This is a simple ExpressJS server that integrates with GhostCMS webhooks and implements basic ActivityPub features such as accepting Follow requests and publishing to followers' inboxes whenever a GhostCMS post is published via Create Article actions.
This project is currently experimental and could un-recoverably break something between versions. It should be used with caution, as only happy-path, Mastodon-compatible interaction has been tested. Although it should be safe to run after configuration, do not experiment with this code or config on your primary domain as you might find yourself ban-listed by a Mastodon instance for spam, should anything go wrong. Consider hosting locally and proxying via ngrok to create a throw-away domain.
- GhostCMS Webhooks for post creation and unpublish/delete activities.
- A single ActivityPub actor for your site (@[email protected])
Feature requests and bugs can be tracked and reported at this project's Codeberg issue tracker.
Download and install Node.js. This project has only been tested on Node.js 19, but earlier versions may be compatible. Installation is done using the npm install command:
$ npm install
Be sure to set the appropriate configuration settings by copying .env.template to .env and following the instructions in the file. Then run the project:
$ npm run dev # Debug
$ npm run start # Production
On startup the service will create an API key for Ghost webhooks, available at data/apiKey.txt. To integrate with Ghost, create a Post published and a Post unpublished webhook that point to /publish?apiKey=YOUR_KEY_HERE and /delete?apiKey=YOUR_KEY_HERE respectively. If you changed the API path root from the default (none) then your webhooks will be located at API_ROOT_PATH/publish and API_ROOT_PATH/delete. For example, if your API root path is set to /activitypub and the activitypub is running on the same domain then Ghost will need to publish to https://yourghostdomain/activitypub/publish?apiKey=YOUR_KEY_HERE.
A systemd service file is provided as well. You can follow the configuration instructions in the file and then copy that to /etc/systemd/system/ and enable and run the service:
$ sudo systemctl enable ghostcms_activitypub && sudo systemctl start ghostcms_activitypub
The only 'acknowledged' way to use ghostcms-activitypub (I do not provide support, sorry!) is to use a reverse proxy. This allows you to serve activitypub content directly from your root domain (eg: https://example.com) but you can also configure the project to use a subdomain as well.
If you use a root domain, be sure to set the API_ROOT_PATH config option to something like /activitypub to avoid potential path namespace collisions with Ghost.
location /.well-known/webfinger {
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000; # ActivityPub server
}
# Assuming `API_ROOT_PATH` is `/activitypub` Rewrite activitypub API calls (that may conflict with Ghost) to the path, but remove the prefix from the proxy
location /activitypub/ { # The trailing slash is required to proxy all sub-paths
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000; # The trailing / and the headers ensure that /activitypub/foo gets rewritten to just /foo
}
MIT