Installing Mastodon on Arch Linux

Mastodon is a free, decentralized microblogging platform. In this tutorial, we will be installing Mastodon on Arch Linux.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure that your system is up-to-date using:

sudo pacman -Syu

Installing PostgreSQL

Mastodon requires a PostgreSQL database to store its data. Install PostgreSQL using:

sudo pacman -S postgresql

Start and enable the service:

sudo systemctl enable --now postgresql

Create a new user for Mastodon:

sudo -u postgres createuser -P mastodon

And create a new database:

sudo -u postgres createdb -O mastodon mastodon_production

Installing Mastodon

Clone the Mastodon repository:

git clone https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon.git

Install the dependencies:

cd mastodon
bundle install --deployment --without development test

Configure the database:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails db:setup

Compile the assets:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile

Configuring Mastodon

Create a new environment file:

cp .env.production.sample .env.production

Update the DATABASE_URL with the database details:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://mastodon:mypassword@localhost/mastodon_production

Set the secret key:

export SECRET_KEY_BASE=`openssl rand -base64 32`

Starting Mastodon

Start Mastodon using:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails server

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have installed Mastodon on Arch Linux. You can now access Mastodon by visiting http://localhost:3000 in your web browser.