matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/docs/configuring-playbook-client-element-web.md

Configuring Element Web (optional)

By default, this playbook installs the Element Web Matrix client for you. If that's okay, you can skip this document.

If you'd like to stop the playbook installing the client, see the section below to check the configuration for disabling it.

💡 Note: the latest version of Element Web is also available on the web, hosted by 3rd parties. If you trust giving your credentials to the following 3rd party Single Page Applications, you can consider using it from there and avoiding the (small) overhead of self-hosting (by disabling Element Web):

• app.element.io, hosted by Element
• app.etke.cc, hosted by etke.cc

Adjusting DNS records

By default, this playbook installs Element Web on the element. subdomain (element.example.com) and requires you to create a CNAME record for element, which targets matrix.example.com.

When setting, replace example.com with your own.

Adjusting the playbook configuration

Themes

You can change the look of Element Web by pulling themes provided by the aaronraimist/element-themes project or defining your own themes manually.

Use themes by element-themes

To pull the themes from the element-themes project and use them for your Element Web instance, add the following configuration to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.example.com/vars.yml file:

matrix_client_element_themes_enabled: true

If the variable is set to true, all themes found in the repository specified with matrix_client_element_themes_repository_url will be installed and enabled automatically.

Note that for a custom theme to work well, all Element Web instances that you use must have the same theme installed.

Define themes manually

You can also define your own themes manually by adding and adjusting the following configuration to your vars.yml file:

# Controls the `setting_defaults.custom_themes` setting of the Element Web configuration.
matrix_client_element_setting_defaults_custom_themes: []

If you define your own themes with it and set matrix_client_element_themes_enabled to true for the themes by element-themes, your themes will be preserved as well.

If you make your own theme, we encourage you to submit it to the aaronraimist/element-themes project, so that the whole community could easily enjoy it.

Adjusting the Element Web URL (optional)

By tweaking the matrix_client_element_hostname and matrix_client_element_path_prefix variables, you can easily make the service available at a different hostname and/or path than the default one.

Example additional configuration for your vars.yml file:

# Switch to the domain used for Matrix services (`matrix.example.com`),
# so we won't need to add additional DNS records for Element Web.
matrix_client_element_hostname: "{{ matrix_server_fqn_matrix }}"

# Expose under the /element subpath
matrix_client_element_path_prefix: /element

After changing the domain, you may need to adjust your DNS records to point the Element domain to the Matrix server.

If you've decided to reuse the matrix. domain, you won't need to do any extra DNS configuration.

Extending the configuration

There are some additional things you may wish to configure about the component.

Take a look at:

• roles/custom/matrix-client-element/defaults/main.yml for some variables that you can customize via your vars.yml file
• roles/custom/matrix-client-element/templates/config.json.j2 for the component's default configuration. You can override settings (even those that don't have dedicated playbook variables) using the matrix_client_element_configuration_extension_json variable

For example, to override some Element Web settings, add the following configuration to your vars.yml file:

 # Your custom JSON configuration for Element Web should go to `matrix_client_element_configuration_extension_json`.
 # This configuration extends the default starting configuration (`matrix_client_element_configuration_default`).
 #
 # You can override individual variables from the default configuration, or introduce new ones.
 #
 # If you need something more special, you can take full control by
 # completely redefining `matrix_client_element_configuration_default`.
 #
matrix_client_element_configuration_extension_json: |
 {
 "disable_3pid_login": true,
 "disable_login_language_selector": true
 }

Disabling Element Web

If you'd like for the playbook to not install Element Web (or to uninstall it if it was previously installed), add the following configuration to your vars.yml file:

matrix_client_element_enabled: false

Installing

After configuring the playbook and potentially adjusting your DNS records, run the playbook with playbook tags as below:

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts setup.yml --tags=setup-all,start

The shortcut commands with the just program are also available: just install-all or just setup-all

just install-all is useful for maintaining your setup quickly (2x-5x faster than just setup-all) when its components remain unchanged. If you adjust your vars.yml to remove other components, you'd need to run just setup-all, or these components will still remain installed. Note these shortcuts run the ensure-matrix-users-created tag too.