Prompted by: https://matrix.org/blog/2019/11/09/avoiding-unwelcome-visitors-on-private-matrix-servers
This is a bit controversial, because.. the Synapse default remains open,
while the general advice (as per the blog post) is to make it more private.
I'm not sure exactly what kind of server people set up and whether they
want to make the room directory public. Our general goal is to favor
privacy and security when running personal (family & friends) and corporate
homeservers, both of which likely benefit from having a more secure default.
Don't mention systemd-journald adjustment anymore, because
we've changed log levels to WARNING and Synapse is not chatty by default
anymore.
The "excessive log messages may get dropped on CentOS" issue no longer
applies to most users and we shouldn't bother them with it.
matrix_synapse_storage_path is already defined in matrix-synapse/defaults/main.yml (with a default of "{{ matrix_synapse_base_path }}/storage"), but was not being used for its presumed purpose in matrix-synapse.service.j2. As a result, if matrix_synapse_storage_path was overridden (in a vars.yml), the synapse service failed to start.
Discord client IDs are numeric (e.g. 12345).
Passing them as integers however, causes the Discord bridge's YAML parser
to parse them as integers and its config schema validation will fail.
Fixes#240 (Github Issue)
This only gets triggered if:
- the Synapse role is used standalone and the default values are used
- the whole playbook is used, with `matrix_mxisd_enabled: false`
Continuation of #234 (Github Pull Request).
I had unintentionally updated the documentation for the feature,
saying the page is available at `https://matrix.DOMAIN/nginx_status`.
Looks like it wasn't the case, going against my expectations.
I'm correcting this with this patch.
The status page is being made available on both HTTP and HTTPS.
Serving over HTTP is likely necessary for services like
Longview
(https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/longview/longview-app-for-nginx/)
# Auth server config
auth:
# Publicly accessible base URL for the login endpoints.
# The prefix below is not implicitly added. This URL and all subpaths should be proxied
# or otherwise pointed to the appservice's webserver to the path specified below (prefix).
# This path should usually include a trailing slash.
public: http://example.com/login/
# Internal prefix in the appservice web server for the login endpoints.
prefix: /login
Also discussed previously in #213 (Github Pull Request).
shared-secret-auth and rest-auth logging is still at `INFO`
intentionally, as user login events seem more important to keep.
Those modules typically don't spam as much.
We recently had someone in the support room who set it to `false`
and the playbook ran without any issues.
This currently seems to yield the same result as 'none', but it's
better to avoid such behavior.
It adds support for a new `DISABLE_SENDER_VERIFICATION` environment
variable that can be used to disable verification of sender addresses.
It doesn't matter for us, but we upgrade to keep up with latest.
Looks like these client ids are actually integers,
but unless we pass them as a string, the bridge would complain with
an error like:
{"field":"data.auth.clientID","message":"is the wrong type","value":123456789012345678,"type":"string","schemaPath":["properties","auth","properties","clientID"]}
Explicitly-casting to a string should fix the problem.
The Discord bridge should probably be improved to handle both ints and
strings though.
Regression since 174a6fcd1b, #204 (Github Pull Request),
which only affects new servers.
Old servers which had their passkey.pem file relocated were okay.
ef5e4ad061 intentionally makes us conform to
the logging format suggested by the official Docker image.
Reverting this part, because it's uglier.
This likely should be fixed upstream as well though.
Somewhat related to #213 (Github Pull Request).
We've been moving in the opposite direction for quite a long time.
All services should just leave logging to systemd's journald.
Fixes a regression introduced during the upgrade to
Synapse v1.1.0 (in 2b3865ceea).
Since Synapse v1.1.0 upgraded to Python 3.7
(https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/5546),
we need to use a different modules directory when mounting
password provider modules.
Well, `config.yaml` has been playbook-managed for a long time.
It's now extended to match the default sample config of the Discord
bridge.
With this patch, we also make `registration.yaml` playbook-managed,
which leads us to consistency with all other bridges.
Along with that, we introduce `./config` and `./data` separation,
like we do for the other bridges.
I've been thinking of doing before, but haven't.
Now that the Whatsapp bridge does it (since 4797469383),
it makes sense to do it for all other bridges as well.
(Except for the IRC bridge - that one manages most of registration.yaml by itself)
appservice-irc doesn't have permission to create files in its project
directory and the intention is to log to the console, anyway. By
commenting out the file names, appservice-irc won't attempt to open the
files.
This means we need to explicitly specify a `media_url` now,
because without it, `url` would be used for building public URLs to
files/images. That doesn't work when `url` is not a public URL.
Until now, if `--tags=setup-synapse` was used, bridge tasks would not
run and bridges would fail to register with the `matrix-synapse` role.
This means that Synapse's configuration would be generated with an empty
list of appservices (`app_service_config_files: []`).
.. and then bridges would fail, because Synapse would not be aware of
there being any bridges.
From now on, bridges always run their init tasks and always register
with Synapse.
For the Telegram bridge, the same applies to registering with
matrix-nginx-proxy. Previously, running `--tags=setup-nginx-proxy` would
get rid of the Telegram endpoint configuration for the same reason.
Not anymore.
With most people on Synapse v0.99+ and Synapse v1.0 now available,
we should no longer try to be backward compatible with Synapse 0.34,
because this just complicates the instructions for no good reason.
Using `|to_json` on a string is expected to correctly wrap it in quotes (e.g. `"4"`).
Wrapping it explicitly in double-quotes results in undesirable double-quoting (`""4""`).
We do use some `:latest` images by default for the following services:
- matrix-dimension
- Goofys (in the matrix-synapse role)
- matrix-bridge-appservice-irc
- matrix-bridge-appservice-discord
- matrix-bridge-mautrix-facebook
- matrix-bridge-mautrix-whatsapp
It's terribly unfortunate that those software projects don't release
anything other than `:latest`, but that's how it is for now.
Updating that software requires that users manually do `docker pull`
on the server. The playbook didn't force-repull images that it already
had.
With this patch, it starts doing so. Any image tagged `:latest` will be
force re-pulled by the playbook every time it's executed.
It should be noted that even though we ask the `docker_image` module to
force-pull, it only reports "changed" when it actually pulls something
new. This is nice, because it lets people know exactly when something
gets updated, as opposed to giving the indication that it's always
updating the images (even though it isn't).
Previously, it only mentioned exposing for psql-usage purposes.
Realistically, it can be used for much more. Especially given that
psql can be easily accessed via our matrix-postgres-cli script,
without exposing the container port.
We log to journald anyway. There's no need for double-logging.
It should not that matrix-synapse logs to journald and to files,
but that's likely to change in the future as well.
Because Synapse's logs are insanely verbose right now (and may get
dropped by journald), it's more reliable to have file-logging too.
As Synapse matures and gets more stable, logging should hopefully
get less, we should be able to only use journald and stop writing to
files for it as well.
Using a separate directory allows easier backups
(only need to back up the Ansible playbook configuration and the
bridge's `./data` directory).
The playbook takes care of migrating an existing database file
from the base directory into the `./data` directory.
In the future, we can also mount the configuration read-only,
to ensure the bridge won't touch it.
For now, mautrix-facebook is keen on rebuilding the `config.yaml`
file on startup though, so this will have to wait.
Related to #193, but for the Facebook bridge.
(other bridges can be changed to do the same later).
This patch makes the bridge configuration entirely managed by the
Ansible playbook. The bridge's `config.yaml` and `registration.yaml`
configuration files are regenerated every time the playbook runs.
This allows us to apply updates to those files and to avoid
people having to manage the configuration files manually on the server.
-------------------------------------------------------------
A deficiency of the current approach to dumping YAML configuration in
`config.yaml` is that we strip all comments from it.
Later on, when the bridge actually starts, it will load and redump
(this time with comments), which will make the `config.yaml` file
change.
Subsequent playbook runs will report "changed" for the
"Ensure mautrix-facebook config.yaml installed" task, which is a little
strange.
We might wish to improve this in the future, if possible.
Still, it's better to have a (usually) somewhat meaningless "changed"
task than to what we had -- never rebuilding the configuration.
Bridges start matrix-synapse.service as a dependency, but
Synapse is sometimes slow to start, while bridges are quick to
hit it and die (if unavailable).
They'll auto-restart later, but .. this still breaks `--tags=start`,
which doesn't wait long enough for such a restart to happen.
This attempts to slow down bridge startup enough to ensure Synapse
is up and no failures happen at all.
Attempt to fix#192 (Github Issue), potential regression since
70487061f4.
Serializing as JSON/YAML explicitly is much better than relying on
magic (well, Python serialization being valid YAML..).
It seems like Python may prefix strings with `u` sometimes (Python 3?),
which causes Python serialization to not be compatible with YAML.
This doesn't replace all usage of `-v`, but it's a start.
People sometimes troubleshoot by deleting files (especially bridge
config files). Restarting Synapse with a missing registration.yaml file
for a given bridge, causes the `-v
/something/registration.yaml:/something/registration.yaml:ro` option
to force-create `/something/registration.yaml` as a directory.
When a path that's provided to the `-v` option is missing, Docker
auto-creates that path as a directory.
This causes more breakage and confusion later on.
We'd rather fail, instead of magically creating directories.
Using `--mount`, instead of `-v` is the solution to this.
From Docker's documentation:
> When you use --mount with type=bind, the host-path must refer to an existing path on the host.
> The path will not be created for you and the service will fail with an error if the path does not exist.
Related to #189 (Github Issue).
People had proxying problems if:
- they used the whole playbook (including the `matrix-nginx-proxy` role)
- and they were disabling the proxy (`matrix_nginx_proxy_enabled: false`)
- and they were proxying with their own nginx server
For them,
`matrix_nginx_proxy_proxy_matrix_additional_server_configuration_blocks`
would not be modified to inject the necessary proxying configuration.
While using certbot means we'll have both files retrieved,
it's actually the fullchain.pem file that we use in nginx configuration.
Using that one for the check makes more sense.
Reasoning is the same as for matrix-org/synapse#5023.
For us, the journal used to contain `docker` for all services, which
is not very helpful when looking at them all together (`journalctl -f`).
The goal is to move each bridge into its own separate role.
This commit starts off the work on this with 2 bridges:
- mautrix-telegram
- mautrix-whatsapp
Each bridge's role (including these 2) is meant to:
- depend only on the matrix-base role
- integrate nicely with the matrix-synapse role (if available)
- integrate nicely with the matrix-nginx-proxy role (if available and if
required). mautrix-telegram bridge benefits from integrating with
it.
- not break if matrix-synapse or matrix-nginx-proxy are not used at all
This has been provoked by #174 (Github Issue).
As discussed in #151 (Github Pull Request), it's
a good idea to not selectively apply casting, but to do it in all
cases involving arithmetic operations.
Previously, we'd show an error like this:
{"changed": false, "item": null, "msg": "Detected an undefined required variable"}
.. which didn't mention the variable name
(`matrix_ssl_lets_encrypt_support_email`).
Looks like we may not have to do this,
since 1.4.2 fixes edge cases for people who used the broken
1.4.0 release.
We jumped straight to 1.4.1, so maybe we're okay.
Still, upgrading anyway, just in case.
Use an int conversion in the computation of the value of
matrix_nginx_proxy_tmp_directory_size_mb, to have the integer value
multiplied by 50 instead of having the string repeated 50 times.
It doesn't hurt to attempt renewal more frequently, as it only does
real work if it's actually necessary.
Reloading, we postpone some more, because certbot adds some random delay
(between 1 and 8 * 60 seconds) when renewing. We want to ensure
we reload at least 8 minutes later, which wasn't the case.
To make it even safer (in case future certbot versions use a longer
delay), we reload a whole hour later. We're in no rush to start using
the new certificates anyway, especially given that we attempt renewal
often.
Somewhat fixes#146 (Github Issue)
The code used to check for a `homeserver.yaml` file and generate
a configuration (+ key) only if such a configuration file didn't exist.
Certain rare cases (setting up with one server name and then
changing to another) lead to `homeserver.yaml` being there,
but a `matrix.DOMAIN.signing.key` file missing (because the domain
changed).
A new signing key file would never get generated, because `homeserver.yaml`'s
existence used to be (incorrectly) satisfactory for us.
From now on, we don't mix things up like that.
We don't care about `homeserver.yaml` anymore, but rather
about the actual signing key.
The rest of the configuration (`homeserver.yaml` and
`matrix.DOMAIN.log.config`) is rebuilt by us in any case, so whether
it exists or not is irrelevant and doesn't need checking.
- matrix_enable_room_list_search - Controls whether searching the public room list is enabled.
- matrix_alias_creation_rules - Controls who's allowed to create aliases on this server.
- matrix_room_list_publication_rules - Controls who can publish and which rooms can be published in the public room list.
`{% matrix_s3_media_store_custom_endpoint_enabled %}` should have
been `{% if matrix_s3_media_store_custom_endpoint_enabled %}` instead.
Related to #132 (Github Pull Request).
In most cases, there's not really a need to touch the system
firewall, as Docker manages iptables by itself
(see https://docs.docker.com/network/iptables/).
All ports exposed by Docker containers are automatically whitelisted
in iptables and wired to the correct container.
This made installing firewalld and whitelisting ports pointless,
as far as this playbook's services are concerned.
People that wish to install firewalld (for other reasons), can do so
manually from now on.
This is inspired by and fixes#97 (Github Issue).
Fixes#129 (Github Issue).
Unfortunately, we rely on `service_facts`, which is only available
in Ansible >= 2.5.
There's little reason to stick to an old version such as Ansible 2.4:
- some time has passed since we've raised version requirements - it's
time to move into the future (a little bit)
- we've recently (in 82b4640072) improved the way one can run
Ansible in a Docker container
From now on, Ansible >= 2.5 is required.
