crashdoom

On Feb 14th we migrated Lemmy from its standalone Docker setup to the same Kubernetes cluster operating furry.engineer and pawb.fun, discussed in https://pawb.social/post/6591445.

As of 5:09 PM MT on Feb 14th, we are still transferring the media to the new storage, which may result in broken images. Please do still reply to this thread if your issue is media related, but please check again after a few hours and edit your comment to say "resolved" if it's rectified by the transfer.

As of 11:02 AM MT on Feb 15th, we have migrated all media and are awaiting the media service coming back online and performing a hash check of all files. Once this is completed, uploads should work per normal.

To make it easier for us to go through your issues, please include the following information:

• Time / Date Occurred
• Page URL where you encountered the issue
• What you were trying to do at the time you encountered the issue
• Any other info you think might be important / relevant

tl;dr summary furry.engineer and pawb.fun will be down for several hours this evening (5 PM Mountain Time onward) as we migrate data from the cloud to local storage. We'll post updates via our announcements channel at https://t.me/pawbsocial.

In order to reduce costs and expand our storage pool, we'll be migrating data from our existing Cloudflare R2 buckets to local replicated network storage, and from Proxmox-based LXC containers to Kubernetes pods.

Currently, according to Mastodon, we're using about 1 TB of media storage, but according to Cloudflare, we're using near 6 TB. This appears to be due to Cloudflare R2's implementation of the underlying S3 protocol that Mastodon uses for cloud-based media storage, which is preventing Mastodon from properly cleaning up no longer used files.

As part of the move, we'll be creating / using new Docker-based images for Glitch-SOC (the fork of Mastodon we use) and hooking that up to a dedicated set of database nodes and replicated storage through Longhorn. This should allow us to seamlessly move the instances from one Kubernetes node to another for performing routine hardware and system maintenance without taking the instances offline.

We're planning to roll out the changes in several stages:

1. Taking furry.engineer and pawb.fun down for maintenance to prevent additional media being created.

2. Initiating a transfer from R2 to the new local replicated network storage for locally generated user content first, then remote media. (This will happen in parallel to the other stages, so some media may be unavailable until the transfer fully completes).

3. Exporting and re-importing the databases from their LXC containers to the new dedicated database servers.

4. Creating and deploying the new Kubernetes pods, and bringing one of the two instances back online, pointing at the new database and storage.

5. Monitoring for any media-related issues, and bringing the second instance back online.

We'll be beginning the maintenance window at 5 PM Mountain Time (4 PM Pacific Time) and have no ETA at this time. We'll provide updates through our existing Telegram announcements channel at https://t.me/pawbsocial.

During this maintenance window, furry.engineer and pawb.fun will be unavailable until the maintenance concluded. Our Lemmy instance at pawb.social will remain online, though you may experience longer than normal load times due to high network traffic.

Finally and most importantly, I want to thank those who have been donating through our Ko-Fi page as this has allowed us to build up a small war chest to make this transfer possible through both new hardware and the inevitable data export fees we'll face bringing content down from Cloudflare R2.

Going forward, we're looking into providing additional fediverse services (such as Pixelfed) and extending our data retention length to allow us to maintain more content for longer, but none of this would be possible if it weren't for your generous donations.

We've updated to Lemmy v0.19.3!

For a full change log, see the updates below:

• v0.19.0
• v0.19.1
• v0.19.2
• v0.19.3

Major changes

Improved Post Ranking

There is a new scaled sort which takes into account the number of active users in a community, and boosts posts from less-active communities to the top. Additionally there is a new controversial sort which brings posts and comments to the top that have similar amounts of upvotes and downvotes. Lemmy’s sorts are detailed here.

Instance Blocks for Users

Users can now block instances. Similar to community blocks, it means that any posts from communities which are hosted on that instance are hidden. However the block doesn’t affect users from the blocked instance, their posts and comments can still be seen normally in other communities.

Two-Factor Auth Rework

Previously 2FA was enabled in a single step which made it easy to lock yourself out. This is now fixed by using a two-step process, where the secret is generated first, and then 2FA is enabled by entering a valid 2FA token. It also fixes the problem where 2FA can be disabled without passing any 2FA token. As part of this change, 2FA is disabled for all users. This allows users who are locked out to get into their account again.

New Federation Queue

Outgoing federation actions are processed through a new persistent queue. This means that actions don’t get lost if Lemmy is restarted. It is also much more performant, with separate senders for each target instance. This avoids problems when instances are unreachable. Additionally it supports horizontal scaling across different servers. The endpoint /api/v3/federated_instances contains details about federation state of each remote instance

Remote Follow

Another new feature is support for remote follow. When browsing another instance where you don’t have an account, you can click the subscribe button and enter the domain of your home instance in the popup dialog. It will automatically redirect you to your home instance where it fetches the community and presents a subscribe button. Here is a video showing how it works.

Moderation

Reports are now resolved automatically when the associated post/comment is marked as deleted. This reduces the amount of work for moderators. There is a new log for image uploads which stores uploader. For now it is used to delete all user uploads when an account is purged. Later the list can be used for other purposes and made available through the API.

• Instance: pisskey.io
• Type: Defederation
• Affects: Pawb.Social, furry.engineer, pawb.fun
• Reason: Nazi imagery, affiliated with poa.st and other known abusive instances
• Fediseer Action: Censured

• Instance: the.asbestos.cafe
• Type: Defederation
• Affects: Pawb.Social, furry.engineer, pawb.fun
• Reason: Homophobia, harassment, trolling, admin involved abuse
• Fediseer Action: Censured

Block has been applied to the entire domain.

• Instance: lab.nyanide.com
• Type: Defederation
• Affects: Pawb.Social, furry.engineer, pawb.fun
• Reason: Trolling, harassment, homophobia, nazi imagery, admin / mod engaged abuse
• Fediseer Action: Censured

Block has been applied to the entire domain.

Evidence

cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/3393854

• Instance: cunnyborea.space
• Type: Defederation
• Affects: Pawb.Social, furry.engineer, pawb.fun
• Reason: Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, abusive admin, nazi imagery
• Fediseer Action: Censured

Evidence

• https://i.imgur.com/HgvMVOh.png
• https://union.place/@inquiline/111247251661793670

• Instance: cunnyborea.space
• Type: Defederation
• Affects: Pawb.Social, furry.engineer, pawb.fun
• Reason: Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, abusive admin, nazi imagery
• Fediseer Action: Censured

cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/3337642

• Instance: bv.umbrellix.org
• Type: Defederation
• Affects: Pawb.Social, furry.engineer, pawb.fun
• Reason: Toxicity, abusive admin, death threats, emotional abuse
• Fediseer Action: Censured

Evidence

• (CW: Abuse) https://bv.umbrellix.org/notice/AZwi9Is6mxT9vo5TSi
• https://sunbeam.city/@kayttaja@toot.site/111142509643025163

Admin Note: This block applies to the root domain (umbrellix.org) and all associated sub-domains.

• Instance: bv.umbrellix.org
• Type: Defederation
• Affects: Pawb.Social, furry.engineer, pawb.fun
• Reason: Toxicity, abusive admin, death threats, emotional abuse
• Fediseer Action: Censured

Admin Note: This block applies to the root domain (umbrellix.org) and all associated sub-domains.

Currently, we’re running the Ubiquiti Dream Machine directly as the modem via PPPoE, but there appears to be an intermittent issue with the software implementation that results in periodic downtimes of a few minutes while it reconnects.

We’re looking at switching this back out with the ISP provided router in pass through mode to negate the PPPoE connectivity drop.

We don’t expect this to take longer than 1 hour to switch over and test for reliability before bringing the services back up.

We’ll be performing this maintenance around 11 AM US Mountain Time, and will provide updates via the Telegram channel at https://t.me/pawbsocial.

cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/3077174

• Instance: liberdon.com
• Type: Defederation
• Affects: Pawb.Social, furry.engineer, pawb.fun
• Reason: Harassment, trolling, misinformation, sexism, homophobia
• Fediseer Action: Censured

Evidence

• https://liberdon.com/@ghast
• https://liberdon.com/@ghast/111178732016951128
• https://liberdon.com/@rimugu/111178647646581863
• https://liberdon.com/@aristoh4ck8r/111177188127718387
• https://liberdon.com/@gunkslinger/111175171054509579
• https://liberdon.com/@TylerAbeoJordan/111174105820298526
• https://liberdon.com/@TylerAbeoJordan/111174078685171464
• https://liberdon.com/@TylerAbeoJordan/111173743376687580
• https://liberdon.com/@medicineman9/111173062104385765
• https://liberdon.com/@spinneria/111169619274938220
• https://liberdon.com/@nosat/111165212240469156