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Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

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Re: Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

#91

Post by wkat4242 »

pferde wrote: post #84
wkat4242 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, though you do still have to expose it to the internet unless you use a VPN. I'd prefer something with less of an attack service especially because bridges don't currently encrypt, but I host behind vpn now.

That's not a fair criticism. Of course you need to expose the server to the network clients are going to be connecting from. Whether that is Internet or just a LAN, that's orthogonal to the protocol. I've also had an intra-company Matrix server running completely on a company internal LAN, with no Internet access, so there is no inherent need for it to be on The Internet.

Yes but even for a web service the attack surface is pretty big. Lots of obscure URLs and the code isn't that clean either.

Re: Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

#92

Post by 3np »

Arathorn wrote: post #67

There's a bunch of outdated info in here, unfortunately: > Does not have an admin panel The admin panel is at https://github.com/element-hq/element-admin (but it's relatively new, so many folks haven't noticed it exists) > No image captions > > This is silly, but while (official?) bridges support image captions, official Element app does not. Element Web & X support captions. (Element Web doesn't currently support au…

> > Onboarding is bad

> Sorry, but you have to run an auth server (matrix-authentication-service) if you want Element X to work.

This is a bit outrageous IMO. Actually breaking and deprecating the classic auth and requiring a new server component to keep the only actively supported client (which still can't properly manage keys or sessions on its own, like classic Element can, even as non-verified sessions are being disabled) is a bit rich.

Re: Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

#93

Post by this_user »

tcfhgj wrote: post #21
Jnr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XMPP felt great when compared to Matrix. Matrix was in a bad state some years ago when I hosted it for a while, and seems like it still is the same messy state. I avoid it as much as possible but for some reason there are communities using it. At this point it should just die so people would be motivated to replace it with something better.

People are motivated to replace it with something better, it's called Matrix 2.0.

Which perfectly fits the Matrix ethos of everything constantly being rewritten or replaced with something new that only implements half the features before the original thing is ever finished.

Re: Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

#94

Post by AAAAaccountAAAA »

lousken wrote: post #78
0x1ch wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever is going on in Matrix land isn't stable enough for most people to switch. I gave up after they broke their calling system after changing something to this livekit system. It doesn't work, my existing TURN server became useless, and Matrix was left as a very slow chat application. I'm over it.

I don't plan to give up just yet. Switching is way too difficult and I don't see many platforms having both solid desktop and mobile versions with e2ee. But if they dare rewriting anything again from scratch I am leaving. They MUST stick with what they have and make it good at this point.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z0ULOptq2vk&pp=0gcJCR4Bo7VqN5t...

They seem to plan to rewrite the desktop client next.

Re: Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

#95

Post by upofadown »

tenthirtyam wrote: post #24
dust-jacket wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I thought this was a weird take too. Too often people take privacy for "I can do what I like". IMO deleting something you've sent to someone else is not a privacy concern at all.

IIRC it is possible to have some clever encryption so that the person you sent your message to can prove to their own satisfaction that it came from you, but they cannot prove to anyone else that it came from you. Which gives you plausible deniability; you can always claim that your contact forged the message. Can't remember what the algorithm is called.

No particular name. Just deniability. I personally like to call this particular scheme, deniability through claimed forgery. Not particularly clever. You just provide your correspondent with what they need to forge your messages after the end of the session.

I don't know if it actually could work in practice:

https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:repudiability

Re: Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

#96

Post by The_President »

Arathorn wrote: post #74
The_President wrote: post #47

Ran a homeserver for 5 years on a minimal VPS and it worked fine. Upsides - works everywhere, self hosted, feature complete. Client software in the ecosystem mostly felt bloated, with the exception of NeoChat. By 2022 the clients could no longer call each other. Decommissioned it this year in favor of traditional XMPP which works fine and it's nice that notifications are appropriately processed, finally. Our team hig…

We did address the elephant eventually with https://github.com/element-hq/element-admin a few months ago. In terms of VoIP interop - yes, one of the worst bits of Matrix is that the legacy 1:1 VoIP calling is not interoperable with MatrixRTC-based (multiparty) VoIP calling, but we ran out of time/cash to implement interop and instead focused on making MatrixRTC work well. (Does XMPP give you E2EE multiparty calling o…

Another cashflow idea, as if you don't think of many yourself: A white-label version of Element (called something else) that can be deployed as scoped to an organization and based on an LTS release schedule. We'd gladly pay for this.

Re: Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

#97

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

The_President wrote: post #47

Ran a homeserver for 5 years on a minimal VPS and it worked fine. Upsides - works everywhere, self hosted, feature complete. Client software in the ecosystem mostly felt bloated, with the exception of NeoChat. By 2022 the clients could no longer call each other. Decommissioned it this year in favor of traditional XMPP which works fine and it's nice that notifications are appropriately processed, finally. Our team hig…

Thanks for mentioning XMPP. I never ran a server, but as a user I've been enjoying it. Also has its problems - for example, I picked some server to create my first account, and the other day the server disappeared for 6 hours. What do normal users (i.e. non-newbies like me) do in practice in these situations?

That said, I would love to hear your experience running an XMPP server. Do you still run it?

Re: Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

#98

Post by omnimus »

Aurornis wrote: post #65

> While technically, Synapse can work with a sqlite database (and which at first seems like an OK choice for having Does anyone have any more information on this? Running Postgres is not a big deal, but I would expect SQLite to be fine given how well it works in my experience.

I've been running unfederated Matrix instance with sqlite for 10 years for 10-20 people some very active. In WAL mode sqlite is fine i am not sure why it would get corrupted.

Few years ago we did a data/history wipe (i managed to migrate accounts) because we switched to conduit.rs with sqlite. I very much prefer conduit to synapse.

I never had issue with sqlite it was mostly Synapse. With recent changes i think they are completely dropping the ball on small instances and it feels like the ecosystem is splitting. Element X is just not very good. It seems to exist to kill classic element and since for element x you need some server features that not all alternative synapse servers support.

Re: Self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years

#100

Post by XorNot »

zenmac wrote: post #48
broken-kebab wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A protocol can mandate forced deletion. A particular client implementation may ignore it, or some users may circumvent it, so it would be a weaker kind of feature, but still a feature. And depending on circumstances it can be quite useful.

People should related to anything federated like email. If you send something it is in someone else's computer now. With matrix or any e2ee protocols it is depending on pinky promise of the client to modify it. I thought the whole Snapchat fiasco already taught us that. Did we forget?

There's a difference between "I have an active adversarial actor" as a security model and "sometimes I send something I don't want to and want to delete it, the people watching are friends and acquaintances and are not deliberately preprepared to collect kompromat".

When I delete a message off Signal chat, the expectation is that the chat members are agreeing by social contract to abide by that.

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