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105 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
105 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
# Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
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## Isn't this like ...?
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Who knows. I didn't do a lot of research before making this. It was fun making it.
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## Can I use this in my app? Will it stay free?
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Yes. As long as you don't abuse it, it'll be available and free of charge. While I will always allow usage of the ntfy.sh
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server without signup and free of charge, I may also offer paid plans in the future.
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## What are the uptime guarantees?
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Best effort.
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ntfy currently runs on a single DigitalOcean droplet, without any scale out strategy or redundancies. When the time comes,
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I'll add scale out features, but for now it is what it is.
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In the first year of its life, and to this day (Dec'22), ntfy had **no outages** that I can remember. Other than short
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blips and some HTTP 500 spikes, it has been rock solid.
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There is a [status page](https://ntfy.statuspage.io/) which is updated based on some automated checks via the amazingly
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awesome [healthchecks.io](https://healthchecks.io/) (_no affiliation, just a fan_).
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## What happens if there are multiple subscribers to the same topic?
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As per usual with pub-sub, all subscribers receive notifications if they are subscribed to a topic.
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## Will you know what topics exist, can you spy on me?
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If you don't trust me or your messages are sensitive, run your own server. It's open source.
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That said, the logs do contain topic names and IP addresses, but I don't use them for anything other than
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troubleshooting and rate limiting. Messages are cached for the duration configured in `server.yml` (12h by default)
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to facilitate service restarts, message polling and to overcome client network disruptions.
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## Can I self-host it?
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Yes. The server (including this Web UI) can be self-hosted, and the Android/iOS app supports adding topics from
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your own server as well. Check out the [install instructions](install.md).
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## Is Firebase used?
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In addition to caching messages locally and delivering them to long-polling subscribers, all messages are also
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published to Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) (if `FirebaseKeyFile` is set, which it is on ntfy.sh). This
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is to facilitate notifications on Android.
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If you do not care for Firebase, I suggest you install the [F-Droid version](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.heckel.ntfy/)
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of the app and [self-host your own ntfy server](install.md).
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## How much battery does the Android app use?
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If you use the ntfy.sh server, and you don't use the [instant delivery](subscribe/phone.md#instant-delivery) feature,
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the Android/iOS app uses no additional battery, since Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) is used. If you use your own server,
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or you use *instant delivery* (Android only), or install from F-droid ([which does not support FCM](https://f-droid.org/docs/Inclusion_Policy/)),
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the app has to maintain a constant connection to the server, which consumes about 0-1% of battery in 17h of use (on my phone).
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There has been a ton of testing and improvement around this. I think it's pretty decent now.
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## Paid plans? I thought it was open source?
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All of ntfy will remain open source, with a free software license (Apache 2.0 and GPLv2). If you'd like to self-host, you
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can (and should do that). The paid plans I am offering are for people that do not want to self-host, and/or need higher
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limits.
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## What is instant delivery?
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[Instant delivery](subscribe/phone.md#instant-delivery) is a feature in the Android app. If turned on, the app maintains a constant connection to the
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server and listens for incoming notifications. This consumes additional battery (see above),
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but delivers notifications instantly.
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## Can you implement feature X?
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Yes, maybe. Check out [existing GitHub issues](https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/issues) to see if somebody else had
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the same idea before you, or file a new issue. I'll likely get back to you within a few days.
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## I'm having issues with iOS, can you help? The iOS app is behind compared to the Android app, can you fix that?
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The iOS is very bare bones and quite frankly a little buggy. I wanted to get something out the door to make the iOS users
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happy, but halfway through I got frustrated with iOS development and paused development. I will eventually get back to
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it, or hopefully, somebody else will come along and help out. Please review the [known issues](known-issues.md) for details.
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## Can I disable the web app? Can I protect it with a login screen?
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The web app is a static website without a backend (other than the ntfy API). All data is stored locally in the browser
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cache and local storage. That means it does not need to be protected with a login screen, and it poses no additional
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security risk. So technically, it does not need to be disabled.
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However, if you still want to disable it, you can do so with the `web-root: disable` option in the `server.yml` file.
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Think of the ntfy web app like an Android/iOS app. It is freely available and accessible to anyone, yet useless without
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a proper backend. So as long as you secure your backend with ACLs, exposing the ntfy web app to the Internet is harmless.
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## If topic names are public, could I not just brute force them?
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If you don't have [ACLs set up](config.md#access-control), the topic name is your password, it says so everywhere. If you
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choose a easy-to-guess/dumb topic name, people will be able to guess it. If you choose a randomly generated topic name,
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the topic is as good as a good password.
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As for brute forcing: It's not possible to brute force a ntfy server for very long, as you'll get quickly rate limited.
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In the default configuration, you'll be able to do 60 requests as a burst, and then 1 request per 10 seconds. Assuming you
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choose a random 10 digit topic name using only A-Z, a-z, 0-9, _ and -, there are 64^10 possible topic names. Even if you
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could do hundreds of requests per seconds (which you cannot), it would take many years to brute force a topic name.
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For ntfy.sh, there's even a fail2ban in place which will ban your IP pretty quickly.
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## Where can I donate?
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I have just very recently started accepting donations via [GitHub Sponsors](https://github.com/sponsors/binwiederhier).
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I would be humbled if you helped me carry the server and developer account costs. Even small donations are very much
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appreciated.
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## Can I email you? Can I DM you on Discord/Matrix?
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While I love chatting on [Discord](https://discord.gg/cT7ECsZj9w), [Matrix](https://matrix.to/#/#ntfy-space:matrix.org),
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[Lemmy](https://discuss.ntfy.sh/c/ntfy), or [GitHub](https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/issues), I generally
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**do not respond to emails about ntfy or direct messages** about ntfy, unless you are paying for a
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[ntfy Pro](https://ntfy.sh/#pricing) plan, or you are inquiring about business opportunities.
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I am sorry, but answering individual questions about ntfy on a 1-on-1 basis is not scalable. Answering your questions
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in the above-mentioned forums benefits others, since I can link to the discussion at a later point in time, or other users
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may be able to help out. I hope you understand.
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