Setting up Cactus Comments (optional)

The playbook can install and configure the Cactus Comments system for you.

Cactus Comments is a federated comment system built on Matrix. It respects your privacy, and puts you in control.

See the project's documentation to learn what it does and why it might be useful to you.

The playbook contains 2 roles for configuring different pieces of the Cactus Comments system:

matrix-cactus-comments - the backend appservice integrating with the Matrix homeserver
matrix-cactus-comments-client - a static website server serving the cactus-client static assets (cactus.js and styles.css)

You can enable whichever component you need (typically both).

Configuration

To enable Cactus Comments, add the following configuration to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.example.com/vars.yml file:

#################
## Cactus Comments ##
#################

# This enables the backend (appservice)
matrix_cactus_comments_enabled: true

# To allow guest comments without users needing to log in, you need to have guest registration enabled.
# To do this you need to uncomment one of the following lines (depending if you are using Synapse or Dendrite as a homeserver)
# If you don't know which one you use: The default is Synapse ;)
# matrix_synapse_allow_guest_access: true
# matrix_dendrite_allow_guest_access: true

# This enables client assets static files serving on `https://matrix.example.com/cactus-comments`.
# When the backend (appservice) is enabled, this is also enabled automatically,
# but we explicitly enable it here.
matrix_cactus_comments_client_enabled: true

Adjusting the Cactus Comments' client URL

By default, this playbook installs Cactus Comments' client on the matrix. subdomain, at the /cactus-comments path (https://matrix.example.com/cactus-comments). This makes it easy to install it, because it doesn't require additional DNS records to be set up. If that's okay, you can skip this section.

By tweaking the matrix_cactus_comments_client_hostname and matrix_cactus_comments_client_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 inventory/host_vars/matrix.example.com/vars.yml file:

# Change the default hostname and path prefix to host the client assets at a different location
# These variables are used only if (`matrix_cactus_comments_client_enabled: true`)
matrix_cactus_comments_client_hostname: cactus.example.com
matrix_cactus_comments_client_path_prefix: /

Adjusting DNS records

If you've changed the default hostname, you may need to adjust your DNS records to point the Cactus Comments' client domain to the Matrix server.

See Configuring DNS for details about DNS changes.

If you've decided to use the default hostname, you won't need to do any extra DNS configuration.

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,ensure-matrix-users-created,start

Notes:

The ensure-matrix-users-created playbook tag makes the playbook automatically create the bot's user account.
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.

Usage

Upon starting Cactus Comments, a bot.cactusbot user account is created automatically.

To get started, send help to the @bot.cactusbot:example.com bot to confirm it's working.

Then, register a site by sending register <YourSiteName> (where <YourSiteName> is a unique identifier you choose. It does not have to match your domain). You will then be invited into a moderation room.

Now you are good to go and can embed the comment section on your website!

Embed Cactus Comments

The official documentation provides a useful guide to embed Cactus Comments on your website.

After including the JavaScript and CSS asset files, insert a <div> where you'd like to display the comment section:

<div id="comment-section"></div>

Then, you need to initialize the comment section. Make sure to replace example.com with your base domain and <YourSiteName> with the one that has been registered above:

<script>
initComments({
  node: document.getElementById("comment-section"),
  defaultHomeserverUrl: "https://matrix.example.com:8448",
  serverName: "example.com",
  siteName: "<YourSiteName>",
  commentSectionId: "1"
})
</script>

Adjust the domain name for self-hosting

To have the assets served from your homeserver (not from cactus.chat), you need to adjust the domain name on the official documentation.

Make sure to replace example.com with your base domain before you include the following lines, instead of the one provided by the official documentation:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://matrix.example.com/cactus-comments/cactus.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://matrix.example.com/cactus-comments/style.css" type="text/css">

Note: if the matrix_cactus_comments_client_hostname and matrix_cactus_comments_client_path_prefix variables are tweaked, you would need to adjust the URLs of the assets accordingly.

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