$ pwd
[$ ] use-case: forum
// NAME
forum — forum & online community hosting.
// SYNOPSIS
xmrhost-cli playbook describe --workload=forum
xmrhost-cli provision --workload=forum --region=<is|ro>// TL;DR
$ head -n1 README
// discourse / lemmy / phpbb at offshore latency — narrow-takedown jurisprudence and no first-strike termination.
// DESCRIPTION
$ man playbook(forum)
// P2P NAT traversal + narrow-takedown jurisprudence for federation
Self-hosted community infrastructure (Matrix, Lemmy, Discourse, Mastodon) lives or dies by federation reachability. Matrix homeservers need a public TCP/8448 listener (or a properly-configured well-known + reverse-proxy on TCP/443) for inbound federation; the Synapse documentation calls out NAT traversal as the most common operator headache. ActivityPub federation (Mastodon, Lemmy, Misskey) requires inbound HTTPS on the public hostname and outbound to arbitrary peers — also non-trivial behind aggressive carrier-grade NAT.
The hosting ASK for federated services is therefore: a static public IPv4, no inbound port filtering past the operator's own firewall, a proper reverse-DNS record (PTR), and an AUP that does not collapse on the first abuse complaint about user-generated content. Iceland and Romania both meet the technical asks; the AUP question is where mainstream hosts fall over. Romanian DSA implementation explicitly requires a substantiated complaint before takedown obligations arise; Icelandic Höfundalög nr. 73/1972 contains no §512-equivalent first-strike provision.
Hardware-wise mid-tier vps fits most communities. Discourse on vps-4 (4c/8GB) handles 50k uniques/day; Synapse on vps-4 carries a 5,000-account homeserver with conservative federation limits set; Lemmy needs vps-2 minimum because of the Postgres footprint. Tor v3 onion-only deployment (tor-2 / tor-4) is the right answer for communities that explicitly want clearnet-invisible infrastructure — the brand audience overlaps with that posture more than the average host's does.
// see also
- Matrix.org — Synapse Federation Setup (matrix-org.github.io/synapse)
- ActivityPub — W3C Recommendation (2018)
- EU Digital Services Act — Regulation 2022/2065 (Articles 9, 16, 22)
- Discourse — System Requirements (meta.discourse.org)
// RECOMMENDED NODES
$ xmrhost-cli list --workload=forum
// 8 plans flagged for this workload. all xmr-billed.
// RECOMMENDED REGIONS
$ xmrhost-cli regions list --workload=forum
-
is — iceland : DSA does not apply (EEA-only ECRRA equivalent), Höfundalög nr. 73/1972 governs notice-and-action with no §512 pressure. Federation peers see a stable PTR / RIPE org-handle.
-
ro — romania : Legea nr. 8/1996 + EU DSA Articles 9 / 16 / 22. Substantiated-complaint requirement protects mid-traffic forums from drive-by takedown attempts; Bitdefender-class DDoS scrubbing is local.
// THREAT MODEL + AUP BOUNDARY
$ xmrhost-cli scope --workload=forum
// the hosting layer is one component of the threat model. what we cover, and what we explicitly don't:
// scope: in
- Static IPv4 with proper PTR, no inbound port filtering past your own firewall
- Federation-friendly uplink (ActivityPub / Matrix federation traffic is not throttled)
- DSA / Höfundalög notice-and-action procedure (no §512 first-strike)
- Tor v3 onion-only deployment via tor-2 / tor-4 for clearnet-invisible community infra
// scope: out
- Moderation policy — community AUP is the operator's, not ours (we host, you moderate)
- Federation peering politics (defederation lists, blocklist sharing) — your call
- Anti-spam infrastructure past the bundled rspamd preset (StopForumSpam, Turnstile)
- Account recovery for end-users you create on your own homeserver
// AUP boundary
Forum operators are responsible for their moderation policy and for handling user-generated content in compliance with applicable law. We provide hosting; we do not moderate community content.
// SEE ALSO
// playbook — full workload list, node — full catalog, location — region posture, why-monero — billing rationale.