Explain how federation works for admins, various doc updates (#1176)

diff --git a/docs/src/SUMMARY.md b/docs/src/SUMMARY.md
index 8392635bfea6ea2b6a1d4a9714795a51a45a34a7..e00f5ced60067c81369a3e695f9ce54899591fbb 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/src/SUMMARY.md
+++ b/docs/src/SUMMARY.md
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
   - [Install with Ansible](administration_install_ansible.md)
   - [Configuration](administration_configuration.md)
   - [Backup and Restore](administration_backup_and_restore.md)
+  - [Federation](administration_federation.md)
 - [Contributing](contributing.md)
   - [Docker Development](contributing_docker_development.md)
   - [Local Development](contributing_local_development.md)

diff --git a/docs/src/administration_federation.md b/docs/src/administration_federation.md
new file mode 100644 (file)
index 0000000..5dc0b1a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/src/administration_federation.md
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+# Federation 
+
+Note: ActivityPub federation is still under development. We recommend that you only enable it on test instances for now.
+
+To enable federation, change the setting `federation.enabled` to `true` in `lemmy.hjson`, and restart Lemmy.
+
+Federation does not start automatically, but needs to be triggered manually through the search. To do this you have to enter a reference to a remote object, such as:
+
+- `!main@dev.lemmy.ml` (Community)
+- `@nutomic@dev.lemmy.ml` (User)
+- `https://dev.lemmy.ml/c/programming` (Community)
+- `https://dev.lemmy.ml/u/nutomic` (User)
+- `https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/123` (Post)
+
+For an overview of how federation in Lemmy works on a technical level, check out our [Federation Overview](contributing_federation_overview.md).
+
+## Instance allowlist and blocklist
+
+The federation section of Lemmy's config has two variables `allowed_instances` and `blocked_instances`. These control which other instances Lemmy will federate with. Both settings take a comma separated list of domains, eg `dev.lemmy.ml, example.com`. You can either change those settings via `/admin`, or directly on the server filesystem. 
+
+It is important to note that these settings only affect sending and receiving of data between instances. If allow federation with a certain instance, and then remove it from the allowlist, this will not affect previously federated data. These communities, users, posts and comments will still be shown. They will just not be updated anymore. And even if an instance is blocked, it can still fetch and display public data from your instance.
+
+By default, both `allowed_instances` and `blocked_instances` values are empty, which means that Lemmy will federate with every compatible instance. We do not recommend this, because the moderation tools are not yet ready to deal with malicious instances.
+
+What we do recommend is putting a list of trusted instances into `allowed_instances`, and only federating with those. Note that both sides need to add each other to their `allowed_instances` to allow two-way federation.
+
+Alternatively you can also use blocklist based federation. In this case, add the domains of instances you do *not* want to federate with. You can only set one of `allowed_instances` and `blocked_instances`, as setting both doesn't make sense.

diff --git a/docs/src/contributing_docker_development.md b/docs/src/contributing_docker_development.md
index 586055a067e62ca8f97a8bb796f1a642a99f429d..b3f113337842c53eefd17256666043ff64ef0bf1 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/src/contributing_docker_development.md
+++ b/docs/src/contributing_docker_development.md
@@ -11,8 +11,8 @@ git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy
 ## Running
 
 ```bash
-cd lemmy/docker/dev
-sudo docker-compose up --no-deps --build
+cd /docker/dev
+./docker_update.sh
 ```
 
 and go to http://localhost:1235.

diff --git a/docs/src/contributing_local_development.md b/docs/src/contributing_local_development.md
index 5f53d3374a126d99059a224ba78ffcf1a3fcbe50..ba3663c934b41e0cbff1837e99f94369009a2e0d 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/src/contributing_local_development.md
+++ b/docs/src/contributing_local_development.md
@@ -36,6 +36,9 @@ cargo build
 ### Get the front end source code
 ```
 git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui.git
+# get the translations
+git submodule init
+git submodule update
 ```
 
 ### Setup postgresql
@@ -78,7 +81,7 @@ yarn
 yarn dev
 ```
 
-and goto [localhost:1234](http://localhost:1234). Front end saves should rebuild the project.
+and go to [localhost:1234](http://localhost:1234). Front end saves should rebuild the project.
 
 Note that this setup doesn't include image uploads or link previews (provided by pict-rs and
 iframely respectively). If you want to test those, you should use the