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UPGRADE.rst 40.47 KiB

Upgrading Synapse

Before upgrading check if any special steps are required to upgrade from the version you currently have installed to the current version of Synapse. The extra instructions that may be required are listed later in this document.

  • If Synapse was installed using prebuilt packages, you will need to follow the normal process for upgrading those packages.

  • If Synapse was installed from source, then:

    1. Activate the virtualenv before upgrading. For example, if Synapse is installed in a virtualenv in ~/synapse/env then run:

      source ~/synapse/env/bin/activate
    2. If Synapse was installed using pip then upgrade to the latest version by running:

      pip install --upgrade matrix-synapse

      If Synapse was installed using git then upgrade to the latest version by running:

      git pull
      pip install --upgrade .
    3. Restart Synapse:

      ./synctl restart

To check whether your update was successful, you can check the running server version with:

# you may need to replace 'localhost:8008' if synapse is not configured
# to listen on port 8008.

curl http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v1/server_version

Rolling back to older versions

Rolling back to previous releases can be difficult, due to database schema changes between releases. Where we have been able to test the rollback process, this will be noted below.

In general, you will need to undo any changes made during the upgrade process, for example:

  • pip:

    source env/bin/activate
    # replace `1.3.0` accordingly:
    pip install matrix-synapse==1.3.0
  • Debian:

    # replace `1.3.0` and `stretch` accordingly:
    wget https://packages.matrix.org/debian/pool/main/m/matrix-synapse-py3/matrix-synapse-py3_1.3.0+stretch1_amd64.deb
    dpkg -i matrix-synapse-py3_1.3.0+stretch1_amd64.deb

Upgrading to v1.24.0

Custom OpenID Connect mapping provider breaking change

This release allows the OpenID Connect mapping provider to perform normalisation of the localpart of the Matrix ID. This allows for the mapping provider to specify different algorithms, instead of the [default way](https://matrix.org/docs/spec/appendices#mapping-from-other-character-sets).

If your Synapse configuration uses a custom mapping provider (oidc_config.user_mapping_provider.module is specified and not equal to synapse.handlers.oidc_handler.JinjaOidcMappingProvider) then you must ensure that map_user_attributes of the mapping provider performs some normalisation of the localpart returned. To match previous behaviour you can use the map_username_to_mxid_localpart function provided by Synapse. An example is shown below:

from synapse.types import map_username_to_mxid_localpart

class MyMappingProvider:
    def map_user_attributes(self, userinfo, token):
        # ... your custom logic ...
        sso_user_id = ...
        localpart = map_username_to_mxid_localpart(sso_user_id)

        return {"localpart": localpart}

Removal historical Synapse Admin API

Historically, the Synapse Admin API has been accessible under:

  • /_matrix/client/api/v1/admin
  • /_matrix/client/unstable/admin
  • /_matrix/client/r0/admin
  • /_synapse/admin/v1

The endpoints with /_matrix/client/* prefixes have been removed as of v1.24.0. The Admin API is now only accessible under:

  • /_synapse/admin/v1

The only exception is the /admin/whois endpoint, which is also available via the client-server API.

The deprecation of the old endpoints was announced with Synapse 1.20.0 (released on 2020-09-22) and makes it easier for homeserver admins to lock down external access to the Admin API endpoints.

Upgrading to v1.23.0

Structured logging configuration breaking changes

This release deprecates use of the structured: true logging configuration for structured logging. If your logging configuration contains structured: true then it should be modified based on the structured logging documentation.

The structured and drains logging options are now deprecated and should be replaced by standard logging configuration of handlers and formatters.

A future will release of Synapse will make using structured: true an error.

Upgrading to v1.22.0

ThirdPartyEventRules breaking changes

This release introduces a backwards-incompatible change to modules making use of ThirdPartyEventRules in Synapse. If you make use of a module defined under the third_party_event_rules config option, please make sure it is updated to handle the below change:

The http_client argument is no longer passed to modules as they are initialised. Instead, modules are expected to make use of the http_client property on the ModuleApi class. Modules are now passed a module_api argument during initialisation, which is an instance of ModuleApi. ModuleApi instances have a http_client property which acts the same as the http_client argument previously passed to ThirdPartyEventRules modules.

Upgrading to v1.21.0

Forwarding /_synapse/client through your reverse proxy

The reverse proxy documentation has been updated to include reverse proxy directives for /_synapse/client/* endpoints. As the user password reset flow now uses endpoints under this prefix, you must update your reverse proxy configurations for user password reset to work.

Additionally, note that the Synapse worker documentation has been updated to

state that the /_synapse/client/password_reset/email/submit_token endpoint can be handled

by all workers. If you make use of Synapse's worker feature, please update your reverse proxy configuration to reflect this change.

New HTML templates

A new HTML template, password_reset_confirmation.html, has been added to the synapse/res/templates directory. If you are using a custom template directory, you may want to copy the template over and modify it.

Note that as of v1.20.0, templates do not need to be included in custom template directories for Synapse to start. The default templates will be used if a custom template cannot be found.

This page will appear to the user after clicking a password reset link that has been emailed to them.

To complete password reset, the page must include a way to make a POST request to /_synapse/client/password_reset/{medium}/submit_token with the query parameters from the original link, presented as a URL-encoded form. See the file itself for more details.

Updated Single Sign-on HTML Templates

The saml_error.html template was removed from Synapse and replaced with the sso_error.html template. If your Synapse is configured to use SAML and a custom sso_redirect_confirm_template_dir configuration then any customisations of the saml_error.html template will need to be merged into the sso_error.html template. These templates are similar, but the parameters are slightly different:

  • The msg parameter should be renamed to error_description.
  • There is no longer a code parameter for the response code.
  • A string error parameter is available that includes a short hint of why a user is seeing the error page.

Upgrading to v1.18.0

Docker -py3 suffix will be removed in future versions

From 10th August 2020, we will no longer publish Docker images with the -py3 tag suffix. The images tagged with the -py3 suffix have been identical to the non-suffixed tags since release 0.99.0, and the suffix is obsolete.

On 10th August, we will remove the latest-py3 tag. Existing per-release tags (such as v1.18.0-py3) will not be removed, but no new -py3 tags will be added.

Scripts relying on the -py3 suffix will need to be updated.

Redis replication is now recommended in lieu of TCP replication

When setting up worker processes, we now recommend the use of a Redis server for replication. The old direct TCP connection method is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. See docs/workers.md for more details.

Upgrading to v1.14.0

This version includes a database update which is run as part of the upgrade, and which may take a couple of minutes in the case of a large server. Synapse will not respond to HTTP requests while this update is taking place.

Upgrading to v1.13.0

Incorrect database migration in old synapse versions

A bug was introduced in Synapse 1.4.0 which could cause the room directory to be incomplete or empty if Synapse was upgraded directly from v1.2.1 or earlier, to versions between v1.4.0 and v1.12.x.

This will not be a problem for Synapse installations which were:
  • created at v1.4.0 or later,
  • upgraded via v1.3.x, or
  • upgraded straight from v1.2.1 or earlier to v1.13.0 or later.

If completeness of the room directory is a concern, installations which are affected can be repaired as follows:

  1. Run the following sql from a psql or sqlite3 console:

    INSERT INTO background_updates (update_name, progress_json, depends_on) VALUES
       ('populate_stats_process_rooms', '{}', 'current_state_events_membership');
    
    INSERT INTO background_updates (update_name, progress_json, depends_on) VALUES
       ('populate_stats_process_users', '{}', 'populate_stats_process_rooms');
  2. Restart synapse.

New Single Sign-on HTML Templates

New templates (sso_auth_confirm.html, sso_auth_success.html, and sso_account_deactivated.html) were added to Synapse. If your Synapse is configured to use SSO and a custom sso_redirect_confirm_template_dir configuration then these templates will need to be copied from synapse/res/templates into that directory.

Synapse SSO Plugins Method Deprecation

Plugins using the complete_sso_login method of synapse.module_api.ModuleApi should update to using the async/await version complete_sso_login_async which includes additional checks. The non-async version is considered deprecated.

Rolling back to v1.12.4 after a failed upgrade

v1.13.0 includes a lot of large changes. If something problematic occurs, you may want to roll-back to a previous version of Synapse. Because v1.13.0 also includes a new database schema version, reverting that version is also required alongside the generic rollback instructions mentioned above. In short, to roll back to v1.12.4 you need to:

  1. Stop the server

  2. Decrease the schema version in the database:

    UPDATE schema_version SET version = 57;
  3. Downgrade Synapse by following the instructions for your installation method in the "Rolling back to older versions" section above.

Upgrading to v1.12.0

This version includes a database update which is run as part of the upgrade, and which may take some time (several hours in the case of a large server). Synapse will not respond to HTTP requests while this update is taking place.

This is only likely to be a problem in the case of a server which is participating in many rooms.

  1. As with all upgrades, it is recommended that you have a recent backup of your database which can be used for recovery in the event of any problems.

  2. As an initial check to see if you will be affected, you can try running the following query from the psql or sqlite3 console. It is safe to run it while Synapse is still running.

    SELECT MAX(q.v) FROM (
      SELECT (
        SELECT ej.json AS v
        FROM state_events se INNER JOIN event_json ej USING (event_id)
        WHERE se.room_id=rooms.room_id AND se.type='m.room.create' AND se.state_key=''
        LIMIT 1
      ) FROM rooms WHERE rooms.room_version IS NULL
    ) q;

    This query will take about the same amount of time as the upgrade process: ie, if it takes 5 minutes, then it is likely that Synapse will be unresponsive for 5 minutes during the upgrade.

    If you consider an outage of this duration to be acceptable, no further action is necessary and you can simply start Synapse 1.12.0.

    If you would prefer to reduce the downtime, continue with the steps below.

  3. The easiest workaround for this issue is to manually create a new index before upgrading. On PostgreSQL, his can be done as follows:

    CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY tmp_upgrade_1_12_0_index
    ON state_events(room_id) WHERE type = 'm.room.create';

    The above query may take some time, but is also safe to run while Synapse is running.

    We assume that no SQLite users have databases large enough to be affected. If you are affected, you can run a similar query, omitting the CONCURRENTLY keyword. Note however that this operation may in itself cause Synapse to stop running for some time. Synapse admins are reminded that SQLite is not recommended for use outside a test environment.

  4. Once the index has been created, the SELECT query in step 1 above should complete quickly. It is therefore safe to upgrade to Synapse 1.12.0.

  5. Once Synapse 1.12.0 has successfully started and is responding to HTTP requests, the temporary index can be removed:

    DROP INDEX tmp_upgrade_1_12_0_index;

Upgrading to v1.10.0

Synapse will now log a warning on start up if used with a PostgreSQL database that has a non-recommended locale set.

See docs/postgres.md for details.

Upgrading to v1.8.0

Specifying a log_file config option will now cause Synapse to refuse to start, and should be replaced by with the log_config option. Support for the log_file option was removed in v1.3.0 and has since had no effect.

Upgrading to v1.7.0

In an attempt to configure Synapse in a privacy preserving way, the default behaviours of allow_public_rooms_without_auth and allow_public_rooms_over_federation have been inverted. This means that by default, only authenticated users querying the Client/Server API will be able to query the room directory, and relatedly that the server will not share room directory information with other servers over federation.

If your installation does not explicitly set these settings one way or the other and you want either setting to be true then it will necessary to update your homeserver configuration file accordingly.

For more details on the surrounding context see our explainer.

Upgrading to v1.5.0

This release includes a database migration which may take several minutes to complete if there are a large number (more than a million or so) of entries in the devices table. This is only likely to a be a problem on very large installations.

Upgrading to v1.4.0

New custom templates

If you have configured a custom template directory with the email.template_dir option, be aware that there are new templates regarding registration and threepid management (see below) that must be included.

  • registration.html and registration.txt
  • registration_success.html and registration_failure.html
  • add_threepid.html and add_threepid.txt
  • add_threepid_failure.html and add_threepid_success.html

Synapse will expect these files to exist inside the configured template directory, and will fail to start if they are absent. To view the default templates, see synapse/res/templates.

3pid verification changes

Note: As of this release, users will be unable to add phone numbers or email addresses to their accounts, without changes to the Synapse configuration. This includes adding an email address during registration.

It is possible for a user to associate an email address or phone number with their account, for a number of reasons:

  • for use when logging in, as an alternative to the user id.
  • in the case of email, as an alternative contact to help with account recovery.
  • in the case of email, to receive notifications of missed messages.

Before an email address or phone number can be added to a user's account, or before such an address is used to carry out a password-reset, Synapse must confirm the operation with the owner of the email address or phone number. It does this by sending an email or text giving the user a link or token to confirm receipt. This process is known as '3pid verification'. ('3pid', or 'threepid', stands for third-party identifier, and we use it to refer to external identifiers such as email addresses and phone numbers.)

Previous versions of Synapse delegated the task of 3pid verification to an identity server by default. In most cases this server is vector.im or matrix.org.

In Synapse 1.4.0, for security and privacy reasons, the homeserver will no longer delegate this task to an identity server by default. Instead, the server administrator will need to explicitly decide how they would like the verification messages to be sent.

In the medium term, the vector.im and matrix.org identity servers will disable support for delegated 3pid verification entirely. However, in order to ease the transition, they will retain the capability for a limited period. Delegated email verification will be disabled on Monday 2nd December 2019 (giving roughly 2 months notice). Disabling delegated SMS verification will follow some time after that once SMS verification support lands in Synapse.

Once delegated 3pid verification support has been disabled in the vector.im and matrix.org identity servers, all Synapse versions that depend on those instances will be unable to verify email and phone numbers through them. There are no imminent plans to remove delegated 3pid verification from Sydent generally. (Sydent is the identity server project that backs the vector.im and matrix.org instances).

Email

Following upgrade, to continue verifying email (e.g. as part of the registration process), admins can either:-

  • Configure Synapse to use an email server.
  • Run or choose an identity server which allows delegated email verification and delegate to it.
Configure SMTP in Synapse

To configure an SMTP server for Synapse, modify the configuration section headed email, and be sure to have at least the smtp_host, smtp_port and notif_from fields filled out.

You may also need to set smtp_user, smtp_pass, and require_transport_security.

See the sample configuration file for more details on these settings.

Delegate email to an identity server

Some admins will wish to continue using email verification as part of the registration process, but will not immediately have an appropriate SMTP server at hand.

To this end, we will continue to support email verification delegation via the vector.im and matrix.org identity servers for two months. Support for delegated email verification will be disabled on Monday 2nd December.

The account_threepid_delegates dictionary defines whether the homeserver should delegate an external server (typically an identity server) to handle sending confirmation messages via email and SMS.

So to delegate email verification, in homeserver.yaml, set account_threepid_delegates.email to the base URL of an identity server. For example:

account_threepid_delegates:
    email: https://example.com     # Delegate email sending to example.com

Note that account_threepid_delegates.email replaces the deprecated email.trust_identity_server_for_password_resets: if email.trust_identity_server_for_password_resets is set to true, and account_threepid_delegates.email is not set, then the first entry in trusted_third_party_id_servers will be used as the account_threepid_delegate for email. This is to ensure compatibility with existing Synapse installs that set up external server handling for these tasks before v1.4.0. If email.trust_identity_server_for_password_resets is true and no trusted identity server domains are configured, Synapse will report an error and refuse to start.

If email.trust_identity_server_for_password_resets is false or absent and no email delegate is configured in account_threepid_delegates, then Synapse will send email verification messages itself, using the configured SMTP server (see above). that type.

Phone numbers

Synapse does not support phone-number verification itself, so the only way to maintain the ability for users to add phone numbers to their accounts will be by continuing to delegate phone number verification to the matrix.org and vector.im identity servers (or another identity server that supports SMS sending).

The account_threepid_delegates dictionary defines whether the homeserver should delegate an external server (typically an identity server) to handle sending confirmation messages via email and SMS.

So to delegate phone number verification, in homeserver.yaml, set account_threepid_delegates.msisdn to the base URL of an identity server. For example:

account_threepid_delegates:
    msisdn: https://example.com     # Delegate sms sending to example.com

The matrix.org and vector.im identity servers will continue to support delegated phone number verification via SMS until such time as it is possible for admins to configure their servers to perform phone number verification directly. More details will follow in a future release.

Rolling back to v1.3.1

If you encounter problems with v1.4.0, it should be possible to roll back to v1.3.1, subject to the following:

  • The 'room statistics' engine was heavily reworked in this release (see #5971), including significant changes to the database schema, which are not easily reverted. This will cause the room statistics engine to stop updating when you downgrade.

    The room statistics are essentially unused in v1.3.1 (in future versions of Synapse, they will be used to populate the room directory), so there should be no loss of functionality. However, the statistics engine will write errors to the logs, which can be avoided by setting the following in homeserver.yaml:

    stats:
      enabled: false

    Don't forget to re-enable it when you upgrade again, in preparation for its use in the room directory!

Upgrading to v1.2.0

Some counter metrics have been renamed, with the old names deprecated. See the metrics documentation for details.

Upgrading to v1.1.0

Synapse v1.1.0 removes support for older Python and PostgreSQL versions, as outlined in our deprecation notice.

Minimum Python Version

Synapse v1.1.0 has a minimum Python requirement of Python 3.5. Python 3.6 or Python 3.7 are recommended as they have improved internal string handling, significantly reducing memory usage.

If you use current versions of the Matrix.org-distributed Debian packages or Docker images, action is not required.

If you install Synapse in a Python virtual environment, please see "Upgrading to v0.34.0" for notes on setting up a new virtualenv under Python 3.

Minimum PostgreSQL Version

If using PostgreSQL under Synapse, you will need to use PostgreSQL 9.5 or above. Please see the PostgreSQL documentation for more details on upgrading your database.

Upgrading to v1.0

Validation of TLS certificates