avatar-server#

A simple alternative avatar server implementation for tangled based on core/avatar

To self-host you can use one of:

• the NixOS module
• the binary

The service makes a bunch of assumptions. For example:

• crtime being readable
• permissions set correctly on the cache dir
• _atproto TXT record is preferred over .well-known/atproto-did
• and probably others too

Using the NixOS module#

A simple configuration could look like the following:

{
    inputs,
    ...
}:

{
    imports = [ inputs.avatar-server.nixosModules.default ];

    services.tangled.avatar-server = {
        enable = true;
        port = 1234;
        # The environment file MUST be outside the nix store
        # and contain the AVATAR_SHARED_SECRET variable
        environmentFile = "/path/to/your/secret.env";
    };
}

Using the binary#

The following should suffice:

AVATAR_SHARED_SECRET=super_secret_value CACHE_DIR=/var/log/avatar-server avatar-server

I recommend using systemd to run this application in a container. Other solutions like docker/podman probably work too, but i don't have any experience with those services.

Security#

I honestly don't know how secure this program is but i tried my best to harden it in systemd. Pull requests are very welcome! This is one of my first Rust projects, so feel free to teach me