A minimal ActivityPub server.

Commandline interface.

W3C Specification

Includes emojis designed by OpenMoji – the open-source emoji and icon project. License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Project Goals

Install

On Arch/Parabola:

sudo pacman -S tor python-pip python-pysocks python-pycryptodome python-beautifulsoup4 imagemagick python-pillow python-numpy python-dateutil
sudo pip install commentjson

Or on Debian:

sudo apt-get -y install tor python3-pip python3-socks imagemagick python3-numpy python3-setuptools python3-crypto python3-dateutil python3-pil.imagetk
sudo pip3 install commentjson beautifulsoup4 pycryptodome

Running Unit Tests

To run the unit tests:

python3 epicyon.py --tests

To run the network tests. These simulate instances exchanging messages.

python3 epicyon.py --testsnetwork

Running the Server

To run with defaults:

python3 epicyon.py

In a browser of choice (but not Tor browser) you can then navigate to:

http://localhost:8085/users/admin

If it's working then you should see the json actor for the default admin account.

For a more realistic installation you can run on a defined domain and port:

python3 epicyon.py --domain [name] --port 8000 --https

You will need to proxy port 8000 through your web server and set up CA certificates as needed.

By default data will be stored in the directory in which you run the server, but you can also specify a directory:

python3 epicyon.py --domain [name] --port 8000 --https --path [data directory]

Culling follower numbers

In this system the number of followers which an account has will only be visible to the account holder. Other viewers will see a made up number. Which accounts are followed or followed by a person will also only have limited visibility.

The intention is to prevent the construction of detailed social graphs by adversaries, and to frustrate attempts to build celebrity status based on number of followers, which on sites like Twitter creates a dubious economy of fake accounts and the trading thereof.

If you are the account holder though you will be able to see exactly who you're following or being followed by.

Object Capabilities Security

A description of the proposed object capabilities model is here.

Customizations

You can customize the terms of service by editing accounts/tos.txt. If it doesn't already exist then you can use default_tos.txt as a template.

On the login screen you can provide a custom welcome message by creating the file accounts/login.txt. This could be used to show a motd or scheduled maintenance information.

You can customize the image on the login screen by saving your instance logo to accounts/login.png. A background image can also be set for the login screen by adding accounts/login-background.png

A custom background image can be supplied for the search screen by adding accounts/search-background.png

When a moderator report is created the message at the top of the screen can be customized to provide any additional information, advice or alerts. Edit accounts/report.txt and add your text.

Extra emoji can be added to the emoji directory and you should then update the emoji/emoji.json file, which maps the name to the filename (without the .png extension).