GNU Social

Log into your system with:

ssh myusername@mydomain -p 2222

Using cursor keys, space bar and Enter key select Administrator controls and type in your password.

Select Add/Remove Apps then gnusocial. You will then be asked for a domain name and if you are using FreeDNS also the code for the domain which can be found under Dynamic DNS on the FreeDNS site (the random string from "quick cron example" which appears after update.php? and before >>). For more details on obtaining a domain and making it accessible via dynamic DNS see the FAQ. You can also add a welcome message and background picture URL if you wish, although those things are optional. Typically the domain name you use will be a subdomain, such as gnusocial.mydomainname.net. It will need to be a domain which you have bought somewhere and own and not one of the FreeDNS subdomains, otherwise you won't be able to get a SSL/TLS certificate for it.

After the install has completed go to Security settings and select Create a new Let's Encrypt certificate and enter the domain name that you are using for GNU Social. If you're using the "onion only" version of the system then you don't need to do this. If the certificate is obtained successfully then you will see a congratulations message.

If you have just obtained a Lets Encrypt certificate as above then go to About on the administrator control panel and you should see your GNU Social domain listed there along with an onion address. You can then navigate to your site in a browser.

To see the login password for your site go to Passwords on the Administrator control panel and select the appropriate username and app. The passwords will be different for each user and may not be the same as the password which you used to originally ssh into the system.

Once you have logged in to GNU Social you may then want to select Admin and check or change the details. You may also wish to change the license for the site to be either Creative Commons or private.

GNU Social has a clutter-free mobile user interface which can be accessed via a Tor compatible browser (make sure to add a NoScript exception). Unlike similar proprietary sites there are no bribed posts.

If you are an Emacs user it's also possible to set up GNU Social mode as follows:

mkdir ~/elisp
git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/gnu-social-mode ~/elisp/gnu-social-mode
sed -i 's|"http"|"https"|g' ~/elisp/gnu-social-mode/gnu-social-mode.el
sed -i 's|http:|https:|g' ~/elisp/gnu-social-mode/gnu-social-mode.el
sed -i 's|http?|https?|g' ~/elisp/gnu-social-mode/gnu-social-mode.el
echo "(add-to-list 'load-path \"~/elisp/gnu-social-mode\")" >> ~/.emacs
echo "(require 'gnu-social-mode)" >> ~/.emacs
echo "(setq gnu-social-server-textlimit 2000" >> ~/.emacs
echo "      gnu-social-server \"yourgnusocialdomain\"" >> ~/.emacs
echo "    gnu-social-username \"yourusername\"" >> ~/.emacs
echo "    gnu-social-password \"gnusocialpassword\")" >> ~/.emacs

And as a quick reference the main keys are: