How To Create A Mastodon Instance on FediHost

Mastodon is a fediverse microblogging platform capable of sharing text, images and videos. It takes most users between 5-10 minutes to start an instance depending on their level of experience with changing DNS records.

What You Need To Start

• Access to the DNS settings for your domain
• A credit card or existing FediHost account

Steps

Login or Register

Login or Sign-Up for Fedihost using an email address and password. This email address will receive important billing and administrative emails in relation to the instance.

Choose New Service

On the left menu, navigate to the "New Service" tab and choose "Mastodon" as the service you would like to add.

Select Plan

You can now choose which plan you would like for your Mastodon server. The user numbers are estimates based on the average use case - for more info on selecting a plan, you can see the article on it.

Configure Domain

Domain settings let you decide what address you would like your Mastodon instance to appear at. You can bring a custom domain or use a FediHost domain.

Custom Domain

If you own a domain, you will need to have access to the DNS settings for the domain to point them to FediHost's servers. This is usually something you can configure in the same place that you registered the domain, but not always.

The domain cannot be at the same address as a website that already exists. If you already have a website at an address the most common solution is to use a subdomain for your Mastodon instance.

Subdomain Example: Because consultatron.com already has a website at this address they used m.consultatron.com as the domain for their Mastodon instance.

Enter Domain

Enter in the domain that you would like to use into the box.

Update DNS

On your DNS provider update the records to match the table which the FediHost control panel generates. The settings depend on if you are using a subdomain or a top level domain.

Record Type: CNAME vs ALIAS

If you are using a subdomain such as m.consultatron.com you will need to create a CNAME record. On some DNS hosts you may not see a CNAME option, if that is the case, use an Alias Instead.

If you are putting your website on the root domain such as consultatron.com you will use an ALIAS record. You should also check that there is not an existing "A" record which some DNS hosts use to "park" the domain with a friendly welcome page. If there is an A record, you will need to delete it so that the ALIAS can be saved.

TTL

The TTL should be set to a low number so that the record updates quickly. It doesn't have to be 600.

DNS Delays DNS record record can take a long time to propagate, we are working on a system that will let you skip and come back to this step for a future update

Hostname

Hostname (AKA host) is the field where you put the domain you entered. A common issue occurs here when the DNS provider automatically appends the domain to the record you pasted in. So for example instead of the CNAME record saying `m.consultatron.com` it actually is saying `m.consultatron.com.consultatron.com`.

Target

The target (AKA Answer, Value) is the field where you enter the "Target" address provided by FediHost.

Fedihost Domain

If you do not have a domain, you can always use a fedihost subdomain. These deploy instantly and require no extra expense or custom domain.

Portability Warning: Using a fedihost subdomain means if you decide to move your Mastodon instance you won't be able to keep the same domain if you move elsewhere.

Review and Checkout

The next step lets you review your order and pay through stripe. Once you complete payment, your Mastodon instance is ready for the final configuration step.

FediHost Configuration

On your FediHost dashboard you will see your instance is waiting on some final configuration options which need to be completed prior to provisioning your instance. Click "Configure".

Mastodon Account

You can set the first admin user account email and name for the Mastodon instance.

WebFinger

WebFinger redirection allows you to display a Mastodon instance that runs on a subdomain such as m.consultation.com as consultatron.com instead. We do not recommend using this feature unless you are confident writing code or can verify with a your existing web developer that it is possible to write the code on your website.

Create Instance

Click "Create Instance" and your Mastodon instance will provision momentarily. An email will be sent to you confirming everything.