moving a friendica VPS server onto ubuntu 22.04 LTS

@Friendica Support @Friendica Admins
Based on the tutorial "creating a friendica server - ubuntu" by @Hank G ☑️.

Server specs and friendica version used:
VPS server | Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
PHP Version 8.1.2-1ubuntu2.14
4 Core CPU, 8 GB Ram with 300GB NVME Disk
Friendica [STABLE] | 'Giant Rhubarb' 2023.05 - 1518

Basic definitions for to work with the console:

user@localPC:~$ ----------------> your computer
rootname@VPShosting:~# ---> your VPS server
www-data@VPShosting:~$ --> the user name of the friendica installation on the apache VPS server

#fediVerse #tutorial #fediHelp #activityPub
@TupambAdmin [stable] @Tutorial

what VPS offer fits best for a small friendica instance?

@Friendica Support @Friendica Admins @Friendica Developers
Hi there,
in the end I want to try to setup my first self-hosted friendica VPS on a small setup:
1gig RAM/1 Core/25gig

...

...

@Michael Vogel

@Michael Vogel

Hallo Micha,
irgendwie funktioniert friendica so ziemlich gar nicht mehr wie ich es erwarte (oder dachte) das es funktioniert in Sachen Foren und News-pages.

Ich habe es endlich auf die Reihe gekriegt ein hosting auf einem VPS aufzusetzen aber die Foren Seite die ich versuche zum laufen zu bringen funktioniert in Kombination mit mastodon nicht in dem Sinne das Profile von dort die Forenseite als Verteiler benutzen können.

Um das ganze zu überprüfen habe ich jetzt hier auf squeet.me verschiedene Profile angelegt um das auf einem Server zu testen bei dem der Status quo ja im Zweifelsfalle läuft.

Dies sind die Profile die ich von diesem Profil hier aus erstellt habe:
@bitpickups public Testforum
@bitpickups privat Testforum
@bitpickups privat Testforum

Als nächstes habe ich versucht Kontakt von einem mastodon Profile auf troet.cafe zu knüpfen. Da kommt gar nichts an. Keine Kontaktanfrage oder Erwähnung (versuche das ganze gerade noch mal von social.tchncs.de aus mit einem anderen Profil).

Hat sich irgend etwas grundlegendes geändert an den Forenfunktionen oder sind dort Probleme bekannt?

general question about storage

!Friendica Support
Hi there,
I'm trying to understand the difference between storage settings and the respective results at /admin/storage.

When choosing:

Filesystem Storage base path: storage

the files (images, videos etc) are stored on the ftp system.

If I get this right, in the first place the folder "storage" doesn't exist in myfriendicadomain.com/storage and has to be created beforehand.
At the same time the page states:
"For maximum security, This should be a path outside web server folder tree"
That means that it isn't convenient to create the /storage folder alongside the other friendica folders like /images, /config and so on?
Am I right to consider that if I do so it's quite easy to access all files by just browsing to myfriendicadomain.com/storage ?

How does friendica create the restricted permissions to access files/images in this case?

In general terms speaking, could I locate that folder anywhere on the web, for example at a domain path from another hosting provider or another domain I have access to?

With respect to security:
When the files are stored in the DB is it more difficult to access them all at once instead of when they are located in one single folder in some directory tree?

When the storage is done in the DB does that mean a lot more work load for the DB instead of when the files are stored on ftp?

can't reach/post to helpers forum

!Friendica Support

Hi there,
as of now I'm working for several weeks on a remake of the tupambae.org server.

The admin profile and also other profiles tried to follow and post to the helpers page but apparently the posts are not coming thru.

It's the first time I experience something like that and wonder now if this could have something to do with the fact that like 5 to 7 years ago (friendica Version 3.4.3 december 2015) already existed a tupambae.org server and if the helpers server existed than (I guess so) maybe there is some registry about the old tupambae.org server that doesn't allow the new on to federate properly.

Here some posts to the forum page that didn't make it:
tupambae.org/display/0ac89072-…
tupambae.org/display/0ac89072-…
tupambae.org/display/0ac89072-…

Any idea or help how to fix this?
Who is in charge of the forum server, @Tobias?

are there "best practice" PHP Versions?

Hi there @Friendica Support,
I wonder if there are PHP versions to recommend when running friendica.

In older versions (2019-12 + 2021.01-04) I experienced problems when creating connections getting "The network type couldn't be detected. Contact can't be added." messages using PHP 7.4 (as the install instruction stated 7.1 or higher).
After downgrading to 7.1 it looked like connecting started to work well.

Right now I'm working on a new VPS for tupambae.org:

Friendica 'Giant Rhubarb' 2023.05 - 1518
PHP 8.2.10

(it's a beta testing of a hoster) but some how not everything works as expected.

I just tried to contact the public forum @Rugby from this profile here.
Over here, the contact is displayed as follows:

(Group) I follow them (#DFRN (via #ActivityPub))

but over there this profile doesn't show up.

No problems for now with establishing connections with mastodon profiles and I just tested a friendica 2021.01 profile and that worked to.

Should I downgrade the PHP version and if so to which one?

Also, I posted a help request to the helpers page about how to set up the forum pages properly as the don't work "as expected" but it doesn't look to me as if the post was received by the helpers forum:

git.friendi.ca: how to upload/apply diff/patch file via web interface

@Friendica Support

Hi there,
trying again to fidel around with the git.friendi.ca instance to become able to still use some old friendica shared hosting (I know, that's crazy) as somehow an old friendica 2019.12 instance works after all "quite well" federating via activitypub with the fediverse.

Right now my first and basic issue is to incorporate the security hotfix from friendica 2020.07-1

I have uploaded a diff and patch file to the newly created fork/repo of 2019.12 but am now stuck trying to somehow make the changes proposed in the patch file merge to the repo.

For now I'm only using the web-browser interface of git.friendi.ca and wonder if there is some "magic" trick to merge/push the changes into the repo using the web interface.

In general terms I have no idea about git, used it on the console an eternity ago while installing and updating friendica on the shared hosting I'm on but if I can circumvent to dig again deep into all that I'd definitely prefer.
So, if I can use the git.friendi.ca instance with my browser to basically apply a few changes like now to get this shared hosting working as a single user instances with few contacts I'd be absolutely pleased.

Right now I basically use it as a back up archive that federates with my profiles in the fediVerse and in general terms it works, sometimes with terrible delays but that's fine with me.

reading json data export of a profile

@Friendica Support

Hi there,
about a couple of years ago I lost some data but had a JSON profile backup so I asked about how to read that data. At that moment there was no such thing as to read that file but, if I remember well, @Tobias worked at least on some initial intent in a hacking event and I could extract something of that file with his help back than.

Unfortunately I can't find that specific request and conversation in my timeline to ask and roll this question up from there.
(Actually lot's of comments of tobias disappeared in other conversations of this profile about help request's of mine, I guess because of some general "delete old comments" settings of his profile.)

Back than I could recover some of the data stored in the JSON profile backup but not what I was looking for, the actual post texts that got lost. They where chapters of a collaborative book I was working on so a real loss, besides the loss of trust in between the collaborators because it wasn't clear what happened back than and why the text's disappeared in that moment in time from the site.
🙁

Has there been any more efforts to extract data from JSON backups into simple .txt files or is it possible to upload that backup to a friendica instance to see if it is possible to recover the lost texts of the posts?