Hosting a Matrix chat server

jeromev

I need to host my own Matrix chat server and it appears this may be possible using my Opalstack shared hosting account. There are implementations based on python 3, postgresql, and nginx, apparently.
My plan is to attempt this and document my efforts here. If you have suggestions, I welcome them!

sean

jeromev I tried the Python implementation and it was very easy to get running.

Create a new Nginx Proxy Port app to reserve a HTTP port for the server and make a note of the app's port assignment.
Attach the app to a site.

SSH to the app's shell user and run the following commands:

cd ~/apps/name_of_app
python3 -m venv env
source env/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install --upgrade setuptools
pip install matrix-synapse

# use the site domain from step 2 here:
SERVERNAME=matrix.domain.com

python -m synapse.app.homeserver \
    --server-name $SERVERNAME \
    --config-path homeserver.yaml \
    --generate-config \
    --report-stats=yes

Edit homeserver.yaml to set the http port to your app's port (from step 1).
Edit $SERVERNAME.log.config to set the log filename to /home/your_shell_user/logs/apps/name_of_app/homeserver.log

Run the following command to start the instance:

synctl start

At this point your Matrix server will be up and running and accessible via HTTP.

Axel

sean I just installed this with Nick's help. A few notes:

using Python 3.12 seems to work ok
I think python -m synapse.app.homeserver should be python3 -m synapse.app.homeserver, right ?
step 5 wasn't necessary, the filename was already set as such
to add users using register_new_matrix_user -u username -p password -k SHARED_SECRET, you need the SHARED_SECRET, which is stored in homeserver.yaml

fwkit

To upgrade by using pip:
source ~/apps/synapse/env/bin/activate pip install -U matrix-synapse

to start:
cd ~/apps/synapse source env/bin/activate synctl start

peter

Axel That's great! 🙂 As long as you've activated your virtual environment (with source ~/apps/name_of_app/env/bin/activate, it won't matter if you're using python3 or just python - the result will be the same because Python 3.12 is the version your venv was created with.

Step #5 is not required, but it's recommended to ensure proper log rotation. By default, you will end up having the log path set to /home/your_shell_user/apps/name_of_app/homeserver.log (it's the document root of the app itself), which is different from /home/your_shell_user/logs/apps/name_of_app/homeserver.log.

Axel

peter in homeserver.yaml is it useful/necessary to set:
server_name: "server_name:port_number"
That is, to add the port number when setting the server name ? The port number is set elsewhere as well separately so it seems redundant.

sean

Axel I don't believe that should be necessary unless you plan to run Matrix on an open port, ie to have clients connect to it via matrix.yourdomain.com:NNNNN.

If you're following the instructions above then it will be running behind our front-end Nginx proxy without the port exposed so there's no need to include the port in the server_name setting.

Axel

sean when I remove the port number there I get the following error:

**********************************************************************************
 Error during initialisation:
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       File "/home/infusion/apps/infusion_gitter/env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/synapse/app/homeserver.py", line 375, in setup
         hs.setup()
       File "/home/infusion/apps/infusion_gitter/env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/synapse/server.py", line 363, in setup
         self.datastores = Databases(self.DATASTORE_CLASS, self)
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
       File "/home/infusion/apps/infusion_gitter/env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/synapse/storage/databases/__init__.py", line 92, in __init__
         prepare_database(
       File "/home/infusion/apps/infusion_gitter/env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/synapse/storage/prepare_database.py", line 156, in prepare_database
         _upgrade_existing_database(
       File "/home/infusion/apps/infusion_gitter/env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/synapse/storage/prepare_database.py", line 401, in _upgrade_existing_database
         check_database_before_upgrade(cur, database_engine, config)
       File "/home/infusion/apps/infusion_gitter/env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/synapse/storage/databases/main/__init__.py", line 412, in check_database_before_upgrade
         raise Exception(
     Exception: Found users in database not native to gitter.infusionsystems.com!
     You cannot change a synapse server_name after it's been configured
 
 There may be more information in the logs.
**********************************************************************************
synapse.app.homeserver(homeserver.yaml) failed to start (exit code: 1). Check the Synapse logfile, or run synctl with --no-daemonize.

How do I change the database ? Or should I remove the database ? Delete homeserver.db ? And talking about databases, is it better to use a PostgreSQL database ?

sean

Axel per the Synapse admin FAQ if you're changing the server name you must delete the database (and probably your media_store directory) and start over.

If you're using the default setup then homeserver.db is your database, that's what you'll need to delete.

If you plan to run a large Matrix community with hundreds of users then you'll probably want to use PostgreSQL, otherwise the default SQLite db should be fine.

Axel

The video and voice chat features are not working because they apparently require a TURN server. I'm not sure if I can simply follow these instructions: https://matrix-org.github.io/synapse/v1.40/turn-howto.html ?

sean

Axel those instructions won't work without modification. I've not tried it myself yet but will do so in the coming week. I'll follow up when I have more info.

sean

Axel actually I just noticed this bit:

Ensure your firewall allows traffic into the TURN server on the ports you've configured it to listen on (By default: 3478 and 5349 for TURN traffic (remember to allow both TCP and UDP traffic), and ports 49152-65535 for the UDP relay.)

That's going to be a showstopper on shared hosting as we're not able to open thousands of UDP ports for a single customer on those machines.

This means that if you need to run coturn you'll need to migrate to VPS where we can open the required ports for you.

Axel

sean Actually it works when using turn.matrix.org - minor compromise in terms of privacy/security as far as I can tell, but the FPS is really good.

Axel

No problem, we'll use another app to make video/voice calls.