Matrix
Matrix is an open standard for
interoperable, decentralised, real-time communication over IP. It can be used
to power Instant Messaging, VoIP/WebRTC signalling, Internet of Things
communication - or anywhere you need a standard HTTP API for publishing and
subscribing to data whilst tracking the conversation history.
This chapter will show you how to set up your own, self-hosted Matrix
homeserver using the Synapse reference homeserver, and how to serve your own
copy of the Riot web client. See the
Try
Matrix Now! overview page for links to Riot Apps for Android and iOS,
desktop clients, as well as bridges to other networks and other projects
around Matrix.
Synapse Homeserver
Synapse is
the reference homeserver implementation of Matrix from the core development
team at matrix.org. The following configuration example will set up a
synapse server for the example.org domain, served from
the host myhostname.example.org. For more information,
please refer to the
installation instructions of Synapse .
let
fqdn =
let
join = hostName: domain: hostName + optionalString (domain != null) ".${domain}";
in join config.networking.hostName config.networking.domain;
in {
networking = {
hostName = "myhostname";
domain = "example.org";
};
networking.firewall.allowedTCPPorts = [ 80 443 ];
services.nginx = {
enable = true;
# only recommendedProxySettings and recommendedGzipSettings are strictly required,
# but the rest make sense as well
recommendedTlsSettings = true;
recommendedOptimisation = true;
recommendedGzipSettings = true;
recommendedProxySettings = true;
virtualHosts = {
# This host section can be placed on a different host than the rest,
# i.e. to delegate from the host being accessible as ${config.networking.domain}
# to another host actually running the Matrix homeserver.
"${config.networking.domain}" = {
locations."= /.well-known/matrix/server".extraConfig =
let
# use 443 instead of the default 8448 port to unite
# the client-server and server-server port for simplicity
server = { "m.server" = "${fqdn}:443"; };
in ''
add_header Content-Type application/json;
return 200 '${builtins.toJSON server}';
'';
locations."= /.well-known/matrix/client".extraConfig =
let
client = {
"m.homeserver" = { "base_url" = "https://${fqdn}"; };
"m.identity_server" = { "base_url" = "https://vector.im"; };
};
# ACAO required to allow riot-web on any URL to request this json file
in ''
add_header Content-Type application/json;
add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;
return 200 '${builtins.toJSON client}';
'';
};
# Reverse proxy for Matrix client-server and server-server communication
${fqdn} = {
enableACME = true;
forceSSL = true;
# Or do a redirect instead of the 404, or whatever is appropriate for you.
# But do not put a Matrix Web client here! See the Riot Web section below.
locations."/".extraConfig = ''
return 404;
'';
# forward all Matrix API calls to the synapse Matrix homeserver
locations."/_matrix" = {
proxyPass = "http://[::1]:8008"; # without a trailing /
};
};
};
};
services.matrix-synapse = {
enable = true;
server_name = config.networking.domain;
listeners = [
{
port = 8008;
bind_address = "::1";
type = "http";
tls = false;
x_forwarded = true;
resources = [
{ names = [ "client" "federation" ]; compress = false; }
];
}
];
};
};
If the A and AAAA DNS records on
example.org do not point on the same host as the records
for myhostname.example.org, you can easily move the
/.well-known virtualHost section of the code to the host that
is serving example.org, while the rest stays on
myhostname.example.org with no other changes required.
This pattern also allows to seamlessly move the homeserver from
myhostname.example.org to
myotherhost.example.org by only changing the
/.well-known redirection target.
If you want to run a server with public registration by anybody, you can
then enable . Otherwise, or you can generate a registration secret with
pwgen -s 64 1 and set it with
. To
create a new user or admin, run the following after you have set the secret
and have rebuilt NixOS:
$ nix run nixpkgs.matrix-synapse
$ register_new_matrix_user -k your-registration-shared-secret http://localhost:8008
New user localpart: your-usernamePassword:Confirm password:Make admin [no]:
Success!
In the example, this would create a user with the Matrix Identifier
@your-username:example.org. Note that the registration
secret ends up in the nix store and therefore is world-readable by any user
on your machine, so it makes sense to only temporarily activate the
option until a better solution
for NixOS is in place.
Riot Web Client
Riot Web is
the reference web client for Matrix and developed by the core team at
matrix.org. The following snippet can be optionally added to the code before
to complete the synapse installation with a web client served at
https://riot.myhostname.example.org and
https://riot.example.org. Alternatively, you can use the hosted
copy at https://riot.im/app,
or use other web clients or native client applications. Due to the
/.well-known urls set up done above, many clients should
fill in the required connection details automatically when you enter your
Matrix Identifier. See
Try
Matrix Now! for a list of existing clients and their supported
featureset.
services.nginx.virtualHosts."riot.${fqdn}" = {
enableACME = true;
forceSSL = true;
serverAliases = [
"riot.${config.networking.domain}"
];
root = pkgs.riot-web;
};
Note that the Riot developers do not recommend running Riot and your Matrix
homeserver on the same fully-qualified domain name for security reasons. In
the example, this means that you should not reuse the
myhostname.example.org virtualHost to also serve Riot,
but instead serve it on a different subdomain, like
riot.example.org in the example. See the
Riot
Important Security Notes for more information on this subject.