Hi everyone! I’m looking to run a Mastodon instance on a home server, entirely within LAN, without owning a domain. It does not need to interact with other Mastodon instances, but users on the local server should still be able to follow accounts on other Mastodon servers. Local users should also be able to create posts and see each other’s posts on the local instance. I’d appreciate advice from anyone running Mastodon this way at home. Thanks!

Hi everyone! I’m looking to run a Mastodon instance on a home server, entirely within LAN, without owning a domain

Without a domain you cannot federate with other instances, otherwise how would they know what to call you.

It does not need to interact with other Mastodon instances,

but users on the local server should still be able to follow accounts on other Mastodon servers. Local users should also be able to create posts and see each other’s posts on the local instance.

These two statements contradict each other, you can’t receive content and not send it at the same time, your instance will ideally try to stay in sync with all the other instances, posts and comments included.

Nonetheless when it comes to self hosting (and well literally anything you create) follow the documentation and it will always point you in the right direction.

This is not possible. The other servers need to be able to communicate with yours, and for that, yours needs a domain name.

If you only care about local users following other local users, and only other local users, then this is possible. But if you add remote users into the mix, you need to federate, and to federate requires a domain name.

I don't use Mastodon, but I don't know if it's possible to do this particular combination:

without owning a domain

users on the local server should still be able to follow accounts on other Mastodon servers

Like, a client that supports having accounts on multiple Mastodon servers would work. Then they have a local account, and they have an unrelated account elsewhere on another Mastodon server and follow people using that, so that the "following" has nothing to do with your local server.

But if you want federated behavior, where a user connects to your server and has their account there tell the local Mastodon server to pull down posts from another users somewhere out on another Mastodon server, you might need to have a certificate on your server that other servers recognize as valid, which in practice would mean one signed by a public CA.

I don't know for certain whether this is actually necessary, but I could believe that it is.

If you go really out of the beaten path, a client that only reads from other instances could use the RSS feed to go around the signed requests.

entirely within LAN

Wat? LOL

ActivityPub doesn't work that way, but you can follow public Mastodon accounts using RSS.

You can use a subdomain, and I'm pretty sure you can get a subdomain for free. It won't be pretty but it will do what you want.

Adding to why it has to be reachable: when a local user follows someone on another server, that server pushes new posts to your server's inbox, so the remote side has to be able to resolve your domain and connect over HTTPS. A LAN-only box can't receive that.

The least painful compromise is a cheap domain (or a subdomain you control) plus a tunnel or a small VPS acting as reverse proxy, so nothing on your home network is exposed directly. Then close signups so only your household can register. If Mastodon feels heavy for a handful of users, GoToSocial is much lighter on RAM for that use case, though you'd use a separate client app with it.

One thing to decide up front: the domain is baked into every account and can't be changed later without starting over.

duckdns.org (free subdomain provider) for the win!

Look into snac2 or littlefedi as alternatives for Mastodon if you want to save resources. Littlefedi has a specific use case to run off the grid

Have a look at GoToSocial.

littlefedi is out as of coupla days ago. still in early stage but should cover your use case. local binary, world comms via "lighthouses" don't need domain, vps, etc. there's something strange afoot wrt the author's willingness to be forthcoming about the project's provenance. I'd stay clear for the time being.

It does not need to interact with other Mastodon instances, but users on the local server should still be able to follow accounts on other Mastodon servers.

This sentence is in conflict with itself, follows are "interaction"

GoToSocial is stable and famously light on server resources.

If you're just following you can use an RSS reader