Mastodawn

#Tor and #ActivityPub experts, I'm curious to know if anyone has attempted to create a Fediverse instance as an Onion Service.

I understand that server-to-server communications in ActivityPub use HTTPS POST. So I imagine the sticking point would be routing server-to-server communications over the Tor network from, say, mastodon.social to valencia.onion.

Is this a problem with a trivial solution? Or perhaps an intractable one?

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Evan Prodromou May 7, 2025

@BlueDot I think it's quite tractable. You should try it!

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Felix Hlatky May 7, 2025

@BlueDot when we were at #rightscon2025 @andypiper and I discussed this, I think

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Andy Piper May 7, 2025

@mellifluousbox @BlueDot we did! And there is documentation on running Mastodon as an Onion service, in fact. I do not know how current or recently-tested this is, but have been meaning to go deeper on this at some point. https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/optional/tor/

Onion services - Mastodon documentation

Serving Mastodon through Tor onion services.

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BlueDot🇺🇦Sep 24, 2025

@andypiper @mellifluousbox

I'm curious to know if there's an example instance running as a hidden service, and whether I might have a peek at the configuration files.

So far I've got a working Tor hidden service, and I've installed Mastodon on it, but I'll need concrete examples to go the last mile.

(The related problem---getting a standard Mastodon instance to route traffic onto the Tor network---is for another day.)

see mitra tor guide or the one by akkoma

mitra

Federated social network

Codeberg.org

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silverpill Sep 25, 2025

@helge @BlueDot I am not sure about the Akkoma fork, I've never seen it in Tor. But there are several Pleroma instances. And Mitra, of course.

Easy Onion Federation (Tor) - Pleroma Documentation

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silverpill Sep 25, 2025

@BlueDot It's not a problem at all. Tor instances can federate with each other, and with clearnet instances too, if they are connected to Tor.