115 lines
No EOL
4.7 KiB
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115 lines
No EOL
4.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: 'Synapse'
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date: 2024-02-25T11:55:11+01:00
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draft: true
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---
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The server reference implementation for the [Matrix](../) protocol is [Synapse](https://github.com/element-hq/synapse).
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It's a federated homeserver developed by the Matrix Foundation[^1] and has a
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stable and full-featured maturity, which can make it quite resource-intensive.
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For running a Matrix server on Raspberry Pi[^2], for example, consider a more
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lightweight solution such as Conduit or Dendrite[^3]. The source code of Synapse
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is written in Python3/Twisted[^4] and can be found at GitHub.
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[^1]: [About Matrix](https://matrix.org/foundation) website
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[^2]: [Raspberry Pi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi) in the
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Wikipedia
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[^3]: [Conduit](https://conduit.rs) and [Dendrite](https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite) projects
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[^4]: [Twisted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_(software)) in the
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Wikipedia
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## Basic setup
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The [Synapse — UberLab 7 documentation](https://lab.uberspace.de/guide_synapse)
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describes the basic setup at my hosting provider. Other [installation instructions](https://matrix-org.github.io/synapse/latest/setup/installation.html)
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are found in the project documentation.
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## Delegation
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As I want a [user ID](../matrix/#user-id) without a subdomain part I need to use
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[delegation](https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/docs/delegate.md)
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via a .well-known URI[^5] to get a user ID such as `user:example.org` instead of
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`user:matrix.example.org`. Thus, I specify `example.org` as `server_name` at the beginning of the configuration file, but set `public_baseurl` to the subdomain `matrix.example.org`.
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For the *.well-known announcement* I create `.well-known/matrix/server` in the
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[Document_Root](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/trunk/mod/core.html#documentroot)
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of my webserver containing:
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```json {filename="server"}
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{
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"m.server": "matrix.example.org:443"
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}
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```
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[^5]: [Well-known URI](https://spec.matrix.org/latest/client-server-api/#well-known-uri)
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in the Matrix specification
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{{< callout type="info" >}}
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If you're running [Nextcloud](../../nextcloud) in the Document_Root, its
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`.htaccess` file needs editing for proper [redirection](#nextcloud_redirects).
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{{< /callout >}}
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Ultimately, I use the [federation tester](https://federationtester.matrix.org/)
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to check my instance.
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## Privacy
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The default configuration of Synapse isn't aligned to be privacy respecting as
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researched by [Libre Monde ASBL](https://github.com/libremonde-org/paper-research-privacy-matrix.org/tree/master/part1),
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but there are means to opt-out of statistics and metrics, for example. I refer
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to the [config documentation]([documentation](https://matrix-org.github.io/synapse/latest/usage/configuration/config_documentation.html))
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and edit the main configuration file `homeserver.yaml` as follows.
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### Metrics and stats
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I opt-out of metrics and statistics data collection by using the following configuration settings:
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```yaml
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enable_metrics: false
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report_stats: false
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```
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### Push
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When using Push notifications[^6], the message content isn't encrypted. For this
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reason, I create a push section and set `include_content` to `false`.
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[^6]: [Push notifications](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_technology#Push_notification)
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in the Wikipedia
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### Profile data
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As I don't want my profile information to be visible to the public and shared in
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rooms I am invited to before joining them, I change the following settings:
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```yaml
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require_auth_for_profile_requests: true
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limit_profile_requests_to_users_who_share_rooms: true
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include_profile_data_on_invite: false
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```
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## Logging
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Synapse log configuration file is typically named after the server name with the suffix `.log.config` appended. If I need to investigate errors, I change both
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`level` parameters in the *synapse.storage.SQL* subsection below *loggers* and
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in the *root* section. Allowed values are `CRITICAL`, `ERROR`, `WARNING`,
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`INFO`, and `DEBUG`. The default value is `INFO` as shown in the
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[sample config](https://matrix-org.github.io/synapse/latest/usage/configuration/logging_sample_config.html).
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## Known issues
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This section is about issues I came accross in relation to the interaction with
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other services of my [infrastructure](../../) and documents **quick and dirty**
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solutions rather than implementing secure and clean code.
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### Nextcloud redirects
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When using [delegation](#delegation) and running [Nextcloud](../../nextcloud) at
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the top-level domain, URL rewriting in `.htaccess` redirects all the traffic for
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documents in the `.well-known` directory to Nextcloud. A solution is to add the
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following [rewrite condition](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/trunk/mod/mod_rewrite.html#rewritecond)
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inside the `.htaccess` file in both sections before the rewrite rules:
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```
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RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/matrix/server
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``` |