If a lemmy server is completely wiped, then installed from scratch again without the existing database, how does that work with existing remotely posted comments and federation?
Just asking as I did exactly that and it kind of seems like it works? I would have thought there would have been some kind of checksum/key etc...
The only issue I'm really running into is that it says subscribe pending on some communities when I try to subscribe but I'm assuming that's due to being overloaded etc...
Is there anything major that I'm overlooking?
Note: The server is personal so hijacking existing usernames isn't an issue but I'm assuming it would be if it was populated?
As for hijacking usernames: If you are able to wipe and reinstall the instance you likely have the ability to just set my password hash to something else and control my account. As a user you need to trust your home instance.
If the domain registration lapses and a malicious actor was to pick it up it could cause issues potentially.
As I said: you need to trust your home instance in that regard. I don't think there is a technical solution for these problems.
So this partly happened on midwest.social, when the admin reverted to a three-day old backup. Other servers that had already cached comments from that time could still see them; those of us on the home server could not. I checked with my alt account.
I experienced it. I couldn't subscribe to the same communities with same username.
Yeah, I have a feeling that this is the case with my server. It does seem to be communities that I was already subscribed to having issues subscribing again.
Try refreshing the page after smashing the subscribe button