Server administration # Server administration Set the rules for your server, back up your moderators, and keep things running smoothly. ## Server settings Choose your server's identity, who can get in, content limits and the defaults that suit your community. - ### [About your server](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-about/) Tell visitors what your server is about and how to reach your staff. - Use the About tab for the full server description, a support email and a staff contact. - Administrators decide who can see the domain block list and its public reasons. ![The About tab of server settings with a Markdown server description, two domain block visibility choices and the contact email field.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-about-944.e2911568.webp) Say how the server is run, choose who can see your domain blocks and the reasons for them, and add a contact email. - ### [Privacy policy and terms](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-legal/) Let people know how your server handles data and access. - Write your own privacy policy and terms in Markdown on the About tab. - If you leave a policy empty, the server shows default text. ![The contact handle @alex_morgan above the legal information section, with Markdown editors for the privacy policy and the terms of use of Riverside Social.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-legal-944.397c6c1a.webp) Name a contact account, then write your own privacy policy and terms of use in Markdown. Leave them blank to use the defaults. - ### [Branding](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-branding/) Help people recognize your server in previews and public information. - Set your server's display name, a short overview and a cover image. - You can preview your server information right on the branding screen. ![The Branding tab with the server display name Riverside Social, a garden cover image, an overview, and a live preview of the public server page.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-branding-2000.76455c04.webp) Set your server's display name, cover and overview, and check the public page in the live preview. - ### [Default appearance](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-default-appearance/) Pick the default mode, theme and font for your server. - The Appearance tab sets the starting look for everyone on your server. - Each person can still pick their own appearance settings. ![Server settings for the default display mode, theme color and font, with Light, a green theme color and the Editorial font selected.](https://welley.com/assets/media/server-appearance-944.4c2d793c.webp) Set how the server looks by default. Everyone can still pick their own look in their personal settings. [See all screens](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-default-appearance/) - ### [Open or private server](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-access/) Decide whether visitors can read your server before they sign in. - On an open server, visitors can see public feeds, groups and events. - A private server shows visitors sign-in, sign-up and basic server information. - This choice is separate from your federation mode. ![The Access tab shows public server access, the Help group option, and open federation.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-access-1200.309ed1ad.webp) The Access tab has settings for public access to the server, the Help group option and open federation. - ### [Security controls](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-security/) Limit failed logins and help locked accounts get back in. - Set how many wrong passwords someone can try and how long a login lock lasts. - Set how many times someone can get their current password wrong before the server revokes their session. - Look up a local account by username or user ID to remove its login lock. ![The Security tab with the allowed failed current-password checks, the counter expiration in minutes, and the Unlock Account section.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-security-1240.b61a9cb6.webp) Limit failed password attempts, choose how long the count lasts, and unlock an account that got locked after failed sign-ins. - ### [Registration modes](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-registration/) Let anyone join, review every application, or let in only certain people. - Pick open sign-up, staff approval, an email domain allowlist or closed sign-up. - Turn user invitations on or off. - If invitations are on, people can still join a closed server with an invitation link. ![The Registration tab shows approval, invitations, CAPTCHA, and automatic closure for an unattended server.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-registration-1200.108cac1b.webp) The Registration tab covers approval, invitations, CAPTCHA, and closing sign-ups automatically when nobody on staff uses the server. - ### [Application questions and CAPTCHA](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-registration-review/) Add checks before someone can join your server. - Make people give a reason to join when sign-ups need staff approval. - Turn on hCaptcha with your own keys. - Write your own message for when sign-ups are closed. hCaptcha relies on an external service and needs setup by the server operator. ![The Registration tab shows approval, invitations, CAPTCHA, and automatic closure for an unattended server.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-registration-1200.108cac1b.webp) The Registration tab covers approval, invitations, CAPTCHA, and closing sign-ups automatically when nobody on staff uses the server. - ### [Close sign-ups automatically](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-unattended-registration/) Sign-ups close if no administrator or moderator uses the server for a period you choose. - Set the inactivity period on the Registration tab. - When that happens, the server closes sign-ups and invitation links, then emails administrators and moderators. - After that, staff need to turn sign-ups back on by hand. ![The Registration tab shows approval, invitations, CAPTCHA, and automatic closure for an unattended server.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-registration-1200.108cac1b.webp) The Registration tab covers approval, invitations, CAPTCHA, and closing sign-ups automatically when nobody on staff uses the server. - ### [Server roles and permissions](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-roles/) Give your staff the permissions they need. - Make and edit server roles with permissions for each resource and action. - See who holds each role and take a role away from someone. - In the admin panel, read access and management access are separate permissions. ![The Roles tab with the read-only SysAdmin, SysModerator and User roles, an Add new role button and an empty custom role list.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-roles-1520.c47d2b3b.webp) The default roles are admin, moderator and user. Duplicate one to make a custom role. - ### [Server rules](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-rules/) Keep your community rules short, clear and easy to find. - Add, edit and remove server rules on their own tab. - When people report something, they can point to the rules. ![The Create Rule dialog of the Server Rules tab with the title Keep plant and seed trades free and a short rule body.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-rules-1440.2a5b5a9f.webp) Add a server rule with a short title and an explanation. Rules show up on the server's About page. - ### [Post and attachment limits](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-content-posts/) Set limits for post length, attachments and pinned posts on your server. - Pick the default Markdown format on the Content tab. - Set how long a post or comment can be. - Set the maximum number of attachments and pinned posts. Other servers may use different limits and might not show a long post in full. ![The Content tab shows Markdown defaults, post length, attachment count, and pinned post limits.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-content-posts-1240.38e742cf.webp) The Content tab has the Markdown defaults and the limits for post length, number of attachments and pinned posts. - ### [Image, video and audio policy](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-content-media/) Choose what media your server accepts and how it processes it. - Set file size limits, allowed extensions, image resolution and conversion sizes. - Set the maximum video length and the threshold for adaptive HLS video. - Choose whether the server keeps the original image, video and audio files. What someone can actually upload depends on these settings and their account or group quota. ![The image policy shows original-file retention, file size, resolution, and conversion controls.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-content-images-1240.e5d71272.webp) The image policy covers keeping original files, file size, resolution and conversion. [See all screens](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-content-media/) - ### [Custom emoji](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-custom-emoji/) Give your server its own emoji. - Upload emoji one at a time or a whole collection as a ZIP file. - Sort them into categories and choose which ones show up in the picker. - Organize lots of emoji at once with bulk controls. ![The custom emoji editor shows file requirements, a shortcode, a category, and picker visibility.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-custom-emoji-editor-848.eab2a89c.webp) The custom emoji editor shows the file requirements, a shortcode, a category, and whether the emoji shows in the picker. - ### [Welley Help access](https://welley.com/server-admin/server-help-group/) Make it easy for people to reach the Welley Help group. - The Access tab controls the links to the help group on welley.social. - On open servers, help access stays on. - Private servers can still offer help access when federation is limited or closed. ![The Access tab shows public server access, the Help group option, and open federation.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-server-access-1200.309ed1ad.webp) The Access tab has settings for public access to the server, the Help group option and open federation. ## Tools for server staff Review reports, look after local communities and keep a record of what staff do. - ### [Reports queue](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-reports/) Staff can review reports and deal with problems in one place. - Filter reports and look at each one along with the users and posts involved. - Add staff notes and record your moderation decision. - Permissions decide which staff can read reports and which can manage them. ![The Reports page with a new report from Maya Chen about repeated unsolicited promotions by Turfline Supply, an Assign reviewer control, and Dismiss report and Moderate buttons.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-reports-1520.3cb7c95a.webp) Look at a report with its reason and the reported account, assign someone to review it, then dismiss it or moderate the account. - ### [User moderation](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-users/) Find local and remote users and see their moderation state. - Search for a user and open the profile drawer to see details. - Staff can limit or suspend users if their role allows it. - Changing someone's role or deleting an account needs management permission. ![The Users page with a username search, a search field selector, switches for channels and local users, and a table of six local accounts with avatars, usernames, emails and types.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-users-1980.e06faf87.webp) Find local and remote accounts by username, email or other fields, then open one to moderate it. - ### [Internal staff notes](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-user-notes/) Keep helpful moderation context next to each user's record. - Staff with permission can add internal notes. - The moderation view shows notes together with state changes. - Internal staff notes don't appear on the public profile. ![The Add a note panel for Turfline Supply with a staff note about promotional replies and Cancel and Save buttons.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-user-note-editor-840.1b311bdf.webp) Staff can add a private note to an account so other admins know the background. We didn't save this note. - ### [Group moderation](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-groups/) Review local groups with filters that fit how communities work. - Filter by name, domain, member, privacy, visibility or join mode. - Open a group's drawer to see its details and moderation history. - Bulk moderation and deleting groups need group management permissions. ![The Groups page with filters for privacy, visibility and join mode, and Riverside Garden listed as Regular, Public, Visible, Request to join, with four members.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-groups-2000.6303eaf6.webp) Find local groups by name, privacy, visibility or join mode, and open one to moderate it. - ### [Group moderation history](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-group-notes/) Keep staff notes and state changes together for each local group. - Add internal notes to a local group. - The group drawer shows the moderation history in time order. - Remote groups don't have the local group notes view. ![The Moderation tab of the Riverside Garden group drawer with a staff note by alex_morgan and Moderate and Add note buttons.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-group-notes-840.cbceecfe.webp) Staff notes on a group record what moderators checked, so other staff know the background before they act. - ### [Sign-up requests](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-signup-requests/) Review applications when your server needs approval to join. - See who's applying and why they want to join. - Administrators can approve or reject requests. - Staff with read access can look at requests but can't approve or reject them. ![The Sign Up Requests page with columns for email, phone, username, display name, IP address and location, and no pending requests.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-signup-requests-2000.1904bcf2.webp) When sign-ups need approval, each request shows up here with the person and why they want to join. This server has no pending requests. - ### [Audit log](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-audit/) Follow administrative changes in a separate audit record. - Filter administrative events and see the context around each one. - User and group drawers show the related history too. - The audit log has its own read permissions. ![The Audit Log with group and action filters and a table of account, user, group and rule actions with the affected user and account.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-audit-2000.0bdfc47f.webp) Follow admin changes such as new accounts, group updates, moderation notes and rule changes. - ### [Domain moderation](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-block-domains/) Apply your server's decisions to a whole remote domain. - Suspend or limit a domain, and choose whether to reject its media or its reports. - Record public and private reasons for each decision. - Manual decisions on your server take priority over imported block lists. ![The Blocked Domains page with a domain search, a Manage blocklists button, and table columns for moderation, users, reports, public comment, private comment and obfuscation.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-block-domains-2000.d84d60d3.webp) Block a domain to stop federating with it, add public and private comments, and manage the blocklists you subscribe to. No domain is blocked on this server. - ### [Import and subscribe to block lists](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-domain-list-subscriptions/) Use curated public block lists and still keep control of your own decisions. - Import a block list from a Mastodon-format CSV file. - Subscribe to supported public lists and refresh them hourly, daily or weekly. - See where each active block comes from and the history of subscription updates. - When you unsubscribe, choose what happens to the blocks from that list. ![The Domain Blocklists page with an Upload CSV button and curated blocklists with their domain counts, update rhythm, a sync frequency menu and a Subscribe button.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-domain-list-subscriptions-2000.6310502d.webp) Import a Mastodon-compatible CSV, or subscribe to a curated public blocklist and choose how often it syncs. We didn't subscribe to a list. ## Run your Welley server Keep an eye on activity, updates, media work and the background jobs that keep your server responsive. - ### [Server dashboard](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-dashboard/) See your server's key activity and tasks in one place. - See reports, sign-up requests, the registration mode and upcoming releases. - Look at statistics for a period you choose, broken down into local and remote activity categories. - The dashboard shows a missing measurement differently from a zero. The storage usage card on the dashboard doesn't show disk use yet. ![The server dashboard with a report count and Review button, sign-up requests, release status, storage usage, external domain totals and user statistics.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-dashboard-2000.2562f959.webp) The dashboard sums up reports, sign-ups, releases, federation and user activity. This server doesn't report storage use. [See all screens](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-dashboard/) - ### [Release information](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-releases/) See which releases are available before you update your server. - The Releases tab lists the releases on your release channel that are newer than your server's current version. - Read about each release and its migration estimates. - Attention markers flag unsafe or edited migrations and a higher estimated impact. Migration estimates don't take the size of your server into account. The list doesn't give an exact time for the next update. ![The Releases page with the release channel, an Automatic updates switch, an update interval menu, and the latest platform release with its build number and change summary.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-releases-2000.332009eb.webp) See which release is installed and what changed in it, and decide whether and how often the server updates itself. [See all screens](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-releases/) - ### [Automatic updates](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-automatic-updates/) Pick the update period on the Releases tab. - This setting controls automatic application updates. - On Compose installations, the server deployment tool uses it for platform updates too. - If you choose Never, those automatic checks don't apply updates. Terraform installations update the platform on their own deployment schedule. Web applications and the platform can update separately. ![The Releases page on the Available updates tab with the release channel, an Automatic updates switch, the update interval and an up-to-date message.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-releases-2000.298d5d05.webp) Check for available updates and choose how often the server installs them on its own. [See all screens](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-automatic-updates/) - ### [Installed applications](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-applications/) See the applications that make up your server. - The Applications page lists each installed application. - Open an application to see its details. - The application update policy is tied to the update period on the Releases tab. ![The Applications page listing the installed Chess, user Feed, Events, group Feed and Forum applications with their icons and descriptions.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-applications-2000.10a1cbf0.webp) See the applications that make up your server, such as the feeds, Forum, Events and Chess, and open one to see its details. - ### [Media jobs](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-media-jobs/) See how media conversion is going. - Check submitted, active and finished media work. - Open the generated outputs and error details. - Summary cards show staff where processing stands right now. ![The Media Jobs page shows submitted, active, completed, and failed queue summaries with queue values.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-media-jobs-2000.e5309b84.webp) The Media Jobs page shows summaries for submitted, active, completed and failed queues, with the values for each queue. - ### [Remote media cache](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-media-cache/) Decide how your server stores remote media. - Turn the remote media cache on or off. - Set size limits for each file and for the whole cache. - Set when cleanup runs and how many files each cleanup handles. ![The media cache form shows cache limits and cleanup controls.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-media-cache-1240.1e9997d1.webp) The media cache form has the cache limits and the cleanup controls. - ### [Upload quotas](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-quotas/) Manage storage and upload limits for accounts and groups. - See storage use, upload rate, quota tiers and overrides. - If your role allows it, pin a tier, set custom limits or block uploads. - Act on one entry or on several you select. ![The Users tab of Uploads and quotas with filters and six accounts, each with its tier, storage use against a 200 MB allowance and upload rate against 50 MB a week.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-quotas-2000.d1c711ef.webp) See each account's storage use and upload rate against its tier, and filter by tier, override, storage or upload rate. - ### [Quota increase requests](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-quota-requests/) Review requests for more storage or upload capacity. - See pending requests from users and groups. - Approve a higher limit or keep the current one. - The request count updates for administrators who are online. ![The quota request view shows its empty state and request type filters. This capture does not show an approval decision.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-quota-requests-2000.d2f19c96.webp) The quota request view is empty here, with filters for the request type. You don't see an approval decision. - ### [Queues, retries and workers](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-job-metrics/) Check on background jobs before a small problem turns into a bigger one. - The Jobs page shows queues, failed jobs, retries, scheduled jobs, workers and processes separately. - See each job's state. With management permission, you can retry or remove jobs. - See process heartbeat status and Redis information. ![The Jobs metrics table shows a queue with concurrency, retry, latency, and activity values.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-job-metrics-2000.fb796414.webp) The Jobs metrics table shows a queue with its concurrency, retry, latency and activity values. - ### [Job statistics](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-job-stats/) See background job activity over time. - The Stats page shows job statistics for each day. - Pick a queue to see its activity. - Use it together with the job queues to make sense of work and failures. ![The job chart shows daily counts with queue and state filters.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-job-stats-2000.6aaa6f8b.webp) The job chart shows counts per day, with filters for queue and state. - ### [Feed diagnostics](https://welley.com/server-admin/admin-feed-cache/) Check the feed cache and repair it if needed. - See cache size, feed coverage and regeneration state. - Compare a cached feed with the database results or with rebuilt results. - Look at operation timings over several periods. - Feed repair controls need management permission. ![The feed cache page shows cache metrics and diagnostic controls. No cache action was run.](https://welley.com/assets/media/admin-demo-feed-cache-2000.0f6ccd77.webp) The feed cache page shows cache metrics and diagnostic controls. We didn't run any cache action.