VPS problems with setting up an instance

[monnef]

Hello, trying to setup mastodon on a VPS, but the build fails. I would like to be able to post my problem (this seems overcomplicated, having to post that I want to post...). I am not running anything yet.

[maloki]

I am sorry for the inconvenience, I split this thread off, so you can get the help you want.
Feel free to post your issues, @monnef

[monnef]

Thank you. I tried asking on GitHub, but it seems I should've gone here first.

After running docker-compose build it is stuck on (copied just last lines):

Binary found at /mastodon/node_modules/node-sass/vendor/linux_musl-x64-48/binding.node
Testing binary
Binary is fine
node-sass@4.5.2 /mastodon/node_modules/node-sass
Done in 306.67s.

Waited over 10 minutes with zero IO and CPU activity on the server (it's not swapping). Tried running it several times, but always with same result. Any ideas?

Version I am trying is 1.4.1.

[saper]

can you try typing Ctrl-D and seeing if it is waiting for input? also an output from ps listing all processes can help to track this down.

I can also see you are using musl-based distribution, which might give you some headaches.

[monnef]

Enter and CTRL+D have no effect (enter just prints newline).

Until now I didn't know that musl exists. The VPS should be running ordinary CentOS 7.

ps aux output:

USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
root         1  0.0  0.2 190712  2472 ?        Ss   čen03   0:47 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd --switched-root --system --deserialize 21
root         2  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [kthreadd]
root         3  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:10 [ksoftirqd/0]
root         7  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [migration/0]
root         8  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [rcu_bh]
root         9  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   1:01 [rcu_sched]
root        10  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:18 [watchdog/0]
root        12  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [kdevtmpfs]
root        13  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [netns]
root        14  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [khungtaskd]
root        15  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [writeback]
root        16  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [kintegrityd]
root        17  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [bioset]
root        18  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [kblockd]
root        19  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [md]
root        25  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   1:44 [kswapd0]
root        26  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        SN   čen03   0:00 [ksmd]
root        27  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        SN   čen03   0:12 [khugepaged]
root        28  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [fsnotify_mark]
root        29  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [crypto]
root        37  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [kthrotld]
root        39  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [kmpath_rdacd]
root        40  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [kpsmoused]
root        41  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [ipv6_addrconf]
root        60  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [deferwq]
root        95  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [kauditd]
root       225  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [ata_sff]
root       228  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [scsi_eh_0]
root       229  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [scsi_tmf_0]
root       230  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [scsi_eh_1]
root       231  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [scsi_tmf_1]
root       240  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [ttm_swap]
root       267  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        D    čen03   0:11 [jbd2/vda1-8]
root       268  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen03   0:00 [ext4-rsv-conver]
root       335  0.0  0.1 100908  2020 ?        Ss   čen03   0:25 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-journald
root       357  0.0  0.0  43532   404 ?        Ss   čen03   0:00 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-udevd
root       371  0.0  0.0  55416   160 ?        S<sl čen03   0:04 /sbin/auditd -n
root       420  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen03   0:00 [vballoon]
root       464  0.0  0.0  24192   900 ?        Ss   čen03   0:12 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-logind
dbus       465  0.0  0.0  24624   812 ?        Ss   čen03   0:24 /bin/dbus-daemon --system --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile --systemd-activation
avahi      467  0.0  0.0  28112   468 ?        Ss   čen03   0:02 avahi-daemon: running [monnef.local]
polkitd    469  0.0  0.1 528268  1368 ?        Ssl  čen03   0:07 /usr/lib/polkit-1/polkitd --no-debug
root       473  0.0  0.0 126252   384 ?        Ss   čen03   0:05 /usr/sbin/crond -n
avahi      477  0.0  0.0  27980     4 ?        S    čen03   0:00 avahi-daemon: chroot helper
root       485  0.0  0.1 451320  1816 ?        Ssl  čen03   0:09 /usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon
root       702  0.0  0.5 287592  5292 ?        Ssl  čen11   0:32 docker-containerd -l unix:///var/run/docker/libcontainerd/docker-containerd.sock --metrics-interval=0 --start-timeout 2m --state-dir /var/run/docker/libcontainerd/containerd --shim docker-containerd-shim --runtime docker-runc
root       752  0.0  0.0 327968   936 ?        Ssl  čen03   0:16 /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -n
root       756  0.0  0.0 105480   280 ?        Ss   čen03   0:04 /usr/sbin/sshd -D
root       757  0.0  0.3 553152  3528 ?        Ssl  čen03   3:50 /usr/bin/python -Es /usr/sbin/tuned -l -P
root       769  0.0  0.0 110036     8 tty1     Ss+  čen03   0:00 /sbin/agetty --noclear tty1 linux
root      1513  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [kdmflush]
root      1514  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [bioset]
root      1517  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-buf/dm-2]
root      1518  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-data/dm-2]
root      1519  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-conv/dm-2]
root      1520  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-cil/dm-2]
root      1521  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-reclaim/dm-]
root      1522  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-log/dm-2]
root      1523  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-eofblocks/d]
root      1524  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen11   0:00 [xfsaild/dm-2]
root      1804  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen25   0:02 [kworker/u2:0]
postgres  2659  0.0  0.0 234400   352 ?        S    čen03   0:16 /usr/bin/postgres -D /var/lib/pgsql/data -p 5432
root      2709  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen25   0:01 [kworker/u2:2]
root      2778  0.0  0.8 443620  8820 ?        Sl   čen03  10:51 /usr/bin/python2 -s /usr/bin/fail2ban-server -s /var/run/fail2ban/fail2ban.sock -p /var/run/fail2ban/fail2ban.pid -x -b
postgres  3061  0.0  0.0 194144    84 ?        Ss   čen03   0:00 postgres: logger process   
postgres  3113  0.0  0.0 234400    72 ?        Ss   čen03   0:00 postgres: checkpointer process   
postgres  3114  0.0  0.0 234400    84 ?        Ss   čen03   0:19 postgres: writer process   
postgres  3115  0.0  0.0 234400    52 ?        Ss   čen03   0:16 postgres: wal writer process   
postgres  3116  0.0  0.0 235216   884 ?        Ss   čen03   0:15 postgres: autovacuum launcher process   
postgres  3117  0.0  0.0 194276   320 ?        Ss   čen03   0:14 postgres: stats collector process   
root      5001  0.0  0.1 147772  1400 ?        Ss   09:53   0:00 sshd: root@pts/0
root      5003  0.0  0.0 143572   956 pts/0    Ss   09:53   0:00 -zsh
root      5144  0.0  0.1 147772  1528 ?        Ss   09:53   0:00 sshd: root@pts/1
root      5146  0.0  0.3 141092  3296 pts/1    Ss   09:53   0:00 -zsh
root      5194  0.1  3.2 259420 32968 pts/0    S+   09:54   0:03 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/docker-compose build
root      5240  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   09:55   0:00 [kdmflush]
root      5241  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   09:55   0:00 [bioset]
root      5244  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   09:55   0:00 [xfs-buf/dm-3]
root      5245  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   09:55   0:00 [xfs-data/dm-3]
root      5246  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   09:55   0:00 [xfs-conv/dm-3]
root      5247  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   09:55   0:00 [xfs-cil/dm-3]
root      5248  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   09:55   0:00 [xfs-reclaim/dm-]
root      5249  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   09:55   0:00 [xfs-log/dm-3]
root      5250  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   09:55   0:00 [xfs-eofblocks/d]
root      5251  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    09:55   0:00 [xfsaild/dm-3]
root     12898  0.0  0.0 127088     0 ?        Ss   čen11   0:00 /usr/sbin/lvmetad -f
root     14102  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [dm_bufio_cache]
root     14126  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfsalloc]
root     14127  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs_mru_cache]
root     15273  0.0  2.6 759988 26844 ?        Ssl  čen11   5:28 /usr/bin/dockerd
root     15287  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:38 [loop0]
root     15288  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [loop1]
root     15289  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [kdmflush]
root     15290  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [bioset]
root     15291  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [kcopyd]
root     15292  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [bioset]
root     15293  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [dm-thin]
root     15294  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [bioset]
root     16265  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [kdmflush]
root     16266  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [bioset]
root     16269  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-buf/dm-1]
root     16270  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-data/dm-1]
root     16271  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-conv/dm-1]
root     16272  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-cil/dm-1]
root     16273  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-reclaim/dm-]
root     16274  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-log/dm-1]
root     16275  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:00 [xfs-eofblocks/d]
root     16276  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    čen11   0:00 [xfsaild/dm-1]
root     19086  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   čen11   0:06 [kworker/0:1H]
root     22687  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   10:05   0:00 [kworker/0:2H]
root     22739  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    10:28   0:00 [kworker/0:1]
root     22751  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    10:33   0:00 [kworker/0:2]
root     22757  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    10:38   0:00 [kworker/0:0]
root     22772  0.0  0.1 151056  1860 pts/1    R+   10:41   0:00 ps aux

[maloki]

@monnef Did you end up resolving this issue?

[monnef]

No, I have not.

Currently I am looking for alternatives. I was expecting a lot more from Mastodon (support, being tested on very popular OS [like second most used server distro?]). I really thought it was something big and great, at least from many articles I read. I shouldn't have waited so long, I have rented VPS just for Mastodon, ended up wasting money and a lot of time (I also tried installation without docker, but the guide is bad - incomplete [e.g. step-by-step db setup] and my efforts ended with crashes during secrets generation).

I have already tried Friendica (installation compared to Mastodon was simple and well described), but it seems not to be ready for every day use (after following someone, one page just kept crashing). Next in list is GNU Social, their installation guide looks nice, detailed.

[saper]

@monnef did you use Alpine Linux somewhere along the way (or one of the distros using musl)? Your container does not seem to be coming from CentOS.

I just realized that the docker infrastructure offered by the Mastodon repository Dockerfile, docker-compose.yml are all based on Alpine Linux musl-based distribution.

[saper]

@monnef If you are looking for an out of the box mastodon install, I recommend FreeBSD port. pkg install mastodon and follow the instructions printed after the package is installed (http://ftfl.ca/blog/2017-05-23-mastodon-freebsd.html)

[monnef]

No, it's almost clean CentOS ("clean" as in what VPS provider preinstalled). Only few packages related to web pages were installed (like PHP, ngingx, MariaDB).

Following also seems to point at CentOS:

# cat /etc/*-release
CentOS Linux release 7.3.1611 (Core) 
NAME="CentOS Linux"
VERSION="7 (Core)"
ID="centos"
ID_LIKE="rhel fedora"
VERSION_ID="7"
PRETTY_NAME="CentOS Linux 7 (Core)"
ANSI_COLOR="0;31"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:centos:centos:7"
HOME_URL="https://www.centos.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.centos.org/"

CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT="CentOS-7"
CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT_VERSION="7"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="centos"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="7"

CentOS Linux release 7.3.1611 (Core) 
CentOS Linux release 7.3.1611 (Core)

# cat /proc/version 
Linux version 3.10.0-514.21.1.el7.x86_64 (builder@kbuilder.dev.centos.org) (gcc version 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-11) (GCC) ) #1 SMP Thu May 25 17:04:51 UTC 2017

[monnef]

I am, but only for CentOS 7 (VPS provider supports only Linux and CentOS is the most stable and longest supported distro I ever tried).

I thought the point of docker is exactly that "running out-of-the-box"...

[saper]

That's the illusion of docker. Sorry I cannot help you further with this.

[maloki]

Yeah, I'm sorry. We don't have a hired support team, and most support is received on the service itself.

And my inability to help you is simply because I do not work with the installation part myself, by any stretch.

We also do not have a battery of programmers to make the project a perfect simple installation, but we're slowly improving over time with help of feedback and contributions.