What Happens When You Delete an Instance on FediHost

When you cancel your service or delete your instance at FediHost, we shut down your infrastructure, but we do not broadcast a Delete command to the wider Fediverse.

This can be an issue for some people who really want that address to be permanently marked as deleted from the fediverse.

Why Not Delete?

This is a actually deliberate safety choice designed to protect you if you're planning to migrate away from our services.

What Happens When A Delete Is Broadcast?

In the fediverse, your data exists in the cache of every instance that follows you. That is why you may still see your instance showing up on remote servers. If we broadcast an ActivityPub Delete signal to those instances the remote servers don't just erase you, they often create a "Tombstone", this is a permanent record stating that your account is dead.

The Migration Issue

This mechanism is catastrophic if you are actually just trying to migrate. Many users cancel their service with us simply to move their database to a new provider or self-hosted hardware.

If we automatically sent a Delete signal upon cancellation, remote servers would Tombstone your account. When you spun up your new server elsewhere with the same domain and keys, those remote servers would likely reject your new posts, assuming you were a "zombie" or an impostor. Your connection to your followers would be severed.

Our Policy: Safety First

We play things safe at FediHost and default to a soft-delete. Initially we essentially just "turn off the server". This is why you cannot delete and then immediately recreate an instance with the exact same domain on FediHost.

Recovering Your Instance

After a few weeks, we will delete your data in line with our Terms of Service. This means that if you realize you deleted your instance by mistake, let us know immediately and we can restore it.

Permanent Delete

We won't send out an Activity Pub delete unless instructed. This ensures that if you restore your backup elsewhere, your federation graph remains intact.

If you need a permanent delete let us know and we can manually do this for you.

We are currently building a system that will allow you to trigger this permanent deletion yourself in the future.