/kbin server update - or how the server didn't blow up
/kbin server update - or how the server didn't blow up
Currently, on the main instance, people have created 40191 accounts (+214 marked as deleted). I don't know how many are active because I don't monitor it, but once again, I greet all of you here :) In recent days, the traffic on the website has been overwhelming. It's definitely too much for the basic docker-compose setup, primarily designed for development use. I was aware of the possible consequences of the situation happening on Reddit, but I assumed that most people would migrate to one of the Lemmy instances, which already has an established position. I hoped that a few stray enthusiasts would find their way to kbin ;)
The first step was to upscale the VPS to a higher version (66.91EUR). It quickly turned out that it wasn't enough. I had to enable CF protection just to keep the website responsive, but the response times were still very slow. At this stage, the instance was practically unusable. The next step was a full migration to a dedicated server (100EUR, the current hardware). It can be done relatively quickly, so it resulted in a 5-minute technical break. Despite the much higher parameters, it didn't get any better. It became clear that the problem didn't lie there. I'm really frustrated when it comes to server administration. That was the moment when I started looking for help. Or rather, it found me.
A couple days ago I wrote about how kbin qualified for the Fast Forward program. To be honest, I did it out of pure curiosity and completely forgot because a lot was happening during that time. During the biggest fire incident, Hannah ( @haubles ) reached out with a proposal to help. I outlined the situation (in short: the server is dying, I don't even know what I need, help! ;). She quickly connected us with Vlad ( @vvuksan ) and Renaud ( @renchap ). I was probably too tired because I don't know if the whole operation lasted 60 minutes or 6 hours, but after a series of precise questions and getting an understanding of the situation, the guys themselves adjusted the entire job. I love working with experts, and it's not often that you come across individuals so well-versed in the fediverse. Thanks to Hannah's kindness, we will be staying there a bit longer. Currently, fastly.com handles the caching layer and processes images. Hence those cool moving thumbnails ;)
Things were going well at that point. I could disable Cloudflare protection. Probably thanks to that, many of you are here today, and we got to know each other a bit better :) However, even then, when I tried to enable federation, the server would stop working.
Around the same time, Piotr ( @piotrsikora ), whom I already knew from the Polish fediverse, contacted me. He is the administrator of the Polish Mastodon instance pol.social, operates within the ftdl.pl foundation, and specializes in administering applications with a very similar tech stack. I made the decision to grant him server access. It only took him a few moments, and he came back to me with a few tips that allowed us to enable federation. In the following days, there was more of it, and we managed to reach the current level. I think it's not too bad.
Nevertheless, managing the instance has taken up about 60% or more of my time so far, which prevents me from fully focusing on current tasks. That's why I would like to collaborate with Piotr and hand over full care of the server to him. Piotr will also take care of the security side. Now I have to take this much more seriously. We still need to work out the terms of cooperation, but I want you to know the direction I intend to pursue.
We also need to migrate to a new environment because one server will sooner or later become insufficient. This time, I want to be prepared for it. This may be associated with transient issues with the website in the coming days.
The next two updates will still be about project funding (I still can't believe what happened) and moderation. The following ones will be more technical, with descriptions of changes and what contributors are doing on Codeberg. I would like to be here more often, but not as an admin, just as myself.
Thank you all for this.
P.S. In private messages, I also received numerous offers of help that I didn't even have a chance to read and respond to. You are the best!
hi all, you can buy ernest a cup of coffee aka give him some cash for his incredibly hard work! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kbin
Yassss I'm supporter 666🤘
🐐
Ernest should set up a patreon. I'd pay a monthly sub to him for this great website.
It's hard ot believe it's only a month or two old.
100%
That 100 Euro server also needs some coins inserted :)
Done! Thanks @ernest! This site is so cool!
Unfortunately someone just tried to use my bank account the other day, so I'm waiting for a new card to come in, but I got this bookmarked for when I do. I think it's worth the cost of a cup of coffee every now and then.
Done!
Done! Keep up the good work!
What payment options are there? This seems to be only credit card.
If I was Ernest I’d be scared stupid
Know wut i mean, Vern?
Yes, done!
Easiest $15 I've spent this month. Let's keep Kbin going!
@ernest @vvuksan @renchap @piotrsikora Thank you, Ernest 💞 we're so glad we can help and support you, and the project.
I hoped that a few stray enthusiasts would find their way to kbin
They did. "A few" as a portion of the whole, where the whole is much larger than you ever expected it would be.
One thing I have learned in my own technical career is that you can't do everything. Even if there was enough time in a day for you to do everything, you can't know everything, at least not sufficiently enough to be most effective. You have to depend on other experts, and delegate to them what you are not qualified to do. This requires a pretty high level of trust, and makes it so that you need to develop people management skills.
Lots of technical people are short on people management skills. I don't know where you sit on that spectrum, but you may need to consider bringing on an "overseer," kind of like a project manager, to keep tabs on all of the technical resources involved - yourself included. This will help ensure that concerns are prioritized appropriately, and that communication and messaging about those priorities are consistent and clear.
I've been in that kind of position, and I take a bit of pride in my use of words. I'm happy to give any advice you like.
I sense an opportunity here: managed hosting of Fediverse services. I don't mean a managed host where you can install/run the services. I mean a top-to-bottom setup, management, backup, upgrades, monitoring, etc. so the only thing you need to do is administer the community. I'd love to set up several Fediverse services for my local community, and I know there is an audience that would also love that, but I also know I do not want to invest the time it takes to manage the technical side of that.
Having easier to set up instances would help in relieving the pressure from the more popular current instances. We're starting to see those hosting options come on line for some of the services, but not fast enough for my liking.
@bourbonmakesitbetter We're a small independent "mom & pop" managed hosting provider focused on Mastodon and we're currently testing out kbin, send us an email at keith[@]thunderhost[.]com with the size of your community and we might be able to assist
Check out Grow Your Own Services. It doesn't have everything (e.g., kbin, Lemmy, Calckey) but it does offer what I think you're looking for with a number of the other more popular services.
@bourbonmakesitbetter elest.io provide a service like this kbin should be added in a few days
Hey @Ernest and @piotrsikora,
I haven't looked too closely at how kbin is architected yet, but would it benefit from horizontal scaling? I do full-time development of tooling to administrate very large k8s clusters for a company that you've probably interacted with today without knowing it. Not sure if k8s is the right orchestration system for you, but I'd be more than happy to provide some input on a potential migration to k8s (if kbin is a good fit there). I know there's a community on Matrix as well — I'll try to reach out there too, although it may be a bit.
Hi @Badabinski
K8S is one of option, but we decided to use some mix of bare-metal and docker swarm.
Almost everything is prepare to grow horizontally. Only (like always) problem is in database, and also we want to have flexible software that run on big cluster and small node without changes in code.
Give us few days, and after that we will show something ;)
If the post is anything to go by it's using the included "mostly for dev work only, mostly" docker-compose files. It would absolutely be able to be scaled out since at it's core it's just a webapp with workers. The app is already configured to use Redis for session storage so should be able to go super wide.
Only limitation is how performant you could make your postgres cluster.
Bullseye
I was thinking the same thing. Shouldn't this be one of the cases where k8s shines with a horizontal autoscaler? Wouldn't want to manage your own k8s though, so I imagine managed k8s is the best option. If it's the cheapest option is another question.
@Babinski do you know if there are other horizontal autoscaling options besides k8s?
This must be one of those HOLY SHIT MY LIFE TOOK A LEFT TURN moments for you.
Hang in there! Glad you're getting help, and excited to see where things go.
Sometimes the world is divided into before and after. For Earnest this must be one of those moments
It's cool to see renchap helping out here in addition to his work with mastodon.social! The amount of cross-pollination and coordination within the fediverse is so cool to see.
@MeowdyPardner @haubles fascinating reading comments like this and having to figure out the context for “here” (as I read it via Ivory with my mastodon.social account)
One of the things that will have to evolve in our discourse online in the fediverse is the distributed nature of “here”
Hell yes, ernest. Keep up the momentum, stay humble of your shortcomings, and don't burn yourself out.
We all love this community you developed, and hopefully we can attract the kinds of people who are as open, humble, courageous, and intelligent as you seem to have gravitating towards you in your personal and professional life.
Thank you for the update @ernest ! Do you have a webpage for donations ?
This link needs to be on the sidebar or something
Thanks!
@ernest Fantastic news and big thanks to all that are helping! @ernest I feel you will keep seeing several thousand users join in daily as the reddit shitshow continues to play out. There are now 10 apps being developed that will further support the transition especially as the July 1st shutdown takes place. That’s probably when a much bigger wave of new users will come in. Is your infrastructure scalable to allow for this onslaught? Thank you and everyone else again for your hard work!
Thanks for the update, and keep up the amazing work!
ITT: When your little hobby completely blows up in your face and takes over your life.
Thanks @ernest - we all appreciate it!
Thank you @ernest! Please consider setting up a Patreon, or similar, account so I can donate monthly. I've bought you a few coffees but I'd like it to be automatic.
@ernest this was an extraordinary situation with several crisis points on a platform in early development (as far as mass usage is concerned) and you were able to keep a cool head, keep things going and also keep people informed of the situations as they were developing. I am happy to read that you have help now (and it looks like really great expert help) and that you can take a break/retirement from admin and enjoy it with the rest of us. Bravo!
Thanks for your transparency and hard work! Loving the site and looking forward to it getting even better!
You handled this situation beautifully. Very often people don't know when to share responsibility and ask for help and their project dies in critical situations like that.
Well done, have fun with your now very alive and thriving project!Thank you for creating this space for us :)
Thanks for the hard work ernest!! I'm glad you were able to find some help and take some workload off you.
I read the whole thing with a smile on my face. So wholesome!
I'm glad you are here. Thank you for your work.
Kudos, @ernest. What you've put together in such a short time is amazing. I'm glad you're getting the help you need.
Thanks for the update, Ernest. Maybe a tracker can be posted on the sidebar to make sure we're supplying you with enough 'coffee' to keep the lights on? A lot of us are loving this platform enough to want to invest in your work and I hope everyone will crowdsource funds to keep you afloat.
Thank you everyone!
Looking forward to the follow-up posts with technical details, if you do find the time to write them up ofc! As a new kbin user, my thanks for all the hard work and for welcoming us here <3
I had a feeling that the silence over the last few days was a sign that a huge amount of work was happening behind the scenes. I also think you’re doing an excellent job of communicating with us. Thank you for all your effort that’s allowed this community to grow.
Huge shoutout to you and all of those who have gotten kbin to this point. Super crazy to have seen it go from struggling to a place I can happily and easily browse
You are doing a great job. It is really hard to keep an instance up with so many new users coming from the unexpected fast growing #RedditMigration.
Welcome aboard, Piotr!
That’s amazing! Thank you for what you’re doing <3
@ernest your achievements with this piece of software is going to go down in internet history, i hope you know that. you have already written your name into the history books. you deserve congratulations and very sincere thanks.
Thank you and all the others for your hard work building this community!
I just want to say that I.. we appreciate all of you and all of the work that you are doing! We are happy to be here!
Just commenting because it's unclear where I should ask these questions... but... is there a reason why individual kbin threads do not seem to show up on google search at all. Only magazines and tags seem to show up. Even the oldest posts do not seem to have search entries (unless I am missing something or looking at it wrong). I've tested some older lemmy threads and those do seem to show up.
Thanks for the update, thanks everybody who's helping ... and great decision handing off admin support
Thank you!
This is some dedicated effort here to keep this going, but is anyone not worried that there is basically one guy with all the keys to this thing? Dont want to sound too doomerish but if Ernest disappears tomorrow, wouldn't that be the end of kbin?
This is just one instance. The code is open and can be forked. That's why if I happen to get hit by a bus tomorrow, Piotr will have the keys to the server room ;)
Thanks for the reply and thats good to know!
Look how far we've come in just a week :)
Keep it up! You are doing a great job.
Thank you ernest... and fastly... and welcome aboard Piotr!
OSPs make me so happy :)
Thanks for the new home :)
Thanks for the update. Sounds like you're having an "exciting" time. You've done a great job so far and I hope that the additional help you are receiving means that you might be able to take some time off in the near future, for your own sake.
Edit: buy Ernest a coffee for those able to contribute
that is such a great update, never knew the stuff that goes behind the scenes. You got this!
thanks for proving the community this - really enjoying this place <3
'honest whole-hearted cathartic mood setting comment' jokes aside u are doing the needed work! we all appreciate it! I am too lazy to read all the comments.. is there a way to contribute more than donating (btw i didnt find a donate link.. maybe someone else did if so sticky is a needed function here xD)?
Went and grabbed it for you. Unfortunately, it's just this right now.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kbin
Really waiting on a way to donate monthly, because I would absolutely do that for this place. There wouldn't even have to be any of the typical Patreon perks for me, I just really like it here :)
I'm so confused. We only have 3500 accounts on Kbin? So we are miles and miles less than Lemmy?
edit No, I just need coffeeNope, we are at 35k+
I need coffee
Edited ;)
Hah, thanks Ernest!
I'd been doing a little shopping around over the past few weeks as I've been getting ready to properly leave my 11 year old (cringe) Reddit account behind. Lemmy does seem promising as well, but I do have some concerns about the developers, and while of course no one is perfect, as it's still the early days, I'd much prefer to throw my support behind people to whom I can do so guilt-free. So far at least, this has felt right up my alley, and while I am trying to use this moment to cut down a bit on my internet time in general, I'm definitely happy to be here!
The biggest reason I'm here, is Ernest. Getting in when a project is just getting off the ground, let's users have some say about the direction of things and features. And Ernest is very responsive to the community and asking for feedback. That's exciting, and makes the whole thing feel more of a community.
Thanks for the update!
My only caveat is that I wish I could see posts and comments from lemmy instances users when they post/comment on a kbin magazine.
Can't you?
Why can a banned user from another instance continue to post in my magazine? This really hampers our ability to maintain our magazines to a standard.
@ernest Regarding servers... did you have a look at Hetzner's server auctions. They tend to have 8c/16t servers for 40-50 bucks.
Also, I've seen kbin uses PHP at it's core. Do you consider switching to a golang stack, which is known to be more resource-friendly than PHP.
Methinks that a rewrite from PHP to Go would be a pretty massive undertaking. PHP's performance characteristics have gotten a lot better as the language and various runtimes have improved, although it's not anything like Go. I think the best route would be for someone to implement another federated link aggregation system in Go, so then we'd have a diverse selection to choose from — Lemmy in Rust, kbin in PHP, this hypothetical new platform in Go, along with everything else out there. A heterogeneous system is good for the continued health of the threadiverse IMO.
That isn't the issue.
A complete rewrite of the application might add capacity, but its vertical, you stack increase load in one instance. No matter how much performance you extract eventually you run out of capacity.
As scales increase you need to add horizontal capacity. This is the idea of adding 2, 10, 100 servers. That means breaking out services into stateless parts which can run concurrently (or managed state behaviour).
This is where something like Kubernetes comes into play, since its designed to manage docker images over hubdreds of servers. Instead of using every last bit of capacity from one server you spread it.
Similarly postgres like most SQL platforms doesn't particularly scale beyond 1 instance.
Facebook invented Apache Cassandra for this reason, it was the first NoSQL database and is designed to deploy in multiples of its replicaset number (3 is the default).
Having data spread over 3, 30, 300 is less efficient, but you know have 3,30, 300 servers responding.
The other advantage is horizontal scaling is fault tolerant by design.
There is an argument for compiled languages like Go, C# and Java, but honestly the next big win is making as much as possible scale horizontally.