Installing from source

Pre-requisites

• A machine running Ubuntu 24.04 or Debian 12 that you have root access to
• A domain name (or a subdomain) for the Mastodon server, e.g. example.com
• An email delivery service or other SMTP server

We will be using example.com as the domain in the following example. Please remember to replace it with your own domain before running any commands.

You will be running the commands as root. If you aren’t already root, switch to root: sudo -i

System repositories

Make sure curl, wget, gnupg, apt-transport-https, lsb-release and ca-certificates are installed first:

apt install -y curl wget gnupg apt-transport-https lsb-release ca-certificates 

Node.js

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/gpgkey/nodesource-repo.gpg.key | gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg] https://deb.nodesource.com/node_20.x nodistro main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list 

PostgreSQL

wget -O /usr/share/keyrings/postgresql.asc https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/postgresql.asc] http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt $(lsb_release -cs)-pgdg main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/postgresql.list 

System packages

apt update apt install -y \  imagemagick ffmpeg libvips-tools libpq-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev file git-core \  g++ libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler pkg-config gcc autoconf \  bison build-essential libssl-dev libyaml-dev libreadline6-dev \  zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev libffi-dev libgdbm-dev \  nginx nodejs redis-server redis-tools postgresql \  certbot python3-certbot-nginx libidn11-dev libicu-dev libjemalloc-dev 

Yarn

Enable corepack so that the correct version of yarn can be installed automatically:

corepack enable 

Creating the mastodon user

This is the user account under which Mastodon will run:

adduser --disabled-password mastodon 

Setup

Setting up PostgreSQL

Performance configuration (optional)

For optimal performance, you may use pgTune to generate an appropriate configuration and edit values in /etc/postgresql/17/main/postgresql.conf before restarting PostgreSQL with systemctl restart postgresql.

Creating a user

You will need to create a PostgreSQL user that Mastodon could use. It is easiest to go with “ident” authentication in a simple setup, i.e. the PostgreSQL user does not have a separate password and can be used by the Linux user with the same username.

Open the prompt:

sudo -u postgres psql 

In the prompt, execute:

CREATE USER mastodon CREATEDB; \q 

Done!

Setting up Mastodon

It is time to download the Mastodon code. Switch to the mastodon user:

su - mastodon 

Checking out the code

Use git to download the latest stable release of Mastodon:

git clone https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon.git live && cd live git checkout $(git tag -l | grep '^v[0-9.]*$' | sort -V | tail -n 1) 

Installing Ruby

We will use rbenv to manage Ruby versions as it simplifies obtaining the correct versions and updating them when new releases are available. Install rbenv and ruby-build:

git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc exec bash git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git "$(rbenv root)"/plugins/ruby-build 

Once this is done, we can install the correct Ruby version:

RUBY_CONFIGURE_OPTS=--with-jemalloc rbenv install 

Installing the last dependencies

Now to install Ruby and JavaScript dependencies:

bundle config deployment 'true' bundle config without 'development test' bundle install -j$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN) yarn install 

Generating a configuration

Run the interactive setup wizard:

RAILS_ENV=production bin/rails mastodon:setup 

This will:

• Create a configuration file
• Run asset precompilation
• Create the database schema

The configuration file is saved as .env.production. You can review and edit it to your liking. Refer to the documentation on configuration.

You’re done with the mastodon user for now, so switch back to root:

exit 

Acquiring an SSL certificate

We’ll use Let’s Encrypt to get a free SSL certificate:

certbot certonly --nginx -d example.com 

This will obtain the certificate, and save it in the directory /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/.

Setting up nginx

Copy the configuration template for nginx from the Mastodon directory:

cp /home/mastodon/live/dist/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/mastodon ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/mastodon /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mastodon rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default 

Then edit /etc/nginx/sites-available/mastodon to

1. Replace example.com with your own domain name

2. Uncomment the ssl_certificate and ssl_certificate_key (ignore this step if you are bringing your own certificate):

   ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem; ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;; 

3. Make any other adjustments you might need.

Allow other users to traverse the mastodon user’s home directory, so that nginx’s www-data user can access asset files:

chmod o+x /home/mastodon 

Restart nginx for the changes to take effect:

systemctl restart nginx 

At this point, you should be able to visit your domain in the browser and see the elephant hitting the computer screen error page. This is because we haven’t started the Mastodon process yet.

Setting up systemd services

Copy the systemd service templates from the Mastodon directory:

cp /home/mastodon/live/dist/mastodon-*.service /etc/systemd/system/ 

If you deviated from the defaults at any point, check that the username and paths are correct:

$EDITOR /etc/systemd/system/mastodon-*.service 

Finally, start and enable the new systemd services:

systemctl daemon-reload systemctl enable --now mastodon-web mastodon-sidekiq mastodon-streaming 

They will now automatically start at boot.

Last updated June 25, 2025 · Improve this page
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