Would it be possible for me to make comments to other instances etc?

Solved: I can’t, it would only work with a public domain.

  • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    7 months ago

    No, ActivityPub is a push protocol. Other instances send data to your instance via HTTPS and only HTTPS. So you need at minimum a public domain and web server with TLS enabled.

    Some people use Cloudflare tunnels to avoid opening ports or just get a cheap VPS to forward the traffic home without exposing the home IP.

    • dog@suppo.fi
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      7 months ago

      You do realize all this is easily done with a reverse proxy + DuckDNS?

      • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        7 months ago

        Wouldn’t you need a publically available IP? DuckDNS is only for dynamic IP’s that is public, yes?

        • dog@suppo.fi
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          7 months ago

          Works with anything that can open ports. DuckDNS works by pinging their service from anywhere to update the target IP for the subdomain.

            • dog@suppo.fi
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              7 months ago

              See: Anything that can open ports. NAT of any kind tends to not allow opening ports.

              • towerful@programming.dev
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                7 months ago

                Absolutely. However I feel like the whole thread needs extra clarification, considering the question OP posed.
                Dynamic DNS isn’t a magic wand in the way a Reverse Proxy over VPN is.

            • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              7 months ago

              Yea, that is also what I thought. To bypass this, you would need something like Cloudflare Tunnels or setup a VPN on a VPS, that redirects traffic to your homeserver.

        • SamajGaya@feddit.rocks
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          7 months ago

          Duckdns is pretty much a service that offers free domain names… that could point to any public IP. (I have seen setups where local IPs are used just for HTTPS). So its good for instances as HTTPS can be achieved without buying domain name.

        • tabular@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          7 months ago

          I want it encrypted but I don’t want to ask a 3rd party to get a certificate.

              • Dandroid@dandroid.app
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                ·
                7 months ago

                I’m not sure I understand the question. They are used to encrypt traffic and prove that the entity hosting the site hasn’t changed by using a digital signature. These two together make it so third parties can’t read the traffic coming through. This is a requirement for modern internet. Otherwise your passwords wouldn’t be a secret because literally anyone would see them.

      • BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Plain HTTP should be considered obsolete. Also it makes impersonating websites harder (but not impossible)

        • Perhyte@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          7 months ago

          Additionally, HTTPS if very easy to set up nowadays and the certificates are free1.

          1: Assuming you have a public domain name, but for ActivityPub that’s already a requirement due to the push nature of the protocol.

          • dog@suppo.fi
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            7 months ago

            You can get Let’s Encrypt certificates for DuckDNS, so you don’t even need to own anything.

  • stown@sedd.it
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    7 months ago

    I don’t know enough about ActivityPub to say for sure but I believe that in order to federate properly (grab posts and comments from other servers as well as sending posts and comments to other servers) you need to have a publicly accessible domain with SSL. Hosting on localhost ( the computer you want to access from) is pointless if you don’t have a reverse proxy set up to actually let others see your server online.

  • h3ndrik@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    Depends on what you mean by “localhost”. Localhost is just the computer you’re currently logged in / sitting in front of… But I don’t know what kind of computer that is and how it is connected to the internet.

    You’d need a webserver that is reachable from the internet to be able to have a Lemmy instance that can interact with other parts of the network. The webserver itself can run on any machine. You just need to make it accessible from the internet. So you either have a connection to the internet that allows hosting stuff… Use port forwarding in your router (at home) or if that’s all not available use a tunnel or VPN.

    I really don’t know were you’re trying to get… If your question is: Can I selfhost stuff from a domestic internet connection: The answer is: Probably. Depends a bit on the provider and setup.

    If your question is: Do I need a domain name? The answer is: Probably yes if your (external) IP address changes frequently.

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    CGNAT Carrier-Grade NAT
    DNS Domain Name Service/System
    HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
    HTTPS HTTP over SSL
    IP Internet Protocol
    NAT Network Address Translation
    SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption
    TLS Transport Layer Security, supersedes SSL
    VPN Virtual Private Network
    VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)

    [Thread #314 for this sub, first seen 30th Nov 2023, 09:15] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]