Matrix Synapse custom homeserver deploy

 

In previous post Matrix server with self build Element-Web was described a procedure how to prepare Linux server with local docker images registry. Now we use prepared infrastructure to deploy Synapse server from custom docker image built from source.

Matrix is an open source project that publishes the Matrix open standard for secure, decentralized, real-time communication, and its Apache licensed reference implementations.

Synapse: Matrix homeserver implementation developed by the matrix.org core team written in Python 3/Twisted.

Get Synapse sources from github:

$ git clone https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse

Buildkit

Synapse docker image build using BuildKit: Build images with BuildKit

Download latest BuildKit release from github: BuildKit releases

Unpack release binary archive to ./bin local directory:

$ userrepo@repo:~$ ls -1 ./bin/
buildctl
buildkitd
...

Start BuildKit service:

$ sudo buildkitd &

Add DOCKER_BUILDKIT environment variable to user profile:

$ vim ~/.profile
export DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1

Build docker image:

userrepo@repo:~$ cd synapse
userrepo@repo:~/synapse$ docker build -f docker/Dockerfile .
[+] Building 164.5s (17/17) FINISHED

Check built image:

userrepo@repo:~/synapse$ docker images
REPOSITORY                  TAG         IMAGE ID       CREATED         SIZE
<none>                      <none>      40ba633c40c9   2 minutes ago   344MB
python                      3.9-slim    651ad4293c49   9 hours ago     125MB

Build image with (e.g. Jenkins) automation shell command for pipeline. Build with repo:5000/mysynapse:latest tag:

date
cd /home/userrepo/synapse
export DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1
docker build -t repo:5000/mysynapse:latest -f docker/Dockerfile .
echo "Synapse build successful!"

Check built tagged image:

userrepo@repo:~/synapse$ docker images                                       
REPOSITORY                  TAG         IMAGE ID       CREATED          SIZE 
repo:5000/mysynapse         latest      40ba633c40c9   10 minutes ago   344MB

Push image to local registry:

$ docker push repo:5000/mysynapse:latest

Ansible playbook

Get matrix ansible deploy scripts from github:

$ git clone https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
$ cd matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

Edit ansible synapse role script config:

$ vim ./roles/matrix-synapse/defaults/main.yml

matrix_synapse_enabled: true
matrix_synapse_container_image_self_build: true
matrix_synapse_container_image_self_build_repo: "ssh://repo/git-server/repos/synapse.git"

matrix_synapse_docker_image: "{{ matrix_synapse_docker_image_name_prefix }}mysynapse:{{ matrix_synapse_docker_image_tag }}"
matrix_synapse_docker_image_name_prefix: 'repo:5000/'

matrix_synapse_version: latest

Change remote host domain and IP in ansible inventory config file:

userrepo@repo:~/$ vim ./matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/inventory/hosts

Run ansible script locally to deploy matrix services on remote host:

$ cd ~/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/
$ ansible-playbook -K -i inventory/hosts setup.yml --tags=setup-all,start

Ansible script will connect to remote server over SSH using ssh access key. Option -K was added for request password to get sudo privileges on remote host.

The script will run several docker containers. Connections to TURN server, Proxy and DB are shown on picture below:

- Nginx web-server will be used as a reverse proxy to connect matrix clients from public Internet. 

- PostgreSQL DB store user data.

- Coturn server used to traverse NAT for VoIP/Video calls.