A Simpler WordPress Federation Process

Yesterday I spent some time looking into why my WordPress blog was de-federated. My suspicion is that when I switched from FTP to rsync, to upload the latest changes, it modified the .htaaccess file or the .well-known/webfinger file. That’s why my blog stopped posting to the Fediverse.

I blamed Jetpack because I noticed the lack of federation after pulling the plug on the Jetpack plugin. It’s when I re-installed Jetpack, and posted to Mastodon that I noticed that the post was an image, with an excerpt and a link rather than the entire post, that I decided to review the more involved federation process steps.

A Quick Explanation

For a site to be federated it needs to have an inbox, an outbox, a .well-known/webfinger file in the root folder, and htaccess configured to advertise where to find the json files, webfinger and more.

When I first played with federation I had to take care of the htaccess file, and webfinger manually, and this was still on my site. Since then the Activitypub plugins have evolved to include the Friends Plugin and the webfinger plugin. This means that now you need to tell the htaccess to ask wordpress for the files and you’re done. You’re federated. The hoops that I had to jump through have been removed, and wordpress takes care of almost everything. You just install the plugins, fill in the names you want, and you’re ready for federation.

Enable Mastodon Apps

Given that my blog is federated again I decided to experiment with the Enable Mastodon Apps plugin. Usually you can access your blog via jetpack and wordpress, for conventional blogging. You can also install the Enable Mastodon Apps and get access to your wordpress blog/instance as if it was a mastodon instance, to some degree.

When I tested the iOS and Android apps I was able to post text, and see my timeline, but I couldn’t follow back. With iOS I couldn’t post images but when I tried with Mastodon for Android I could post photos.

This is of interest because, within a few iterations, WordPress and this Plugin could work just as well for microblogging as for long form blogging. You could post to the fediverse with ease, while you’re hiking or cycling, instead of waiting until you’re sat at a computer once again.

And Finally

Not only is federating WordPress blogs much easier, once you setup the .htaccess file correctly, but with the right plugin you are much closer to microblogging to the fediverse via the Enable Mastodon Apps plugin