/kbin server update - or how the server didn't blow up
Currently, on the main instance, people have created 40191 accounts (+214 marked as deleted). I don't know how many are active because I don't monitor it, but once again, I greet all of you here :) In recent days, the traffic on the website has been overwhelming. It's definitely too much for the basic docker-compose setup, primarily designed for development use. I was aware of the possible consequences of the situation happening on Reddit, but I assumed that most people would migrate to one of the Lemmy instances, which already has an established position. I hoped that a few stray enthusiasts would find their way to kbin ;)
The first step was to upscale the VPS to a higher version (66.91EUR). It quickly turned out that it wasn't enough. I had to enable CF protection just to keep the website responsive, but the response times were still very slow. At this stage, the instance was practically unusable. The next step was a full migration to a dedicated server (100EUR, the current hardware). It can be done relatively quickly, so it resulted in a 5-minute technical break. Despite the much higher parameters, it didn't get any better. It became clear that the problem didn't lie there. I'm really frustrated when it comes to server administration. That was the moment when I started looking for help. Or rather, it found me.
A couple days ago I wrote about how kbin qualified for the Fast Forward program. To be honest, I did it out of pure curiosity and completely forgot because a lot was happening during that time. During the biggest fire incident, Hannah ( @haubles ) reached out with a proposal to help. I outlined the situation (in short: the server is dying, I don't even know what I need, help! ;). She quickly connected us with Vlad ( @vvuksan ) and Renaud ( @renchap ). I was probably too tired because I don't know if the whole operation lasted 60 minutes or 6 hours, but after a series of precise questions and getting an understanding of the situation, the guys themselves adjusted the entire job. I love working with experts, and it's not often that you come across individuals so well-versed in the fediverse. Thanks to Hannah's kindness, we will be staying there a bit longer. Currently, fastly.com handles the caching layer and processes images. Hence those cool moving thumbnails ;)
Things were going well at that point. I could disable Cloudflare protection. Probably thanks to that, many of you are here today, and we got to know each other a bit better :) However, even then, when I tried to enable federation, the server would stop working.
Around the same time, Piotr ( @piotrsikora ), whom I already knew from the Polish fediverse, contacted me. He is the administrator of the Polish Mastodon instance pol.social, operates within the ftdl.pl foundation, and specializes in administering applications with a very similar tech stack. I made the decision to grant him server access. It only took him a few moments, and he came back to me with a few tips that allowed us to enable federation. In the following days, there was more of it, and we managed to reach the current level. I think it's not too bad.
Nevertheless, managing the instance has taken up about 60% or more of my time so far, which prevents me from fully focusing on current tasks. That's why I would like to collaborate with Piotr and hand over full care of the server to him. Piotr will also take care of the security side. Now I have to take this much more seriously. We still need to work out the terms of cooperation, but I want you to know the direction I intend to pursue.
We also need to migrate to a new environment because one server will sooner or later become insufficient. This time, I want to be prepared for it. This may be associated with transient issues with the website in the coming days.
The next two updates will still be about project funding (I still can't believe what happened) and moderation. The following ones will be more technical, with descriptions of changes and what contributors are doing on Codeberg. I would like to be here more often, but not as an admin, just as myself.
Thank you all for this.
P.S. In private messages, I also received numerous offers of help that I didn't even have a chance to read and respond to. You are the best!
I hoped that a few stray enthusiasts would find their way to kbin
They did. "A few" as a portion of the whole, where the whole is much larger than you ever expected it would be.
One thing I have learned in my own technical career is that you can't do everything. Even if there was enough time in a day for you to do everything, you can't know everything, at least not sufficiently enough to be most effective. You have to depend on other experts, and delegate to them what you are not qualified to do. This requires a pretty high level of trust, and makes it so that you need to develop people management skills.
Lots of technical people are short on people management skills. I don't know where you sit on that spectrum, but you may need to consider bringing on an "overseer," kind of like a project manager, to keep tabs on all of the technical resources involved - yourself included. This will help ensure that concerns are prioritized appropriately, and that communication and messaging about those priorities are consistent and clear.
I've been in that kind of position, and I take a bit of pride in my use of words. I'm happy to give any advice you like.
Hell yes, ernest. Keep up the momentum, stay humble of your shortcomings, and don't burn yourself out.
We all love this community you developed, and hopefully we can attract the kinds of people who are as open, humble, courageous, and intelligent as you seem to have gravitating towards you in your personal and professional life.
It's cool to see renchap helping out here in addition to his work with mastodon.social! The amount of cross-pollination and coordination within the fediverse is so cool to see.
I haven't looked too closely at how kbin is architected yet, but would it benefit from horizontal scaling? I do full-time development of tooling to administrate very large k8s clusters for a company that you've probably interacted with today without knowing it. Not sure if k8s is the right orchestration system for you, but I'd be more than happy to provide some input on a potential migration to k8s (if kbin is a good fit there). I know there's a community on Matrix as well — I'll try to reach out there too, although it may be a bit.
Thanks for the update. Sounds like you're having an "exciting" time. You've done a great job so far and I hope that the additional help you are receiving means that you might be able to take some time off in the near future, for your own sake.
Nice work! I can't imagine what would happen if a hobby project of mine is suddenly used by 35k users, it would be insanely stressful, keep it up, we are loving it here.
Keep notes. This will make a great documentary some day!
I am not well versed with the way all this works so this might be a stupid question: Is there one central server in one location for this site? Could outside, remote server space be used to share the work?
@ernest Fantastic news and big thanks to all that are helping! @ernest I feel you will keep seeing several thousand users join in daily as the reddit shitshow continues to play out. There are now 10 apps being developed that will further support the transition especially as the July 1st shutdown takes place. That’s probably when a much bigger wave of new users will come in. Is your infrastructure scalable to allow for this onslaught? Thank you and everyone else again for your hard work!
This is some dedicated effort here to keep this going, but is anyone not worried that there is basically one guy with all the keys to this thing? Dont want to sound too doomerish but if Ernest disappears tomorrow, wouldn't that be the end of kbin?
@ernest this was an extraordinary situation with several crisis points on a platform in early development (as far as mass usage is concerned) and you were able to keep a cool head, keep things going and also keep people informed of the situations as they were developing. I am happy to read that you have help now (and it looks like really great expert help) and that you can take a break/retirement from admin and enjoy it with the rest of us. Bravo!
Thank you @ernest! Please consider setting up a Patreon, or similar, account so I can donate monthly. I've bought you a few coffees but I'd like it to be automatic.
Eagerly awaiting the updates on moderation and project funding. I think it'll be good to be transparent about costs and monetisation. We all know what happened with Reddit in the end.
I had a feeling that the silence over the last few days was a sign that a huge amount of work was happening behind the scenes. I also think you’re doing an excellent job of communicating with us. Thank you for all your effort that’s allowed this community to grow.
You handled this situation beautifully. Very often people don't know when to share responsibility and ask for help and their project dies in critical situations like that.
Well done, have fun with your now very alive and thriving project!
@ernest your achievements with this piece of software is going to go down in internet history, i hope you know that. you have already written your name into the history books. you deserve congratulations and very sincere thanks.
Thanks for the update, Ernest. Maybe a tracker can be posted on the sidebar to make sure we're supplying you with enough 'coffee' to keep the lights on? A lot of us are loving this platform enough to want to invest in your work and I hope everyone will crowdsource funds to keep you afloat.
Glad you got help with server administration! Hopefully account migration is a feature that can be implemented, I would be happy to move my account to a less crowded instance, once it/they come to fruition.
@piotrsikora@ernest Is there an easy way to add all the new communities to an instance? I’ve noticed somehow you’ve been able to add what looks like every magazine, even if it’s newly created.
I could help add new magazines to a new instance others can migrate to, but there’s so many, and I don’t know how to keep up with any new ones created on lemmy or kbin.
Huge shoutout to you and all of those who have gotten kbin to this point. Super crazy to have seen it go from struggling to a place I can happily and easily browse
Thanks for sharing this and for all the work you have done so far on Kbin!
I was wondering if you have considered closing sign-ups to the main Kbin instance, I think one of the main benefits of the fediverse is the possibility of decentralization, but Kbin doesn't seem to be leaning that way with a majority sign-ups going to the kbin.social instance, closing sign-ups I think would make for a healthier Kbin network, as well as not worsening the performance issues the instance has been experiencing.
Looking forward to the follow-up posts with technical details, if you do find the time to write them up ofc! As a new kbin user, my thanks for all the hard work and for welcoming us here <3
I'd been doing a little shopping around over the past few weeks as I've been getting ready to properly leave my 11 year old (cringe) Reddit account behind. Lemmy does seem promising as well, but I do have some concerns about the developers, and while of course no one is perfect, as it's still the early days, I'd much prefer to throw my support behind people to whom I can do so guilt-free. So far at least, this has felt right up my alley, and while I am trying to use this moment to cut down a bit on my internet time in general, I'm definitely happy to be here!
Exciting times indeed! Thanks for the updates, it's always interesting and fun to read these. Seems like you've adjusted pretty well considering the massive influx of users in less than 2 weeks, hopefully it gets a bit easier and less stressful from this point forward.
Just commenting because it's unclear where I should ask these questions... but... is there a reason why individual kbin threads do not seem to show up on google search at all. Only magazines and tags seem to show up. Even the oldest posts do not seem to have search entries (unless I am missing something or looking at it wrong). I've tested some older lemmy threads and those do seem to show up.
It would be nice when you get a chance to see some sort of meter graph to show whether the buymeacoffee donations are not meeting, meeting, or exceeding costs of running the server and your time/effort spent (which should count too)
'honest whole-hearted cathartic mood setting comment'
jokes aside u are doing the needed work! we all appreciate it! I am too lazy to read all the comments.. is there a way to contribute more than donating (btw i didnt find a donate link.. maybe someone else did if so sticky is a needed function here xD)?