README

ActivityPub integration for Elgg

About

Implements the ActivityPub protocol 1, 2, 3 for your Elgg app, allowing members to communicate with each other. Users will be able to follow content on Mastodon and other federated platforms that support ActivityPub.

With the ActivityPub plugin installed, your Elgg app itself function as a federated server in Fediverse 1, 2, along with profiles for each user and/or group.

For instance, if your Elgg app is app.url, then the app-wide profile can be found at @app.url@app.url, and users like Jane and Bob would have their individual profiles at @jane@app.url and @bob@app.url, respectively.

Inspired by ActivityPub Drupal plugin by Kristof De Jaeger aka swentel and Minds ActivityPub

Features

• Allow users to enable ActivityPub for their account
• Enable ActivityPub for Groups
• Allow or block domains from posting to inbox globally and/or per user/group
• Outbox, Inbox, Followers, Following and Liked endpoints
• Map Activity types and properties to content types and create posts to send out to the Fediverse
• Discovery via WebFinger for locating app, user and group profiles
• Signature verification for incoming activities
• Integration with the IndieWeb plugin

Supported Activity types

• Accept
• Announce
• Create
• Delete
• Follow
• Join
• Leave
• Like
• Move
• Undo
• Update

... more to come

Supported Actor types

• Application
• Group
• Person

... more to come

Supported Object types

• Article
• Audio
• Document
• Event
• Image
• Note
• Page
• Place
• Video

... more to come

Supported Link types

• Mention

The plugin has been tested with the following federated platforms:

• Diaspora
• Drupal
• Elgg
• Friendica
• Lemmy
• Mastodon
• Misskey
• Mitra
• Pixelfed
• Pleroma
• Smithereen
• WordPress
• Write as

Open an issue if you have successfully interacted with another platform.

Requirements Elgg plugins

You need to activate the following bundled Elgg plugins:

• Friends
• Groups: for enabling ActivityPub for Groups
• Messages and Site notifications: for sending and receiving the direct messages via Fediverse

Suggested Elgg plugins

• Event manager to enable Event and Place object types
• The Wire tools to allow post and reshare via Groups

Installation

• You must have the required Elgg version installed.

Note: Don't forget to setup cron!

• Update server configurations:

For Apache

Change this rule in .htaccess:

RewriteRule "^.well-known/" - [L]

On these rules:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/(webfinger|nodeinfo|x-nodeinfo2)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/\. [NC]

For Nginx

Add these rules at the end of your config:

location = /.well-known/webfinger {
	try_files $uri @elgg;
}
	
location = /.well-known/nodeinfo {
	try_files $uri @elgg;
}
	
location = /.well-known/x-nodeinfo2 {
	try_files $uri @elgg;
}

location ~ (^\.|/\.) {
	deny all;
}

See examples in the /install/config folder of this plugin.

• Activate ActivityPub plugin on the /admin/plugins page.

Configure plugin

Basic config

Go to the plugin's settings /admin/plugin_settings/activitypub

Configure permissions:

• Allow users to enable ActivityPub for their account for authenticated user
• Enable ActivityPub for Groups for groups
• Allow users to resolve remote activities and actors to search remote accounts and posts in Fediverse

At this point, when a user has enabled ActivityPub at /settings/plugins/username/activitypub, they should be discoverable.

Test enabled ActivityPub by user on Elgg:

• Try searching for @username@yourapp.url on Mastodon.
• Use Webfinger: http://yourapp.url/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:username@yourapp.url

If you follow this user, Follow activity will arrive in the inbox and an Accept outbox activity will be created automatically.

Configure global settings to select how to process ActivityPub activities:

• Outbox: enable/disable Send activities
• Inbox: enable/disable Process incoming

This way you can configure your Elgg app as Client-to-Server or Server-to-Server interaction.

Control domains:

• Allow Globally whitelisted domains to send requests to your app
• Block Globally blocked domains from sending requests to your app

Server parameters:

Configure your ActivityPub instance.

Read documentation to learn more about Server instance configuration.

Types

On /admin/activitypub/types you get an overview of all ActivityPub types configuration entities.

Core types are enabled when enabling the bundled Elgg plugin and have locked ActivityPub types.

Dynamic types are not enabled yet since this depends on your setup.

Public and Private keys

Public and private keys are saved in /data/1/1/activitypub/keys/, where data is your Elgg data folder.

Caching

For incoming or outgoing requests, images needs to be fetched to get the Inbox endpoint for example.

This is saved in /data/activitypub/cache/, where data is your Elgg data folder.

Logs

Enable logs in Development section at /admin/plugin_settings/activitypub to check how the plugin works.

Logs are saved in /data/activitypub/log/, where data is your Elgg data folder.

Inbox and outbox

Every user and group has an inbox and outbox where activities from remote users are stored and outgoing posts to your followers, unless it's an unlisted or private post.

Administrators can control all ActivityPub activities on /admin/activitypub/activities page.

Support

Frequently Asked Questions

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