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https://github.com/holgi/Synapse_On_Dokku

Install a Synapse / Matrix server on a Digital Ocean Droplet using Dock
https://github.com/holgi/Synapse_On_Dokku

Last synced: 14 days ago
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Install a Synapse / Matrix server on a Digital Ocean Droplet using Dock

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README 

        
Matrix / Synapse on digital ocean with dokku

============================================



Creating the dokku droplet and prepare everything for Synapse

-------------------------------------------------------------



Ceate a [dokku][dokku] droplet from [digital ocean marketplace][domarket] and

finish the set-up the droplet / dokku install according to the readme



Add a DNS entry for the newly created droplet and also an entry for the synapse

server pointing to the same IP. If you'd also like to install the

[Element-Web][ew] as a web-UI, add another entry for this service.



For example:



 | record type | domain             | value             | remarks                                    |

 | ----------- | ------------------ | ----------------- | ------------------------------------------ |

 | A           | dokku.example.org  |   | used for connecting to the droplet         |

 | CNAME       | matrix.example.org | dokku.example.org | the [Synapse][syn] server, matrix protocol |

 | CNAME       | chat.example.org   | dokku.example.org | the Element-Web frontend                   |



Connect to the droplet via ssh:



    #First step: make updates



    remote> apt-get update

    remote> apt-get --with-new-pkgs upgrade

    remote> apt-get autoremove

    remote> apt-get autoclean

    remote> reboot



Reconnect to the droplet via ssh:



    # add port 8448 to the firewall, this is needed for the matrix federation

    remote> ufw allow 8448/tcp



    # create the application

    # using 'matrix' as a name here for the correct virtual host entry later

    remote> dokku apps:create matrix



    # create a directory for persitent storage

    remote> mkdir -p /var/lib/dokku/data/storage/synapse-data



    # ensure the proper user has access to this directory

    remote> chown -R dokku:dokku /var/lib/dokku/data/storage/synapse-data



    # mount the directory into your container's /data directory

    remote> dokku storage:mount matrix /var/lib/dokku/data/storage/synapse-data:/data



    # install the dokku postgres plugin

    remote> dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-postgres.git



The next step is to create a postgres service and link it to the application



   

    # create a postgres service with the name synapsedb. Use --custom-env "LC_ALL=C" to set the postgres locale to 'C' (the default postgreSQL cluster locale)

    remote> dokku postgres:create synapsedb --custom-env "LC_ALL=C"



    #check if the datatbase was created successfully with the "C" locale

    remote> dokku postgres:enter synapsedb

    remote#synapsedb> psql -U postgres

    remote#postgres=# select datname, datcollate, datctype from pg_database;

    

We can now link the database to the application



    remote> dokku postgres:link synapsedb matrix



    # get the info on how to reach the database

    remote> dokku config:get matrix DATABASE_URL

    postgres://postgres:random_postgres_password@dokku-postgres-synapsedb:5432/synapsedb



Before we leave the remote, note the uid and gid for the dokku user and group - we'll need it in the next step



    remote> id dokku

    uid=1000(dokku) gid=1000(dokku) [...]



Setting up the config files for Synapse

---------------------------------------



Run synapse in docker locally to create the config files

and the private signing key in the image. Replace the UID and GID parameters

with the one from above and of cause adjust your server name ;-)



    local> docker run -it --rm \

    --mount type=volume,src=synapse-data,dst=/data \

    --mount type=volume,src=synapse-data,dst=/config \

    -e SYNAPSE_SERVER_NAME=matrix.example.org \

    -e SYNAPSE_REPORT_STATS=yes \

    -e SYNAPSE_CONFIG_DIR=/config \

    -e UID=1000 \

    -e GID=1000 \

    matrixdotorg/synapse:latest generate



Create a new directory with a git repo and add the files created in the

previous step: `homeserver.yaml`, `matrix.example.com.log.config` and

`maxtrix.example.com.signing.key`



Modify the `config_data/homeserver.yaml` on the local machine to reflect the

data from the postgres info:



    [...]

    # Example Postgres configuration:

    #

    database:

      name: psycopg2

      args:

        user: postgres

        password: random_postgres_password

        database: synapsedb

        host: dokku-postgres-synapsedb

        port: 5432

        cp_min: 5

        cp_max: 10

    #

    # For more information on using Synapse with Postgres, see `docs/postgres.md`.

    #

    # database:

    #   name: sqlite3

    #  args:

    #    database: /data/homeserver.db

    [...]



add the public base url to the file:



    public_baseurl: https://matrix.example.com/



and also add the basic mail settings in section `email`:



    # The hostname of the outgoing SMTP server to use. Defaults to 'localhost'.

    smtp_host: mail.example.com



    # The port on the mail server for outgoing SMTP. Defaults to 25.

    smtp_port: 587



    # Username/password for authentication to the SMTP server. By default, no

    # authentication is attempted.

    smtp_user: "exampleusername"

    smtp_pass: "examplepassword"



    # Uncomment the following to require TLS transport security for SMTP.

    # By default, Synapse will connect over plain text, and will then switch to

    # TLS via STARTTLS *if the SMTP server supports it*. If this option is set,

    # Synapse will refuse to connect unless the server supports STARTTLS.

    #

    require_transport_security: true



    # notif_from defines the "From" address to use when sending emails.

    # It must be set if email sending is enabled.

    #

    # The placeholder '%(app)s' will be replaced by the application name,

    # which is normally 'app_name' (below), but may be overridden by the

    # Matrix client application.

    #

    # Note that the placeholder must be written '%(app)s', including the

    # trailing 's'.

    #

    notif_from: "Your Friendly %(app)s homeserver "



Also adjust the log file path in `config_data/matrix.example.com.log.config`:



     filename: /data/homeserver.log



Now a dockerfile is needed for dokku: create a new file in the local git repo

named "Dockerfile" with the following content:



    # reference the latest synapse release

    FROM matrixdotorg/synapse:latest



    # set environment variables

    ENV SYNAPSE_SERVER_NAME matrix.example.org

    ENV SYNAPSE_REPORT_STATS yes

    ENV SYNAPSE_CONFIG_DIR /config

    ENV UID 1000

    ENV GID 1000



    # copy the right files to the right place

    ADD nginx.conf.sigil /

    ADD --chown=1000:1000 homeserver.yaml /config/

    ADD --chown=1000:1000 matrix.example.org.log.config /config/

    ADD --chown=1000:1000 matrix.example.org.signing.key /config/



Theoretically everything should be ok to deploy the repo to dokku for the first

time. But unfortunately one more file is missing in the repo.



For matrix to work nicely, the server on port 8448 must be considered as

"default_server" in the nginx config. Dokku uses "sigil" for templating and the

easiest would be to copy the file from this repo – I also added a ".well-known"

URL for matrix.



Deploying synapse with dokku

----------------------------



To deploy an app with dokku, xou just have to push a git repo to the right server url:



    # add dokku as remote

    local> git remote add dokku [email protected]:/matrix



    local> git add . && git commit -m "first deploy"



    # push the dockerfile

    local> git push dokku master



**WARNING**: Do not push a dokku deploy repo to a public repo since its config files might contain sensitive data like keys and passwords.



For the next step - acquiring a [let's encrypt][lets] certificate - we need a

working http server on port 80. therefore we'll forward the requests to port

8008. Nginx will automatically forward http to https requests as soon as we

have a certificate.



    # add a proxy on port 80

    remote> dokku proxy:ports-add matrix http:80:8008



Let's add let's encrypt



    # add let's encrypt dokku plugin

    remote> dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-letsencrypt.git



    # setup let's  encrypt for synapse

    remote> dokku config:set --no-restart matrix [email protected]

    remote> dokku letsencrypt:enable matrix



    # and enable automatic autorenewal

    remote> dokku letsencrypt:cron-job --add



After Let's encrypt works, we need to adjust port 8448 from http to https



    # switch proxy port 8448 to https

    remote> dokku proxy:ports-remove matrix 8448

    remote> dokku proxy:ports-add matrix https:8448:8008



If you now visit http://matrix.example.org you should see something \o/



Let's create the first user:



    remote> dokku enter matrix

    remote#matrix> register_new_matrix_user -c /config/homeserver.yaml http://localhost:8008



This will prompt you for the new user details:



    New user localpart [root]: johndoe

    Password:

    Confirm password:

    Make admin [no]: yes

    Sending registration request...

    Success!



Hopfully, the last line is right...



If you visit https://matrix.example.org you should see a welcome page from

Synapse.



Optional: add Element-Web as web frontend to synapse

----------------------------------------------------



This is so much less work than getting synapse to run - some of the

foundational work was alredy done.



First we need a new / second local git repo for Synapse. the repo just needs

two files: a docker file für dokku and a `config.json`.



The docker file is quite simple:



    FROM vectorim/element-web



    ADD config.json /app/config.json



As for the config file, there is an example file available at

https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/blob/develop/config.sample.json

that just needs some minor adjustments (and a renaming to `config.json`):



The most important thing is to set the base url and server name.



    "base_url": "https://matrix.example.org",

    "server_name": "matrix.example.org"



The [documentation][edoc] for the config file is quite extensive, make

adjustments as you like.



everything should be prepared now to deploy Element-Web to dokku. As a first step add a new dokku app:



    # create the deployment app

    # the name will also be the virtual host name later - here "chat" is used

    # (take a look again at the top of the readme at the dns entries)

    remote> dokku apps:create chat



The next step is to deploy the app:



    # add dokku as remote

    local> git remote add dokku [email protected]:/chat



    local> git add . && git commit -m "first deploy"



    # push the dockerfile

    local> git push chat master



Only one thing is left: add a Let's Encrypt certificate.



    # setup let's  encrypt for element web

    remote> dokku config:set --no-restart chat [email protected]

    remote> dokku letsencrypt:enable chat



If you now visit https://chat.example.org, you should be able to log in to your

matrix / synapse server and start chatting \o/.



[ew]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/element

[domarket]: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/dokku

[dokku]: https://dokku.com

[lets]: https://letsencrypt.org

[syn]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/

[edoc]: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/blob/develop/docs/config.md