub for forwarding … Read more
Mastodon relays forward public posts from one instance to many others. Without filtering, a relay sends everything including posts you do not want. This floods your federated timeline with irrelevant content. Mastodon relays support topic filtering through hashtag subscriptions. This article explains how relays work and how to subscribe only to specific tags so your … Read more
When you first set up a single-user Mastodon instance, the federated timeline is empty. Without existing followers or follows, the server receives almost no public posts from other instances. A Mastodon relay solves this by subscribing to a shared pool of public posts from participating servers. This article explains how to configure a relay on … Read more
When a Mastodon relay you administer or subscribe to suddenly shows a drop in activity, your instance timeline may feel empty or slow. This often happens because the relay has lost its connection to remote instances, the relay server itself has a configuration error, or the relay has been rate-limited by other servers. This article … Read more
Mastodon relays push public posts from one instance to many others. When your instance connects to a relay, you expect a steady stream of federated content. But sometimes the relay stops delivering posts or delivers duplicates. You need a way to verify the connection is alive and working correctly. This article explains how to use … Read more
Mastodon relays are designed to boost content distribution across the fediverse, but they can be weaponized to amplify spam, unwanted advertisements, or malicious posts to a much larger audience than a single account could reach. When a relay relays a post to your instance, all local subscribers of that relay see the content, even if … Read more
Mastodon relays distribute public posts from one server to many others. When you administer an instance, you need to know which relay provider delivers the most content without delays. Throughput — the volume of posts a relay can forward per minute — varies widely between providers. This article explains how to measure and compare relay … Read more