kb-fediverse-relays

Fediverse relays work by accepting subscription handshakes from your instance and then rebroadcasting received public activities back to your server. This ensures continuous content delivery across the federated network.

An ActivityPub relay subscription handshake involves your instance sending a Follow activity to the relay actor. The relay then sends an Accept activity back, allowing the relay to forward public messages to your instance's federated timeline.

The difference between Mastodon and LitePub relay protocols lies in their ActivityPub message processing and subscription mechanics. LitePub offers a distinct relay specification compared to Mastodon's implementation, affecting how instances handle relayed activities.

To implement a Fediverse relay, you must set up a relay actor to process subscription handshakes and handle incoming public activities. You must also decide whether to relay or forward messages to subscribed instances based on protocol differences.

You should avoid using a Fediverse relay for content discovery if your instance lacks the resources to process the high volume of incoming public messages. Relays continuously rebroadcast content, which can overwhelm small servers and impact federation performance.