Ship It! Cloud, SRE, Platform Engineering Hosting Hachyderm
Nov 15, 2024
Preston Doster, an Infrastructure Architect at Twilio, discusses the challenges of managing a Mastodon server with 55,000 accounts. He shares insights on the technical hurdles and growth of Hachyderm, touching on CDN implementation and legal complexities. The conversation also explores the balance of moderation in federated networks and the importance of user behavior management. Doster emphasizes decentralized social networks' role in shaping online communities while also highlighting the personal connection to technology. A fascinating blend of tech and nostalgia!
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Hachyderm's Growth Spurt
- Preston Doster recounts Hachyderm's explosive growth from 500 to 36,000 users during a Twitter exodus.
- This prompted a move from a basement-hosted server named Alice to a proper infrastructure setup.
Hachyderm's Tech Stack
- Hachyderm uses the official Mastodon software, a Ruby on Rails application with a Postgres database.
- This familiar stack leverages Sidekiq and PG Bouncer for scaling, common tools in the Rails ecosystem.
Decentralized Processing in Mastodon
- Mastodon instances handle the bulk of processing, unlike centralized platforms like Bluesky.
- Each instance manages interactions, updates, and notifications across servers, increasing the load as the social graph expands.