MajorLinux
6592eb4fea
- Fixed 4 broken markdown links (bad relative paths in See Also sections) - Corrected n8n port binding to 127.0.0.1:5678 (matches actual deployment) - Updated SnapRAID article with actual majorhome paths (/majorRAID, disk1-3) - Converted 67 Obsidian wikilinks to relative markdown links or plain text - Added YAML frontmatter to 35 articles missing it entirely - Completed frontmatter on 8 articles with missing fields Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
69 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
69 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Mastodon Instance Tuning"
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domain: selfhosting
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category: services
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tags: [mastodon, fediverse, self-hosting, majortoot, docker]
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status: published
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created: 2026-04-02
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updated: 2026-04-02
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---
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# Mastodon Instance Tuning
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Running your own Mastodon instance means you control the rules — including limits the upstream project imposes by default. These are the tweaks applied to **majortoot** (MajorsHouse's Mastodon instance).
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## Increase Character Limit
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Mastodon's default 500-character post limit is low for longer-form thoughts. You can raise it, but it requires modifying the source — there's no config toggle.
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The process depends on your deployment method (Docker vs bare metal) and Mastodon version. The community-maintained guide covers the approaches:
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- [How to increase the max number of characters of a post](https://qa.mastoadmin.social/questions/10010000000000011/how-do-i-increase-the-max-number-of-characters-of-a-post)
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**Key points:**
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- The limit is enforced in both the backend (Ruby) and frontend (React). Both must be changed or the UI will reject posts the API would accept.
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- After changing, you need to rebuild assets and restart services.
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- Other instances will still display the full post — the character limit is per-instance, not a federation constraint.
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- Some Mastodon forks (Glitch, Hometown) expose this as a config option without source patches.
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## Media Cache Management
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Federated content (avatars, headers, media from remote posts) gets cached locally. On a small instance this grows slowly, but over months it adds up — especially if you follow active accounts on large instances.
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Reference: [Fedicache — Understanding Mastodon's media cache](https://notes.neatnik.net/2024/08/fedicache)
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**Clean up cached remote media:**
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```bash
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# Preview what would be removed (older than 7 days)
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tootctl media remove --days 7 --dry-run
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# Actually remove it
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tootctl media remove --days 7
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# For Docker deployments
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docker exec mastodon-web tootctl media remove --days 7
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```
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**Automate with cron or systemd timer:**
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```bash
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# Weekly cache cleanup — crontab
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0 3 * * 0 docker exec mastodon-web tootctl media remove --days 7
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```
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**What gets removed:** Only cached copies of remote media. Local uploads (your posts, your users' posts) are never touched. Remote media will be re-fetched on demand if someone views the post again.
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**Storage impact:** On a single-user instance, remote media cache can still reach several GB over a few months of active federation. Regular cleanup keeps disk usage predictable.
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## Gotchas & Notes
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- **Character limit changes break on upgrades.** Any source patch gets overwritten when you pull a new Mastodon release. Track your changes and reapply after updates.
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- **`tootctl` is your admin CLI.** It handles media cleanup, user management, federation diagnostics, and more. Run `tootctl --help` for the full list.
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- **Monitor disk usage.** Even with cache cleanup, the PostgreSQL database and local media uploads grow over time. Keep an eye on it.
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## See Also
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- [self-hosting-starter-guide](../docker/self-hosting-starter-guide.md)
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- [docker-healthchecks](../docker/docker-healthchecks.md)
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