README.rst

Contents

• Introduction
• About Matrix
• Synapse Installation
• Using PostgreSQL
• Running Synapse
• Platform Specific Instructions
  • ArchLinux
  • Windows Install
• Troubleshooting
  • Troubleshooting Installation
  • Troubleshooting Running
    • ArchLinux
• Synapse Development
• Upgrading an existing Synapse
• Setting up Federation
  • Running a Demo Federation of Synapses
• Running The Demo Web Client
  • Registering A New Account
  • Logging In To An Existing Account
• Identity Servers
• Where's the spec?!
• Building Internal API Documentation

Introduction

Matrix is an ambitious new ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and VoIP. The basics you need to know to get up and running are:

• Everything in Matrix happens in a room. Rooms are distributed and do not exist on any single server. Rooms can be located using convenience aliases like #matrix:matrix.org or #test:localhost:8448.
• Matrix user IDs look like @matthew:matrix.org (although in the future you will normally refer to yourself and others using a 3PID: email address, phone number, etc rather than manipulating Matrix user IDs)

The overall architecture is:

client <----> homeserver <=====================> homeserver <----> client
       https://somewhere.org/_matrix      https://elsewhere.net/_matrix

#matrix:matrix.org is the official support room for Matrix, and can be accessed by the web client at http://matrix.org/beta or via an IRC bridge at irc://irc.freenode.net/matrix.

Synapse is currently in rapid development, but as of version 0.5 we believe it is sufficiently stable to be run as an internet-facing service for real usage!

About Matrix

Matrix specifies a set of pragmatic RESTful HTTP JSON APIs as an open standard, which handle:

• Creating and managing fully distributed chat rooms with no single points of control or failure
• Eventually-consistent cryptographically secure synchronisation of room state across a global open network of federated servers and services
• Sending and receiving extensible messages in a room with (optional) end-to-end encryption[1]
• Inviting, joining, leaving, kicking, banning room members
• Managing user accounts (registration, login, logout)
• Using 3rd Party IDs (3PIDs) such as email addresses, phone numbers, Facebook accounts to authenticate, identify and discover users on Matrix.
• Placing 1:1 VoIP and Video calls

These APIs are intended to be implemented on a wide range of servers, services and clients, letting developers build messaging and VoIP functionality on top of the entirely open Matrix ecosystem rather than using closed or proprietary solutions. The hope is for Matrix to act as the building blocks for a new generation of fully open and interoperable messaging and VoIP apps for the internet.

Synapse is a reference "homeserver" implementation of Matrix from the core development team at matrix.org, written in Python/Twisted for clarity and simplicity. It is intended to showcase the concept of Matrix and let folks see the spec in the context of a codebase and let you run your own homeserver and generally help bootstrap the ecosystem.

In Matrix, every user runs one or more Matrix clients, which connect through to a Matrix homeserver which stores all their personal chat history and user account information - much as a mail client connects through to an IMAP/SMTP server. Just like email, you can either run your own Matrix homeserver and control and own your own communications and history or use one hosted by someone else (e.g. matrix.org) - there is no single point of control or mandatory service provider in Matrix, unlike WhatsApp, Facebook, Hangouts, etc.

Synapse ships with two basic demo Matrix clients: webclient (a basic group chat web client demo implemented in AngularJS) and cmdclient (a basic Python command line utility which lets you easily see what the JSON APIs are up to).

Meanwhile, iOS and Android SDKs and clients are available from:

• https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-ios-sdk
• https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-ios-kit
• https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-ios-console
• https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-android-sdk

We'd like to invite you to join #matrix:matrix.org (via https://matrix.org/beta), run a homeserver, take a look at the Matrix spec at https://matrix.org/docs/spec and API docs at https://matrix.org/docs/api, experiment with the APIs and the demo clients, and report any bugs via https://matrix.org/jira.

Thanks for using Matrix!

[1] End-to-end encryption is currently in development

Synapse Installation

Synapse is the reference python/twisted Matrix homeserver implementation.

System requirements: - POSIX-compliant system (tested on Linux & OS X) - Python 2.7 - At least 512 MB RAM.

Synapse is written in python but some of the libraries is uses are written in C. So before we can install synapse itself we need a working C compiler and the header files for python C extensions.

Installing prerequisites on Ubuntu or Debian:

sudo apt-get install build-essential python2.7-dev libffi-dev \
                     python-pip python-setuptools sqlite3 \
                     libssl-dev python-virtualenv libjpeg-dev

Installing prerequisites on ArchLinux:

sudo pacman -S base-devel python2 python-pip \
               python-setuptools python-virtualenv sqlite3

Installing prerequisites on Mac OS X:

xcode-select --install
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install virtualenv

To install the synapse homeserver run:

virtualenv -p python2.7 ~/.synapse
source ~/.synapse/bin/activate
pip install --process-dependency-links https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tarball/master

This installs synapse, along with the libraries it uses, into a virtual environment under ~/.synapse. Feel free to pick a different directory if you prefer.

In case of problems, please see the _Troubleshooting section below.

Alternatively, Silvio Fricke has contributed a Dockerfile to automate the above in Docker at https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/silviof/docker-matrix/.

To set up your homeserver, run (in your virtualenv, as before):

cd ~/.synapse
python -m synapse.app.homeserver \
    --server-name machine.my.domain.name \
    --config-path homeserver.yaml \
    --generate-config

Substituting your host and domain name as appropriate.

This will generate you a config file that you can then customise, but it will also generate a set of keys for you. These keys will allow your Home Server to identify itself to other Home Servers, so don't lose or delete them. It would be wise to back them up somewhere safe. If, for whatever reason, you do need to change your Home Server's keys, you may find that other Home Servers have the old key cached. If you update the signing key, you should change the name of the key in the <server name>.signing.key file (the second word, which by default is , 'auto') to something different.

By default, registration of new users is disabled. You can either enable registration in the config by specifying enable_registration: true (it is then recommended to also set up CAPTCHA), or you can use the command line to register new users:

$ source ~/.synapse/bin/activate
$ register_new_matrix_user -c homeserver.yaml https://localhost:8448
New user localpart: erikj
Password:
Confirm password:
Success!

For reliable VoIP calls to be routed via this homeserver, you MUST configure a TURN server. See docs/turn-howto.rst for details.

Using PostgreSQL

As of Synapse 0.9, PostgreSQL is supported as an alternative to the SQLite database that Synapse has traditionally used for convenience and simplicity.

The advantages of Postgres include:

• significant performance improvements due to the superior threading and caching model, smarter query optimiser
• allowing the DB to be run on separate hardware
• allowing basic active/backup high-availability with a "hot spare" synapse pointing at the same DB master, as well as enabling DB replication in synapse itself.

The only disadvantage is that the code is relatively new as of April 2015 and may have a few regressions relative to SQLite.

For information on how to install and use PostgreSQL, please see docs/postgres.rst.

Running Synapse

To actually run your new homeserver, pick a working directory for Synapse to run (e.g. ~/.synapse), and:

cd ~/.synapse
source ./bin/activate
synctl start

Platform Specific Instructions

ArchLinux

The quickest way to get up and running with ArchLinux is probably with Ivan Shapovalov's AUR package from https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/matrix-synapse/, which should pull in all the necessary dependencies.

Alternatively, to install using pip a few changes may be needed as ArchLinux defaults to python 3, but synapse currently assumes python 2.7 by default:

pip may be outdated (6.0.7-1 and needs to be upgraded to 6.0.8-1 ):

sudo pip2.7 install --upgrade pip

You also may need to explicitly specify python 2.7 again during the install request:

pip2.7 install --process-dependency-links \
    https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tarball/master

If you encounter an error with lib bcrypt causing an Wrong ELF Class: ELFCLASS32 (x64 Systems), you may need to reinstall py-bcrypt to correctly compile it under the right architecture. (This should not be needed if installing under virtualenv):

sudo pip2.7 uninstall py-bcrypt
sudo pip2.7 install py-bcrypt

During setup of Synapse you need to call python2.7 directly again:

cd ~/.synapse
python2.7 -m synapse.app.homeserver \
  --server-name machine.my.domain.name \
  --config-path homeserver.yaml \
  --generate-config

...substituting your host and domain name as appropriate.

Windows Install

Synapse can be installed on Cygwin. It requires the following Cygwin packages:

• gcc
• git
• libffi-devel
• openssl (and openssl-devel, python-openssl)
• python
• python-setuptools

The content repository requires additional packages and will be unable to process uploads without them:

• libjpeg8
• libjpeg8-devel
• zlib

If you choose to install Synapse without these packages, you will need to reinstall pillow for changes to be applied, e.g. pip uninstall pillow pip install pillow --user

Troubleshooting:

• You may need to upgrade setuptools to get this to work correctly: pip install setuptools --upgrade.
• You may encounter errors indicating that ffi.h is missing, even with libffi-devel installed. If you do, copy the .h files: cp /usr/lib/libffi-3.0.13/include/*.h /usr/include
• You may need to install libsodium from source in order to install PyNacl. If you do, you may need to create a symlink to libsodium.a so ld can find it: ln -s /usr/local/lib/libsodium.a /usr/lib/libsodium.a

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting Installation

Synapse requires pip 1.7 or later, so if your OS provides too old a version and you get errors about error: no such option: --process-dependency-links you may need to manually upgrade it:

sudo pip install --upgrade pip

If pip crashes mid-installation for reason (e.g. lost terminal), pip may refuse to run until you remove the temporary installation directory it created. To reset the installation:

rm -rf /tmp/pip_install_matrix

pip seems to leak lots of memory during installation. For instance, a Linux host with 512MB of RAM may run out of memory whilst installing Twisted. If this happens, you will have to individually install the dependencies which are failing, e.g.:

pip install twisted