At least most of the mone is now done… for now.
Finally, the migration of Sakurajima’s infrastructure is complete. Anyone having issues using our Mastodon server can ask for help on our forums.
Why make a move from Linode?
Believe it or not, Sakurajima was initially hosted on a 2 GB Linode when I first created the server a day after Elon bought Twitter, now called X. It’s evident that I don’t have much confidence in the future of Twitter, and I was right.
We eventually upgraded to a 4 GB Linode in December 2022, which we have been using. It has handled several waves, even after we got listed on JoinMastodon. However, we have encountered a few issues running only on 4 GB. Since I upgraded Sakurajima Social to a 4 GB Linode, the costs increased compared to a dedicated server. While the 20% increase in costs made operating our services, it eventually adds up as we expanded our services.
Since there is a lull during the winter anime season, it’s time to migrate everything before spring. Given how complicated Mastodon is and having to set up an email server again, I know that this would be a pain. Moving Sakurajima Social was a piece of cake, but Mastodon took two attempts. Setting up from scratch was impossible since the web interface wouldn’t load properly.
We ultimately just cloned the Linode Sakurajima uses, exported the image and made it work on Xcp-ng, and it worked out in the end. I exported and reimported the Redis and Postgres databases on the new server. The process took a little over half an hour. I should have done this initially to make life easier without reconfiguring everything.
The Future
Sakurajima isn’t going anywhere. I want to rebuild the indie Japanese media and culture community and Anime Blogging community we once had. Moving to commercialized, big, centralized platforms was a mistake, and we are paying the price. The aim is to rebuild a safe and well-moderated community and create one by and for the Japanese media/culture fandom community.
I aim to have something like we have with AnimeSuki forums, AnimeBlogger.net, and others. In addition to our Mastodon/Misskey servers and our forums, I started providing free WordPress blog hosting for our members. By doing this, it will allow new bloggers to get started with anime/manga blogging without feeling too restricted by WordPress.com hosting restrictions on the free tier. While it takes time to grow, we are in it in the long run.
As expected, my goal is to build the best Japanese media/culture fandom community that is better than what commercialized platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Reddit, BlueSky, etc. can provide. The experience on those will get worse with enshittification and high-interest rates.
Of course, don’t count on BlueSky’s statement that they won’t enshittify and start charging for basic features in the future. They have already indicated that they will put features behind a paywall. However, moving from BlueSky to the Fediverse in the future will be easier as there will be a two-way Bluesky bridge to ActivityPubonce BlueSky enables federation. Note that we will still moderate accounts on an account basis.
In short, there is no reason to create a BlueSky account since you can follow them with a Mastodon/Misskey/Akkoma account. There are benefits to using Mastodon/Misskey/Akkoma as you can also interact with WordPress blogs and other services that will use ActivityPub in the future, like Tumblr with Flipboard’s support in active development.
With that, if you are able and want to, you are free to help offset some of the costs of providing the services we provide.
The post Sakurajima’s Server Migration Complete and the Future for Sakurajima appeared first on Sakurajima.
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