gotosocial/docs/installation_guide/advanced.md

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# Advanced
Advanced configuration options for GoToSocial.
## Can I host my instance at `fedi.example.org` but have just `@example.org` in my username?
Yes, you can! This is useful when you have something like a personal page or blog at `example.org`, but you also want your fediverse account to have `example.org` in it to avoid confusing people, or just because it looks nicer than `fedi.example.org`.
Please note that you need to do this *BEFORE RUNNING GOTOSOCIAL* for the first time, or things will likely break.
### Step 1: Configure GoToSocial
This step is easy.
In the settings, GoToSocial differentiates between `host`--the address at which your instance is accessible--and `account-domain`--which is the domain you want to show in accounts.
Behold, from the example config.yaml file:
```yaml
# String. Hostname that this server will be reachable at. Defaults to localhost for local testing,
# but you should *definitely* change this when running for real, or your server won't work at all.
# DO NOT change this after your server has already run once, or you will break things!
# Examples: ["gts.example.org","some.server.com"]
# Default: "localhost"
host: "localhost"
# String. Domain to use when federating profiles. This is useful when you want your server to be at
# eg., "gts.example.org", but you want the domain on accounts to be "example.org" because it looks better
# or is just shorter/easier to remember.
#
# To make this setting work properly, you need to redirect requests at "example.org/.well-known/webfinger"
# to "gts.example.org/.well-known/webfinger" so that GtS can handle them properly.
#
# You should also redirect requests at "example.org/.well-known/nodeinfo" in the same way.
# An empty string (ie., not set) means that the same value as 'host' will be used.
#
# DO NOT change this after your server has already run once, or you will break things!
#
# Please read the appropriate section of the installation guide before you go messing around with this setting:
# https://docs.gotosocial.org/installation_guide/advanced/#can-i-host-my-instance-at-fediexampleorg-but-have-just-exampleorg-in-my-username
#
# Examples: ["example.org","server.com"]
# Default: ""
account-domain: ""
```
The first value, `host`, is simple. In our scenario of wanting to run the GtS instance at `fedi.example.org`, this should be set to, yep, `fedi.example.org`.
The second value, `account-domain` should be set to `example.org`, to indicate that that's the domain we want accounts to be displayed with.
IMPORTANT: `account-domain` must be a *parent domain* of `host`, and `host` must be a *subdomain* of `account-domain`. So if your `host` is `fedi.example.org`, your `account-domain` cannot be `somewhere.else.com` or `example.com`, it **has to be** `example.org`.
### Step 2: Redirect from `example.org` to `fedi.example.org`
The next step is more difficult: we need to ensure that when remote instances search for the user `@user@example.org` via webfinger, they end up being pointed towards `fedi.example.org`, where our instance is actually hosted.
Of course, we don't want to redirect *all* requests from `example.org` to `fedi.example.org` because that negates the purpose of having a separate domain in the first place, so we need to be specific.
In the config.yaml above, there are two endpoints mentioned, both of which we need to redirect: `/.well-known/webfinger` and `/.well-known/nodeinfo`.
Assuming we have an [nginx](https://nginx.org) reverse proxy running on `example.org`, we can get the redirect behavior we want by adding the following to the nginx config for `example.org`:
```nginx
http {
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name example.org;
location /.well-known/webfinger {
rewrite ^.*$ https://fedi.example.org/.well-known/webfinger permanent;
}
location /.well-known/nodeinfo {
rewrite ^.*$ https://fedi.example.org/.well-known/nodeinfo permanent;
}
# The rest of our nginx config ...
}
}
```
The above configuration [rewrites](https://www.nginx.com/blog/creating-nginx-rewrite-rules/) queries to `example.org/.well-known/webfinger` and `example.org/.well-known/nodeinfo` to their `fedi.example.org` counterparts, which means that query information is preserved, making it easier to follow the redirect.
### Step 3: What now?
Once you've done steps 1 and 2, proceed as normal with the rest of your GoToSocial installation.
### Supplemental: how does this work?
With the configuration we put in place in the steps above, when someone from another instance looks up `@user@example.org`, their instance will perform a webfinger request to `example.org/.well-known/webfinger?resource:acct=user@example.org` in order to discover a link to an ActivityPub representation of that user's account. They will then be redirected to `https://fedi.example.org/.well-known/webfinger?resource:acct=user@example.org`, and their query will be resolved.
The webfinger response returned by GoToSocial (and indeed Mastodon, and other ActivityPub implementations) contains the desired account domain in the `subject` part of the response, and provides links to aliases that should be used to query the account.
Here's an example of this working for the `superseriousbusiness.org` GoToSocial instance, which is hosted at `gts.superseriousbusiness.org`.
Curl query:
```bash
curl -v 'https://superseriousbusiness.org/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:@gotosocial@superseriousbusiness.org'
```
Response:
```text
> GET /.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:@gotosocial@superseriousbusiness.org HTTP/2
> Host: superseriousbusiness.org
> user-agent: curl/7.68.0
> accept: */*
>
< HTTP/2 301
< content-type: text/html
< date: Thu, 17 Nov 2022 11:10:39 GMT
< location: https://gts.superseriousbusiness.org/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:@gotosocial@superseriousbusiness.org
< server: nginx/1.20.1
< content-length: 169
<
<html>
<head><title>301 Moved Permanently</title></head>
<body>
<center><h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx/1.20.1</center>
</body>
</html>
```
If we follow the redirect and make a query to the specified `location` as follows:
```bash
curl -v 'https://gts.superseriousbusiness.org/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:@gotosocial@superseriousbusiness.org'
```
Then we get the following response:
```json
{
"subject": "acct:gotosocial@superseriousbusiness.org",
"aliases": [
"https://gts.superseriousbusiness.org/users/gotosocial",
"https://gts.superseriousbusiness.org/@gotosocial"
],
"links": [
{
"rel": "http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page",
"type": "text/html",
"href": "https://gts.superseriousbusiness.org/@gotosocial"
},
{
"rel": "self",
"type": "application/activity+json",
"href": "https://gts.superseriousbusiness.org/users/gotosocial"
}
]
}
```
In the above response, note that the `subject` of the response contains the desired account-domain of `superseriousbusiness.org`, whereas the links contain the actual host value of `gts.superseriousbusiness.org`.