This article is part of the series Understanding ActivityPub, which takes a look at the ActivityPub protocol through the lens of real-world examples

The theory behind Mastodon and WebFinger is fascinating. I’ve managed to configure my immutable mastodon handle. That's the handle I can communicate to potential followers: if I move to another server, I'll update the webfinger with my new coordinates.

They say, it doesn't matter which Mastodon instance you sign up with. You can still communicate with the entire Fediverse and when push comes to shove, you can also always move. Well, push came to shove for me and I had to move. So let's talk about the giant asterisk that belongs after both of those claims.

Spawn a Nginx webserver with a bunch of static JSON files that behaves like a Mastodon instance