Everything on, phase 1: geolocation fetches itself, the deploy signs in as @thepra, the crawler is on, sign-up by invitation

Owner decisions (2026-10-04, recorded in docs/ROADMAP.md): production runs everything that is built, and nothing waits
on a person running a command.

- Geolocation updates itself. GeoUpdater, a hosted service, checks daily whether each DB-IP Lite database was built this
  month. If not, it fetches this month's, or last month's early in the month. It installs a file only once it opens as
  the right kind of database, then swaps it in atomically, and the locator reloads at once. Lookups now run under the
  lock, so a reload can no longer dispose a reader mid-lookup. The systemd timer, its script and their setup.sh lines
  are gone: the root step they needed never happened, and none is needed now. /stargazing names the database in use.
- The admin CLI runs after the app is built, with every service and nothing started.
  - `create-root <login> [--admin]` takes the password on stdin; it is how the first login is made while sign-up is
    closed.
  - `smoke <persona>` keeps the root `deploy-smoke` and an undiscoverable persona, and gives the root a new password
    on every run.
- The deploy signs in as @thepra. It runs the CLI, gets a token through the real OAuth flow (tools/smoke/oauth.sh,
  moved out of the pasture's privapub_token, which now uses it), checks the signed-in API and that @thepra is
  undiscoverable, then revokes the token. PRIVAPUB_SMOKE_TOKEN is gone.
- The deploy also fails when:
  - NodeInfo and the instance API disagree about registrations;
  - /stargazing does not say the crawler is on;
  - the geolocation databases are missing or more than 40 days old.
- The crawler is on in production, seeded with ten large servers of different kinds. FEDERATION.md now describes it
  and how to opt out.
- One registrations switch (Registrations:Mode, default Invitations; Open in tests and the pasture). It is read by
  open sign-up (403 when closed), NodeInfo `openRegistrations`, and v1 and v2 of the instance API, so they can no longer
  disagree. Before, NodeInfo said open and the instance API said closed. Group invitations always work, so
  invites_enabled is true.
- A persona edit through /clientapi no longer resets what the Mastodon API set (discoverable, locked, quote policy…):
  the theme is merged into the settings instead of replacing them.

650 tests pass. The deploy's smoke step was rehearsed against the pasture's PrivaPub.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01ELjqpznMFMNrJoJUj6K5p2

PrivaPub/Api/Mastodon/Controllers/InstanceController.cs

@@ -1,11 +1,13 @@
 using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authorization;
 using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
+using Microsoft.Extensions.Options;
 
 using MongoDB.Entities;
 
 using PrivaPub.Api.Mastodon.Infrastructure;
 using PrivaPub.Domain.Privacy;
 using PrivaPub.Federation.Actors;
+using PrivaPub.Infrastructure;
 using PrivaPub.Models.User;
 
 using PostEntity = PrivaPub.Models.Post.Post;
@@ -18,12 +20,16 @@ namespace PrivaPub.Api.Mastodon.Controllers
 		const string Description = "A small ActivityPub server where one private login keeps several unlinkable public personas.";
 
 		readonly ILocalActorService _localActors;
+		readonly IOptionsMonitor<RegistrationOptions> _registrations;
 
-		public InstanceController(ILocalActorService localActors)
+		public InstanceController(ILocalActorService localActors, IOptionsMonitor<RegistrationOptions> registrations)
 		{
 			_localActors = localActors;
+			_registrations = registrations;
 		}
 
+		bool Open => _registrations.CurrentValue.IsOpen;
+
 		string Domain => new Uri(_localActors.BaseAddress).Authority;
 
 		static object Statuses => new { max_characters = 5000, max_media_attachments = 4, characters_reserved_per_url = 23 };
@@ -58,9 +64,9 @@ namespace PrivaPub.Api.Mastodon.Controllers
 				stats = new { user_count = users, status_count = statuses, domain_count = domains },
 				thumbnail = $"{_localActors.BaseAddress}/media/missing-header.png",
 				languages = new[] { "en" },
-				registrations = false,
+				registrations = Open,
 				approval_required = false,
-				invites_enabled = false,
+				invites_enabled = true,//a group invitation always creates an account
 				configuration = new { accounts = new { max_featured_tags = 0 }, statuses = Statuses, media_attachments = MediaAttachments, polls = Polls },
 				contact_account = default(object),
 				rules = Array.Empty<object>()
@@ -88,7 +94,7 @@ namespace PrivaPub.Api.Mastodon.Controllers
 				polls = Polls,
 				translation = new { enabled = false }
 			},
-			registrations = new { enabled = false, approval_required = false, message = default(string) },
+			registrations = new { enabled = Open, approval_required = false, message = Open ? default : RegistrationOptions.ClosedMessage },
 			contact = new { email = string.Empty, account = default(object) },
 			rules = Array.Empty<object>()
 		});