Webfinger Alias

If you want your mastodon handle to be shorter or different from the domain that you are hosted on

What Is A Webfinger?

Webfinger is the protocol that Mastodon uses to identify users on other servers. Mastodon by default responds with the domain you are installed on, but it can be configured to tell them a different domain.

The Problem This Solves

Often when companies and organisations go to setup Mastodon they already have a website located at their root domain, so they choose to install mastodon at a subdomain.

The issue is sometimes it can make mastodon handles quite long or hard to remember.

By setting up a redirect on your webhosting and changing a configuration variable on your mastodon instance your users handles can be a shorter or different domain.

Before You Start

• It is not recommended that you do this on an instance that has already federated, as this will "Break Federation". The time to setup a webfinger is when you are first setting up an instance.
• You will need access to your webhosting and have knowledge of how to configure a redirect on it
• You will need a host that allows you to change this setting such as fedihost