Sit down and enjoy this little moment of happiness (translated into English for all our English-speaking fans! as a single post)
As Undernet’s end-of-year message, we want to share with you a recap of the best moments from these 10 years and from 2025, to show how our community has grown and what we have achieved.
Social and community progress on the server
This year:
▶️ We promoted and sponsored FLISoL 2025 :stall1: :linux: :gnu: 🎮️
▶️ We took part in the Reconectar.uy campaign. 🌎️ :mastodon: :rss: :mastodondance2: :peertube:
▶️ We were proud to be mentioned in a peer-reviewed paper by Uruguayan researchers published in the journal Neuroscience 🧪 🔬 🥼
▶️ We made ourselves available as a collection point for donated hardware for Resistencia Programada ♻️ 💻️ :computerfairies: 💽
▶️ We achieved something historic: full self-sufficiency of the server! We needed UYU 71,800 and raised UYU 77,035 — that’s 107% of operating expenses(*) 🎉 🎆 👀 🥰 🥳
(*) It’s important to remember that this figure only covers electricity and internet. It does not include hardware replacements or upgrades.
Mastodon continues to be our main platform and our consolidated community, where people have already managed to:
▶️ Find jobs 🧑🏭 👨💼 👩🏭 👩💼
▶️ Go on dates 🫦 👯♂️ 👯♀️ 🥂
▶️ Adopt pets 🐈️ 🐶 🐱
▶️ Collaborate on scientific research 🧪 🔬 🥼 👩🔬 👨🔬
▶️ Exchange seeds 🌱 🫑 🌾 🪴
▶️ And what else? ⁉️ Tell us in the comments!
Over these 10 years we’ve gone through hardware upgrades, replacements due to failures, new disks, power supplies, boards, etc. Always using accessible, consumer-grade hardware because that’s what our budget allows. Other times, we’ve relied on donated hardware as a way for people to support the project.
2025 Advances in Security, Decentralization, and Technological Sovereignty
New hardware:
▶️ HP 1410 24G switch with 24 ports
▶️ New YaCy server: AMD quad-core, 16 GB RAM, redundant storage
▶️ New firewall server: Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, redundant storage
Server management:
▶️ We subscribed to BitDefender for one year to run periodic virus scans (yes, it’s a commercial company, but we use it for very specific functions). This complements what we already had: Amavis + SpamAssassin + MalDet.
▶️ We installed a new independent physical firewall server equipped with: pfSense, Suricata, pyBlockerNG, TrafficShaper
▶️ We subscribed to NordVPN, not for Undernet’s own traffic, but to separate residential traffic from server traffic. This allowed Undernet’s IP to be removed from blacklists like SpamHaus, SpurUs, etc., significantly improving security and the server’s IP reputation.
▶️ We distributed workloads and services across new physical servers. We now have 5 independent servers, each dedicated to specific tasks.
▶️ We completed one full year successfully operating one of the 6 NTP Stratum 1 servers in Uruguay, with an excellent score on https://undernet.uy/ntp/
New services:
▶️ Castopod for podcasts at https://air.undernet.uy
▶️ ShareLaTeX/Overleaf for collaborative LaTeX editing at https://tex.undernet.uy
▶️ YaCy on a quad-core server with 16 GB RAM and redundant storage at https://yacy.undernet.uy
▶️ Local Spanish Wikipedia dump at https://wiki.undernet.uy
▶️ Renewed mailing-list system (Sympa) at https://listas.undernet.uy
▶️ Two new MMORPG game servers (Stendhal and The Mana World)
▶️ Migration from Tiny Tiny RSS to FreshRSS at https://rss.undernet.uy
▶️ RSSHub deployed at https://hub.undernet.uy
Little by little, our project grew stronger and earned people’s trust, finally achieving self-sufficiency after 10 years - years in which we watched corporate social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram deteriorate, increasingly censor, suspend, allow hate speech.
Ten years ago:
▶️ 1 server (total resources: 8 cores, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB redundant storage)
Today:
▶️ 6 servers (total resources: 26 cores, 74 GB RAM, 14 TB redundant storage)
Undernet in numbers (**):
▶️ Our DNS server processed 391 million queries in 2025 (12 queries/sec)
▶️ Our NTP time server answered around 410 million time requests (13 queries/sec). Our server has a strong reputation, and the pool directs about 18% of Uruguay’s time queries to us.
▶️ Our Mastodon node handled 201 million local or federated tasks such as boosts, likes, previews, notifications, etc. (6 ops/sec)
▶️ Our email server processed around 750,000 emails in 2025 (1 email every 40 sec)
▶️ Our network transferred 62 TB of data in 2025 (170 GB/day)
👉️ The Undernet experiment worked!
A community-run server can be maintained by many people collectively, managed cooperatively, administered responsibly, and aligned with our own interests.
And one last thing: thank you @bicivoladora @gabriel @piracalamina @j3j5 for always being there. I love you all very much.
Orinigal thread with pictures in Spanish -> https://mastodon.uy/@santiago/115691347221226446
#undernet #uruguay #fediverse #mastodon #community #digitalsovereignty #crowdfund #internet #floss #communityrun #10Years #selfsufficiency #grassrootstech #selfhosting #decentralization
