akkoma

<p>I wanted to run this Elixir web application to enable myself to contribute sometime someday. I knew I was in for a ride.</p><p>Wrap-up and simplification of <a href="https://docs.akkoma.dev/develop/development/setting_up_akkoma_dev/" rel="nofollow" class="ellipsis" title="docs.akkoma.dev/develop/development/setting_up_akkoma_dev/"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">docs.akkoma.dev/develop/develo</span><span class="invisible">pment/setting_up_akkoma_dev/</span></a>.</p><p>It links to Debian-targetting <a href="https://docs.akkoma.dev/develop/installation/debian_based_en/" rel="nofollow" class="ellipsis" title="docs.akkoma.dev/develop/installation/debian_based_en/"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">docs.akkoma.dev/develop/instal</span><span class="invisible">lation/debian_based_en/</span></a> —<br>— but note that you can pick other distributions on the sidebar: <a href="https://docs.akkoma.dev/develop/installation/fedora_based_en/" rel="nofollow" class="ellipsis" title="docs.akkoma.dev/develop/installation/fedora_based_en/"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">docs.akkoma.dev/develop/instal</span><span class="invisible">lation/fedora_based_en/</span></a><br>Just not specifically openSUSE.</p><p>FOR_INSTALL=( git gcc make cmake file-devel ) FOR_INSTALL+=( postgresql-server postgresql-contrib ) FOR_INSTALL+=( elixir ) sudo zypper install ${FOR_INSTALL[@]} git clone <a href="https://akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma.git" rel="nofollow" class="ellipsis" title="akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma.git"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma.g</span><span class="invisible">it</span></a> &amp;&amp; cd akkoma mix deps.get mix pleroma.instance gen</p><p>It will now ask questions.</p><p>What domain will your instance use? (e.g akkoma.example.com) [] localhost<br>What base url will uploads use? (e.g <a href="https://media.example.com/media" rel="nofollow"><span class="invisible">https://</span>media.example.com/media</a>)<br>Generally this should NOT use the same domain as the instance [] localhost<br>What is the name of your instance? (e.g. The Corndog Emporium) [localhost]<br>What is your admin email address? [] admin@localhost<br>What email address do you want to use for sending email notifications? [admin@localhost]<br>Do you want search engines to index your site? (y/n) [y] n</p><p>— Press Enter for defaults from then on.</p><p>Inspect the result closely. I found this to be an error-prone step.</p><p>grep -UF $&#x27;\033&#x27; config/generated_config.exs &amp;&amp; echo &quot;Unwanted escape sequences.&quot; LESS= less config/generated_config.exs</p><p>Check the generated config with a less with no flags enabled.<br>I checked with -R in my $LESS environment variable and you will learn the pitfall down this blog post.<br>Alternatively, use</p><p>cat -v config/generated_config.exs # purists hate this</p><p>mv config/{generated_config.exs,dev.secret.exs} initdb -D ~/postgres_akkomy echo &quot;unix_socket_directories = &#x27;/tmp&#x27;&quot; &gt;&gt; ~/postgres_akkomy/postgresql.conf sed -E -i &#x27;s|(host +all +all +127.0.0.1/32 +)ident|\1md5|&#x27; ~/postgres_akkomy/pg_hba.conf pg_ctl -D ~/postgres_akkomy -l ~/postgres_akkomy_log start psql -f config/setup_db.psql -d postgres -h /tmp mix ecto.migrate mix phx.server</p><p>if you will want to later create a post quick, you can instead already jump into the IEx REPL with iex -S mix phx.server</p><p>Here is where the <a href="#configuration-pitfall-interlude" rel="nofollow">Configuration Pitfall (below)</a> occurs for me.</p><p>But if you have everything work  —</p><p>check <a href="http://localhost:4000" rel="nofollow">http://localhost:4000</a><br>check <a href="http://localhost:4000/whatever" rel="nofollow">http://localhost:4000/whatever</a></p><p>— open another shell and run</p><p>mix pleroma.user new shrimple [email protected] --password hey</p><p>To post post quick, if you haven’t already started with IEx REPL, Ctrl-C and (a)abort the server, then switch to iex -S mix phx.server<br>Once it starts up and you get shown the prompt,</p><p>iex(1)&gt; me = Pleroma.User.get_by_nickname(&quot;shrimple&quot;) iex(2)&gt; Pleroma.Web.CommonAPI.post(me, %{status: &quot;yo&quot;, visibility: &quot;public&quot;})</p><p>You can see the object URL in the returned value. Substitute /objects/ with /embed/ and you get a HTML file download. Remember to add port :4000 and replace https with http.</p><p>Now jump to <a href="#test-execution" rel="nofollow">Setting up test execution</a> below.</p><p>Configuration Pitfall.</p><p>I navigated to <a href="http://localhost:4000" rel="nofollow">http://localhost:4000</a> and got a frontend-lacking “Welcome to Akkoma” response.</p><p>Still not having any frontend configured, I chose to navigate to <a href="http://localhost:4000/admin" rel="nofollow">http://localhost:4000/admin</a> … (I expected admin to be default user)<br>… and met with a great interactive stack trace page from Phoenix:</p><p><p>Cachex.Error at GET /admin</p><p>Exception:</p><p>** (Cachex.Error) missing terminating ] for character class at position 20<br>(elixir 1.19.5) lib/regex.ex:251: Regex.compile!/2<br>(pleroma 3.17.0-210-g4c632436-develop+dev) lib/pleroma/user.ex:1250: Pleroma.User.get_by_nickname/1<br>(pleroma 3.17.0-210-g4c632436-develop+dev) lib/pleroma/user.ex:1267: Pleroma.User.get_or_fetch_by_nickname/1<br>(pleroma 3.17.0-210-g4c632436-develop+dev) lib/pleroma/user.ex:1218: anonymous fn/2 in Pleroma.User.get_cached_by_nickname/1<br>…</p></p><p>I was shown the lib/pleroma/user.ex excerpt, and the regex is interpolated from Pleroma.Web.Endpoint.host() <a href="https://akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma/src/branch/develop/lib/pleroma/user.ex#L1241:~:text=Pleroma%2EWeb%2EEndpoint%2Ehost%28%29" rel="nofollow">on that line</a>. So I went into a REPL with iex -S mix phx.server:</p><p>[info] Access Pleroma.Web.Endpoint at https://localhost Interactive Elixir (1.19.5) - press Ctrl+C to exit (type h() ENTER for help) iex(1)&gt; Pleroma.Web.Endpoint.host() &quot;\e[?62;1;4clocalhost&quot; </p><p>That’s an escape codes control sequence from the terminal. The \e[ part (^[[) is called Control Sequence Initiator (CSI).</p><p>As we can see in <a href="https://vt100.net/docs/vt220-rm/chapter4.html#S4.17" rel="nofollow" class="ellipsis" title="vt100.net/docs/vt220-rm/chapter4.html#S4.17"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">vt100.net/docs/vt220-rm/chapte</span><span class="invisible">r4.html#S4.17</span></a>, that’s a Primary Device Attributes response.</p><p>KDE Konsole can be found to report this exact string at<br><a href="https://invent.kde.org/utilities/konsole/-/blob/master/src/Vt102Emulation.cpp?ref_type=heads#L2653:~:text=void%20Vt102Emulation%3A%3AreportTerminalType%28%29" rel="nofollow">src/Vt102Emulation.cpp line 2653</a></p><p>void Vt102Emulation::reportTerminalType() … sendString(&quot;\033[?62;1;4c&quot;); // I&#x27;m a VT2xx with 132 columns and Sixel </p><p>We can also see it will not only report it just in the <a href="https://invent.kde.org/utilities/konsole/-/blob/master/src/Vt102Emulation.cpp?ref_type=heads#L2147:~:text=break%3B-,case%20token%5Fcsi%5Fpn%28%27c" rel="nofollow">case</a></p><p><a href="https://invent.kde.org/utilities/konsole/-/blob/master/src/Vt102Emulation.cpp?ref_type=heads#L2147:~:text=break%3B-,case%20token%5Fcsi%5Fpn%28%27c" rel="nofollow">case</a> token_csi_pn(&#x27;c&#x27;) : reportTerminalType ( ); break; //VT100 </p><p>But also in <a href="https://invent.kde.org/utilities/konsole/-/blob/master/src/Vt102Emulation.cpp?ref_type=heads#L1948:~:text=case%20token%5Fesc%28%27Z" rel="nofollow">case</a></p><p><a href="https://invent.kde.org/utilities/konsole/-/blob/master/src/Vt102Emulation.cpp?ref_type=heads#L1948:~:text=case%20token%5Fesc%28%27Z" rel="nofollow">case</a> token_esc(&#x27;Z&#x27;) : reportTerminalType ( ); break; </p><p>Which maybe increases the chances this happens by accident somehow, when something either CSI c (^[[c) or ESC Z (^[[Z).<br>You can write the latter even by hand with Alt_L + Shift + Z.</p><p>If you run</p><p>cat &gt; `mktemp | tee`</p><p>and then cat the file into the console, your shell will receive (CSI)62;1;4c and even Bash will just treat 62;1;4c as regular input.<br>If the program relies only on the echo of the console, and doesn’t do the thing to discard prior input, the control sequence may have ended up input and echoed (or not) way earlier, and still end up as input. I have not checked whether this is the case.</p><p>But ok, I look into my config/dev.secret.exs and see all “localhost” seem perfectly fine.<br>But now, knowing what is the issue, I know my `less` won’t show the sequence.<br>I check with cat -v and with LESS= less, as described above.</p><p> url: [host: &quot;^[[?62;1;4clocalhost&quot;, scheme: &quot;https&quot;, port: 443], name: &quot;^[[?62;1;4clocalhost&quot;,</p><p>in LESS= less</p><p>config :pleroma, Pleroma.Web.Endpoint, url: [host: &quot;ESC[?62;1;4clocalhost&quot;, scheme: &quot;https&quot;, port: 443], ... config :pleroma, :instance, name: &quot;ESC[?62;1;4clocalhost&quot;,</p><p>Another way to check is to</p><p>grep -UF $&#x27;\033&#x27; config/dev.secret.exs &amp;&amp; echo &quot;Unwanted escape sequences.&quot;</p><p>I edit it out in an editor (Helix amusingly has the cursor disappear on the escape character) and run Akkoma in REPL (for convenience) again:<br>iex -S mix phx.server</p><p>I also saw 62;1;4c in my shell input after I had a mix test fail from bad postgres user name.</p><p>The embed content-type bug</p><p>This time I see an error after Akkoma starts up,</p><p>[error] Cannot create service actor: https://localhost/internal/fetch/. [nickname: {&quot;has already been taken&quot;, [constraint: :unique, constraint_name: &quot;users_nickname_index&quot;]}]</p><p>But I still get the “Welcome to Akkoma!” alright. Now, /admin gives me “Welcome to Akkoma!” too, as it probably should without a frontend.</p><p>I still have to create a user and make a first post. I find <a href="https://docs.pleroma.social/Mix.Tasks.Pleroma.User.html" rel="nofollow" class="ellipsis" title="docs.pleroma.social/Mix.Tasks.Pleroma.User.html"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">docs.pleroma.social/Mix.Tasks.</span><span class="invisible">Pleroma.User.html</span></a></p><p>Too lazy to open another terminal, I chose to call the mix task through Mix.Task.</p><p>iex(1)&gt; Mix.Task.run(&quot;pleroma.user&quot;, [&quot;new&quot;, &quot;shrimple&quot;, &quot;[email protected]&quot;, &quot;--password&quot;, &quot;hey&quot;]) A user will be created with the following information: - nickname: shrimple - email: [email protected] - password: hey - name: shrimple - bio: - moderator: false - admin: false Continue? [n] y User shrimple created nil</p><p>Through in part tabbing my way through the IEx REPL, I figured out I can do</p><p>iex(5)&gt; me = Pleroma.User.get_by_nickname(&quot;shrimple&quot;)</p><p>and then</p><p>iex(8)&gt; Pleroma.Web.CommonAPI.post(me, %{status: &quot;yo&quot;, visibility: &quot;public&quot;})</p><p>And there, under Pleroma.Activity.data.object and under Pleroma.Activity.object→Pleroma.Object.data.id, I had a url:</p><p>&quot;object&quot; =&gt; &quot;https://localhost/objects/a5490552-c715-4a43-8615-5fbc9a7081f7&quot;,</p><p>I went to <a href="http://localhost:4000/" rel="nofollow">http://localhost:4000/</a>objects/a5490552-c715-4a43-8615-5fbc9a7081f7 and sure enough, I got shown the “Welcome to Akkoma!” due to a frontend route.</p><p>I went to <a href="http://localhost:4000/" rel="nofollow">http://localhost:4000/</a>embed/B4FeRlONzM76KTU4u0 and a HTML file got downloaded (that’s a bug, it comes with Content-Type: application/octet-stream).</p><p>I renamed it to open it with Firefox (I could have just piped it to a simpler browser)</p><p>cd ~/Downloads ; mv B4FeRlONzM76KTU4u0 !#$.htm</p><p>and I sure saw a HTML file with the post saying “yo” and 0 replies, 0 announces [sic!], 0 likes.</p><p>I edit lib/pleroma/web/embed_controller.ex, put an additional |&gt; put_resp_content_type(&quot;text/html&quot;) before the call to render/2 and immediately, without even needing to call recompile() in IEx, upon retry I receive a correct html page. I have no idea for now why the :accepts [&quot;html&quot;] that does the thing for all the rest in lib/pleroma/web/router.ex, doesn’t suffice for this one.</p><p>I think I will nonetheless post a Pull Request to Akkoma with such change, and a unit test, within a day or so.</p><p>Setting up test execution</p><p>As we would continue again with the guide I link on the very top, put the following in config/test.secret.exs.</p><p>import Config config :pleroma, Pleroma.Repo, username: &quot;testoma&quot;, password: &quot;dupa.8&quot;, database: &quot;testoma&quot;, hostname: &quot;localhost&quot;</p><p>Then run:</p><p>psql -c &quot;CREATE USER testoma WITH PASSWORD &#x27;dupa.8&#x27;;&quot; -d postgres -h /tmp sed s/akkoma/testoma/g config/setup_db.psql | grep -v USER &gt; test_db.psql psql -f test_db.psql -d postgres -h /tmp psql -c &quot;ALTER USER testoma WITH CREATEDB;&quot; -d postgres -h /tmp mix test</p><p>Finished in 245.7 seconds (46.3s async, 199.3s sync) <br>4119 tests, 17 failures, 10 skipped (6 excluded)</p><p>You can also run a single test suite by adding a test filename to the command line. <a href="https://jaketrent.com/post/elixir-run-single-test/" rel="nofollow">Or even a line number for single test or suite within.</a></p><p>My Pull Request is now live at <a href="https://akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma/pulls/1084" rel="nofollow" class="ellipsis" title="akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma/pulls/1084"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma/p</span><span class="invisible">ulls/1084</span></a></p><a href="#" rel="nofollow">0 Give it a Click if you enjoyed (it does not federate)</a> <small class="notice" x-post-type-data="type=&#x27;Article&#x27; attributed_to=None"> Takahe has limited support for this type: <a href="https://www.shrimple.pl/2026/03/dev-localhost-akkoma/">See Original Article</a> </small>