Got an IndieWeb site? Want to interact with Mastodon, Hubzilla, and the rest of the fediverse? Bridgy Fed is for you.
- How does it work?
- Which sites are supported?
- How do I set it up?
- How do I use it?
- I tried it, and it didn't work!
- How much does it cost?
- Who are you? Why did you make this?
- What do you do with my data?
- How long has this been around?
- I found a bug! I have a feature request!
- How does it work?
-
Bridgy Fed lets you interact with federated social networks like Mastodon and Hubzilla from your IndieWeb site. It translates replies, likes, and reposts from webmentions to federated social networking protocols like ActivityPub and OStatus, and vice versa.
This isn't syndication or POSSE! You don't need an account on Mastodon, Hubzilla, or anywhere else. Bridgy Fed lets your site act like a first class member of the fediverse. People on federated social networks (aka fedsocnets) will see your posts directly from your own site, and vice versa.
Here's an example on Mastodon, and another example on Hubzilla.
- Which sites are supported?
-
These sites are currently supported:
- Mastodon: replies, likes, and reposts aka boosts, both directions, via ActivityPub.
The instance must be running at least Mastodon 1.6, and more reliably with 2.0 and up. You can find its version on the bottom or right of its/about/more
page, e.g. mastodon.social/about/more. - Hubzilla: replies, likes, and reposts aka shares, both directions, via OStatus.
The instance must be running Hubzilla 2.6 or higher. You can find its version on its/siteinfo
page, e.g. hub.somaton.com/siteinfo. It also needs the GNU Social addon installed and enabled, and you also need to enable it in your account settings on the Feature/Addon settings page (/settings/featured
).
We're aware of the sites below, and we've made progress on some, but they're not yet supported. Click through and vote for their feature requests if you're interested in any of them!
- Diaspora, via OStatus.
- Friendica, via OStatus.
- GNU Social (née StatusNet), via OStatus.
- MediaGoblin, via ActivityPub?
- Pleroma, via OStatus.
- postActiv, via ActivityPub or OStatus.
- Mastodon: replies, likes, and reposts aka boosts, both directions, via ActivityPub.
- How do I set it up?
-
First, your site needs to support webmentions. Check out the IndieWeb wiki for instructions for your web server.
Next, add an Atom feed if your site doesn't already have one. If you're on WordPress, install the Atom Default Feed plugin. Otherwise, you can use granary. Just add this to your site's HTML
<head>
and fill inDOMAIN
with your site's domain:<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://granary-demo.appspot.com/url?url=http://[DOMAIN]/&input=html&output=atom&hub=https://bridgy-fed.superfeedr.com/" />
If you want people on fedsocnets to see your posts, your site will also need to support WebSub (née PubSubHubbub). Example details for Mastodon. If you're on a CMS, it may already have a plugin! WordPress has a couple, and Known has it built in. Or you can use Superfeedr or Switchboard.
Finally, configure your web site to redirect these URL paths to the same paths on
https://fed.brid.gy/
, including query parameters:/.well-known/host-meta /.well-known/host-meta.xrd /.well-known/host-meta.jrd /.well-known/webfinger
Here are instructions for a few common web servers:
-
WordPress (self-hosted): install the Safe Redirect Manager plugin, then add these entries:
/.well-known/host-meta* => https://fed.brid.gy/.well-known/host-meta*
/.well-known/webfinger* => https://fed.brid.gy/.well-known/webfinger* - Known: follow the Apache or nginx instructions below.
- Apache: add this to your
.htaccess
file:
RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^.well-known/(host-meta|webfinger).* https://fed.brid.gy/$0 [redirect=302,last]
- nginx: add this to your
nginx.conf
file, in theserver
section:
rewrite ^/.well-known/(host-meta|webfinger).* https://fed.brid.gy$request_uri redirect;
-
- How do I use it?
-
Federated social network identities take the form
@username@example.com
, like an email address with a leading@
. Your site's identity via Bridgy Fed will be@me@yourdomain.com
. Once you've set up Atom and WebSub on your site, people can follow you at that address.Most fedsocnets also publish Atom themselves, so you can add profile URLs like mastodon.technology/@snarfed to your reader and see their posts there too.
To like, repost or reply to a post on a fedsocnet, create an indie like, repost, or reply as usual, and include a link to
https://fed.brid.gy/
in that post. Your web server should then send Bridgy Fed a webmention, which it will translate to a Salmon slap or ActivityPub activity and forward to the destination. For example:<div class="h-entry"> Regarding <a class="u-in-reply-to" href="https://mastodon.technology/@snarfed/3194674">this post</a>: <p class="e-content">Highly entertaining. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.</p> <a href="https://fed.brid.gy/"></a> </div>
To receive likes, reposts, and replies from fedsocnets, just make sure your site accepts webmentions! Bridgy translates incoming Salmon slaps and ActivityPub activities to webmentions and sends them to your site.
For replies, the source will usually be the permalink on the social network itself. For likes and reposts, the source will usually be a proxy page on
fed.brid.gy
. For best results, make sure your webmention handler detects and handlesu-url
links! - I tried it, and it didn't work!
-
If you sent a webmention, check the HTTP response code and body. It will usually describe the error.
If you got an HTTP 204 from an attempt to federate a response to Mastodon, that means Mastodon accepted the response. If it doesn't show up, that's a known inconsistency right now. We're actively working with them to debug these cases.
You can also see recent Bridgy Fed requests here, including raw logs. Warning: not for the faint of heart!
- How much does it cost?
-
Nothing! Bridgy Fed is small, and it doesn't cost much to run. We don't need donations, promise.
If you really want to contribute, file an issue or send a pull request, or donate to the IndieWeb!
- Who are you? Why did you make this?
-
I'm Ryan Barrett. I'm just a guy who likes the web and likes owning my data.
- What do you do with my data?
-
Nothing! Bridgy Fed isn't a business, and never will be, so we don't have the same motivations to abuse your data that other services might. More concretely, Bridgy Fed won't ever send you email, it stores as little of your PII (personally identifiable information) as possible, and it never has access to any of your passwords.
- How long has this been around?
-
I started thinking about bridging federated social networks and peer to peer networks when I discovered them in the early 2000s. I started talking about bridging them to the IndieWeb in 2016, led a session on it at IndieWeb Summit in July 2017, wrote up concrete designs soon after, and started working on Bridgy Fed in August 2017.
- I found a bug! I have a feature request!
-
Great! Please file it in GitHub. Thank you!