Multiple Services On One Domain?
Can you put two Fediverse services at one address?
By Paige Saunders
A question that comes up often in the Fediverse world is whether you can run two different services like Mastodon, PeerTube and GoToSocial with the exact same address.
Subdomains like m.consultatron.com or video.consultatron.com are perfectly fine and the typical way to get around this limitation.
Unfortunately, the answer is no. This is why.
What's The Website?
At the most basic level when you go to yourdomain.com it's not possible for it to have both a PeerTube, GoToSocial and a Mastodon instance.
For your browser: What is it supposed to show?
The same is true for other fediverse services. When they go to look up an account they use a protocal called "webfinger" which goes to the same address to find information.
https://m.consultatron.com/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:ceo@m.consultatron.com
Only one service can control that endpoint. If two services tried to answer, the responses would conflict—and other servers wouldn’t know which one is real.
Endpoints Cannot Be Shared
Each service needs its own set of ActivityPub endpoints under the same domain.
These URLs tell the rest of the Fediverse where to deliver messages, follow requests, likes, and everything else.
You can’t have two different apps claiming /inbox or /users or /api at the same root. The routing will break instantly.
Federation Identity Must Be Consistent
When another server sees an account like @ceo@m.consultatron.com, it expects one canonical implementation behind it. If two services “owned” that username format, you’d get:
- Accounts that point to the wrong software
- Signatures that don’t validate
- Broken follow relationships
- unpredictable behaviour depending on which service responds first
Federation works only when one domain is one authoritative service identity.
Solutions
Setting up each service on a different domain or subdomain is the solution to this problem. A short subdomain like m.consutltatron.com works, or purchasing a different top level domain like qlub.social for your fediverse projects.
Algorithms have a bad reputation but a humble set of rules and instructions is key to making the fediverse a more enjoyable experience.
How can a regular person get started on Mastodon, the leading fediverse microblogging platform.
If you want your mastodon handle to be shorter or different from the domain that you are hosted on, you'll need to make use of a WebFinger.