Ansible playbook for installing Mastodon

This playbook contains several roles for provisioning a ready-to-go Mastodon instance.

Prerequisites for running the playbook

• Python 3.10.x
• Virtualenv (>= 20.x)
• pip/python-pip (>= 20.x)

for testing purposes:

• Vagrant >= 2.3.5

Setup

$ virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3 env
$ source env/bin/activate
$ git clone https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ansible.git
$ cd mastodon-ansible
$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Running the playbooks

Bare

This playbook is intended to be run on a "bare" (virtual) server, with the support for provisioning the Mastodon stack as well as a PostgresSQL and Redis database.

Typing secret content directly at the command line (without a prompt) leaves the secret string in your shell history. You should use Ansible Vault to secure your Mastodon database credentials for the use with Ansible instead.

The /templates/secrets.yml.tpl contains an example template that you can use.

To encrypt secrets.yml, use this following command:

$ ansible-vault encrypt secrets.yml

Then run the playbook as following:

$ ansible-playbook bare/playbook.yml --ask-vault-pass -i <your-host-here>, -u <remote-user> --ask-become-pass -e 'ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3' --extra-vars="@secrets.yml"

If you prefer not to use Ansible Vault, you can run the playbook as following:

$ ansible-playbook bare/playbook.yml -i <your-host-here>, -u <remote-user> --ask-become-pass -e 'ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3' --extra-vars="mastodon_db_password=your-password redis_pass=your-password local_domain=mastodon.local mastodon_host=example.com"

The playbook is using become for some of its tasks, hence the user you connect to the instance with will have to have access to sudo. It should ask you for the password in due time.

Note: This assumes you're within the virtualenv already.

After the playbook has finished its execution, Mastodon now should be available at the hostname you defined and you're not required run the Mastodon setup wizard. As Email servers differ widely from configuration to configuration you must edit the .env.production file and add your own email server details followed by restart of Mastodon services.

To edit .env.production, follow these steps:

ssh yourmachine
su - mastodon
cd ~/live
nano .env.production
systemctl restart mastodon-*.service

To see a list of available environment variables for your Mastodon installation, please refer to the Mastodon documentation.

Roles

By default, the playbook runs all of the roles defined here in sequence. You can skip any of them by specifying --skip-tags=<role-name>.

Example

Skipping the postgres role:

$ ansible-playbook bare/playbook.yml --skip-tags=postgres -i <your-host>, -u <your-user>

Preflight Checks

This role verifies that when you're running this playbook, that you're not jumping to a new major or minor version to prevent potential destructive operation. You can easily disable this role via a variable.

Settings

config setting	explanation
run_preflight_checks	If set to true, it will run verification

web

This role contains the following tasks:

• repositories.yml: Adds required package repositories to pull in the latest software (e.g. yarn, nodejs)
• packages.yml: Installs all the required packages for Mastodon to run (see vars/<distro>_vars.yml for a list)
• ruby.yml: Installs rbenv/ruby globally so you can run Mastodon (it's a Ruby on Rails app)
• user.yml: Adds a user to run Mastodon with since you shouldn't be running Mastodon under a privileged account.
• firewall-cmd.yml: Starts and enables firewall for RHEL based systems and permitting SSH, HTTP and HTTPS, as not using a firewall is insecure.
• ufw.yml: Starts and enables firewall for Debian based systems and permitting SSH, HTTP and HTTPS, as not using a firewall is insecure.
• mastodon-preflight.yml: Downloads latest version of Mastodon and required dependencies for installing Ruby.
• mastodon-postflight.yml: Installs latest version of Mastodon and all of its required dependencies. This role generates required secrets and installs env.production file, not requiring to run the Mastodon setup wizard.
• nginx.yml: Installs Mastodon configuration for NGINX and sets correct SELinux policies for RHEL systems.
• nodejs.yml: Enables NodeJS 16 DNF module for RHEL 8 systems to ensure that we have correct NodeJS version installed.
• redis.yml: Secures Redis installation with a password as you shouldn't run redis with no password protection.
• selfsigned-ssl.yml: Generates self-signed SSL certificates when LetsEncrypt not used as Mastodon requires SSL to function.
• letsencrypt.yml: Automatically requests and renews a Let's Encrypt SSL certificate for your Mastodon server. Please refer to the settings section for more information.

Settings

config setting	explanation
mastodon_host	The url where your mastodon instance is reachable. E.g. example.social
disable_hsts	Per default the system will enable HSTS. You can set this to true if you want to disable it.
disable_letsencrypt	Per default the system will attempt to obtain SSL certificate via LetsEncrypt. You can set this to true if you want to disable it.
letsencrypt_email	Email to use during certificate registration with Let's Encrypt. This is mandatory.
use_legacy_certbot	If you wish to use the new way of obtaining a Let's Encrypt certificate. Heavily recommended to disable legacy certbot for new deployments. Default is true for compatibility reason with previous versions of the playbook. Uses Python, venv and pip to fetch the latest versions. Please note that deploying the new version of certbot may cause issues and will conflict with each other if you do not remove the old version manually!
autoupdate_certbot	Requires use_legacy_certbot to be false! Schedule automatic updates of certbot per EFF recommendation. Default is false.
certbot_extra_param	Any additional parameters you want to pass to certbot during cert request. Default is blank.
use_http	Per default the system will use HTTPS and redirect any HTTP traffic to HTTPS. With recent changes to Mastodon, Puma server now enforces HTTPS, and unless you do config changes to the Mastodon configuration yourself, you will end up in a redirect loop with NGINX trying to serve content via HTTP, and Mastodon enforcing and switching to HTTPS in a loop over and over again. Don't enable this unless you REALLY know what you're doing.
nginx_catch_all	Per default the system will only show Mastodon for a defined url in mastodon_host. Useful for development or reverse proxy scenarios. Recommended to use with use_http. You can set this to true if you want to enable it.
mastodon_version	Specifies which version of Mastodon you want to download. Default is "latest"
mastodon_allow_prerelease	Specifies if you want to download release candidate builds of Mastodon when "latest" is specified. Default is "false".

PostgresSQL

This role installs PostgresSQL, adds a database (named mastodon_instance by default) and a user (named mastodon by default). For connecting to the database it can either use a local socket by setting the variable mastodon_db_login_unix_socket to the directory the Postgres socket lives in (/var/run/postgresql by default under Ubuntu 18.04) or a remote PostgreSQL instance you have installed somewhere else. You will than have to set the mastodon_db_login_host (IP address or hostname of database), mastodon_db_port (the port the database is accessible on; default 5432), mastodon_db_login_user (the administrative user to connect to the database with) and mastodon_db_login_password.

Settings

config setting	explanation
mastodon_db	The database name
mastodon_db_user	Database user for mastodon
mastodon_db_password	Database password for mastodon
mastodon_db_login_unix_socket	Unix socket of the local PostgresSQL instance (not needed when using remote connection)

If you configure your PostgresSQL on another server, you need to configure these settings additionally:

config setting	explanation
mastodon_db_login_host	Host of the PostgresSQL
mastodon_db_port	Port of the PostgresSQL
mastodon_db_login_user	Admin user to connect with
mastodon_db_login_password	Password of admin user

Examples

• Install PostgresSQL, create the database and user:

$ ansible-playbook bare/playbook.yml -i <your-host-here>, -u <remote-user> --extra-vars="mastodon_db_password=your-password mastodon_db_login_unix_socket='/var/run/postgresql'"

• PostgreSQL installed on host mastodob-db, create the database and the user:

$ ansible-playbook bare/playbook.yml -i <your-host-here>, -u <remote-user> --extra-vars="mastodon_db_password=your-password mastodon_db_login_host=mastodon-db mastodon_db_port=5432 mastodon_db_login_user=your-admin-db-user mastodon_db_login_password=your-password"

redis

This role installs the Redis key-value store, used by Mastodon, and its client libraries.

Settings

config setting	explanation
redis_pass	Password used to secure the redis server.

Docker

FIXME

Testing

Testing is done using Goss. The tests are in the goss.yaml file and include variables from the vars.yaml file.

Continuous Integration

This repository is regularly running tests using GitHub Actions. Its configuration can be found in .github/workflows/test.yml.

Local testing

$ vagrant up

This should provision a new instance within VirtualBox and run all the tests necessary to verify the Ansible playbook is valid. By default it runs the bare provisioning.

TODO

• Add LB role