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Matrix room: #epicyon:matrix.freedombone.net
Epicyon is an AGPL licensed ActivityPub protocol compliant federated social network server suitable for hosting a small number of accounts on low power systems requiring minimal maintenance, such as single board computers. It's the ActivityPub equivalent of an email server, storing posts as human readable JSON on file, rather than in a database. It also uses only a small amount of RAM.
An Internet of People, Not Corporate Agendas
Epicyon is written in Python with a HTML+CSS web interface and uses almost no javascript which makes display in a web browser very lightweight.
Emojis, hashtags, photos, video and audio attachments, instance and account level blocking controls, moderation functions and reports are all supported. Build the community you want and avoid the stuff you don't. No ads. No blockchains or other Silicon Valley garbage.
Message Scopes
Define the scope of your messages to reach the right people.
Scheduled Posts
Schedule posts to be published at some time in the future. This can be useful for reminding yourself to do things (send your future self a direct message) or for creating a series of posts promoting some event, such as a festival or wedding.
International and Customizable
Epicyon supports many languages. Translations and emoji can easily be added. Alter the logo, backgrounds, terms of service and style to create a unique personality for your instance. Choose from a few different themes, or make a new one.
Calendar Events
When creating a new post you can optionally also add a date, time and place. This will show up on the calendars of your followers, and makes organizing meetups or other community events simple. You can use message scopes to set up public events or private ones. To create reminders you can send yourself a DM with an event and it will appear on only your calendar.
Noone Left Behind
Epicyon's lack of javascript makes it much more usable in shell based web browsers such as Lynx. As new web systems are deployed we should not be leaving anyone with minority use cases behind.
Media Timeline
Some posts contain images and some don't. The media timeline enables you to view all your pet photos in one place.
If you want your instance to be primarily about posting and interacting with media then you can also enable the media instance option.
Genuine Sharing Economy
Barter and gift physical items or services with other people on your instance. Search for shared items which you might want or post items you no longer have a use for. Promote ride shares or available accomodation without any unnecessary companies in the middle. Pool resources between trusted friends to build solidarity and have fun.
Promote Your Skills and Build Teams
Define a set of skills in your profile and search for other people who have the skills you need. Organize teams who can get things done!
Bookmarks
Want to remember a particular link or reply to something later? Bookmark your favorite posts and view them on the Saves timeline.
Hashtags
Stay informed about the topics which people that you follow are highlighting. On the search screen there is a hashtag swarm.
No Artificial Incentives
No algorithmic timelines. No rating or ranking of people. No trending stuff. Removing the artficial cruft of social networking allows you to focus on things you actually care about, instead of what someone else thinks you should pay attention to.
Install
You will need python version 3.7 or later.
On a Debian based system:
sudo apt install -y tor python3-socks imagemagick python3-numpy python3-setuptools python3-crypto python3-cryptodome python3-dateutil python3-pil.imagetk python3-idna python3-requests libimage-exiftool-perl certbot nginx
The following instructions install Epicyon to the /opt directory. It's not essential that it be installed there, and it could be in any other preferred directory.
Clone the repo, or if you downloaded the tarball then extract it into the /opt directory.
cd /opt
git clone https://gitlab.com/bashrc2/epicyon
Create a user for the server to run as:
sudo su
adduser --system --home=/opt/epicyon --group epicyon
chown -R epicyon:epicyon /opt/epicyon
Create a daemon:
nano /etc/systemd/system/epicyon.service
Paste the following:
Activate the daemon:
Create a web server configuration:
And paste the following:
Enable the site:
Forward port 443 from your internet router to your server. If you have dynamic DNS make sure its configured. Add a TLS certificate:
Restart your web server:
If you are using the Caddy web server then see caddy.example.conf
Now you can navigate to your domain and register an account. The first account becomes the administrator.
Upgrade
To subsequently upgrade: