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If I'm not mistaken, with Matrix you do not have to run a front-end per se. I believe you can simply setup a matrix home server, and then interact via an open

by mxuribe 10y ago

If I'm not mistaken, with Matrix you do not have to run a front-end per se. I believe you can simply setup a matrix home server, and then interact via an open source mobile/desktop/web application. This is not unlike old school email, where you can host your own email server, but manage email via any mobile/web/desktop email clients (of which you don't need to host the client side) . For example, I'm running a private (matrix) synapse home server for ONLY my family; as a test. I only interact via the mobile (open source) riot application (formerly named vector.im), though they do also offer a web application at https://riot.im https://riot.im . I simply point the client to my server's (appropriate matrix) url, and am off to the races - again internally for my family and I only at this point. My plan eventually is to keep running my own matrix home server, and open it up so that my family and I keep using any old client (like https://riot.im https://riot.im or whatever) BUT begin to interact with other users using matrix clients/servers, etc. My understanding is that what you wish to do ("...I'm the only user, but I want to integrate into the network") is actually quite common for folks beginning to use matrix. Give this a look-see: http://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html http://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html Alternatively - less ideal of course but - you can always lurk around on certain matrix-related rooms on the first/original matrix.org home server, and ask questions (on how you can set up your own server, etc.). Because I'm still in my own test phase, that's what I'm doing. Here are a few channels (via riot.im): * https://riot.im/app/#/room/#matrix:matrix.org https://riot.im/app/#/room/#matrix:matrix.org * https://riot.im/app/#/room/#riot:matrix.org https://riot.im/app/#/room/#riot:matrix.org * https://riot.im/app/#/room/#homeowners:matrix.org https://riot.im/app/#/room/#homeowners:matrix.org Good luck!

chriswarbo 10y ago
> If I'm not mistaken, with Matrix you do not have to run a front-end per se. I believe you can simply setup a matrix home server, and then interact via an open source mobile/desktop/web application. If by "front-end" you mean Web server, then as far as I'm aware none of these networks (GNU Social, pump.io, Matrix, XMPP, email, etc.) require one per se. The problem is finding an implementation which doesn't bundle one. Looking at the servers listed on matrix.org, it appears that Pallium makes this separation: you can run Pallium stand-alone, and connect to it using client applications (which may or may not be Web-based). Unfortunately, browsing the code for all of those servers, they all seem to include facilities for user registration, authentication, etc. Maybe that's a requirement of the way Matrix works? I know that, say, an IRC server which only allows a single user would be a lonely place, since chatrooms are hosted by a particular server which all participants must connect to (logically, at least; I know there are ways to implement redundancy like FreeNode does).
- mxuribe 10y ago
  Head on over to: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse#synapse-installation https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse#synapse-installation ...Then scroll to the last paragraph of this section, "...By default, registration of new users is disabled." The little command line method is what i used to manually register the (3) accounts for my family on my private matrix server. If you plan on using it only for yourself, it might be best to keep registration disabled, and only add yourself manually via the command line...and then you would be done. As far as "web server", I think i know what you mean now, and admittedly I have my private matrix home server running behind nginx...but that's only because I've set it up via DigitalOcean, and simply picked one of their pre-set "LEMP" server images. I believe others have installed/run a matrix home server without nginx or apache, etc. Again, since this is all just a test for my family, i literally went into my DigitalOcean account, generated a new droplet (what they call their virtual servers), and picked a "LEMP" pre-set server. From there, i went installing the synapse server. Because nginx was already installed, I did have to forward/proxy stuff from nginx to synapse...I fully expect to kill this test matrix server off. Now having lived this, I would not have picked the LEMP image, instead just use a basic linux server from DigitalOcean and then install synapse (and any associated requirements/dependencies), that way it doesn't have nginx/apache, etc. I have no experience with Pallium, but I suppose because there are several different implementations (python-based, Go-based, etc.) of the matrix homeserver, there could be different nuances for implementation. Side note: The DigitalOcean droplet that I'm using for my private test matrix home server is the $5/month version (w/512MB memory, 20GB storage). Once I create the production matrix homeserver for my family, I was thinking on using the next level up $10/month version (1GB memory, 30GB storage).
  - chriswarbo 10y ago
    > "...By default, registration of new users is disabled." It's good to know that it can be disabled, but I'm mostly concerned with attack surface, minimalism/hackability and not getting caught on an upgrade treadmill. At the moment my personal Web site is static, the Web UI to my git repos is static and read-only, pushing to those repos is done via SSH, I accept patches by email, etc. I'm hesistant to run anything dynamic at all, let alone something more complex than I need (e.g. a Web frontend) with the capability to perform destructive actions which I don't need (even if they're marked 'disabled'). It would be nice to have an Internet-facing server which only deals with untrusted data, accumulates incoming updates to a file (e.g. sqlite), pushes out posts from a queue (e.g. a directory) and serves the necessary public info when requested, maybe using static files for stuff like my profile. I can then read and write those files over SSH, maybe transforming them into some easy to consume format like maildir. Of course, the first rule of security is don't write it yourself, but this is beginning to sound like a nice weekend project :)

by mxuribe 10y ago

chriswarbo 10y ago

> If I'm not mistaken, with Matrix you do not have to run a front-end per se. I believe you can simply setup a matrix home server, and then interact via an open source mobile/desktop/web application. If by "front-end" you mean Web server, then as far as I'm aware none of these networks (GNU Social, pump.io, Matrix, XMPP, email, etc.) require one per se. The problem is finding an implementation which doesn't bundle one. Looking at the servers listed on matrix.org, it appears that Pallium makes this separation: you can run Pallium stand-alone, and connect to it using client applications (which may or may not be Web-based). Unfortunately, browsing the code for all of those servers, they all seem to include facilities for user registration, authentication, etc. Maybe that's a requirement of the way Matrix works? I know that, say, an IRC server which only allows a single user would be a lonely place, since chatrooms are hosted by a particular server which all participants must connect to (logically, at least; I know there are ways to implement redundancy like FreeNode does).

mxuribe 10y ago
Head on over to: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse#synapse-installation https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse#synapse-installation ...Then scroll to the last paragraph of this section, "...By default, registration of new users is disabled." The little command line method is what i used to manually register the (3) accounts for my family on my private matrix server. If you plan on using it only for yourself, it might be best to keep registration disabled, and only add yourself manually via the command line...and then you would be done. As far as "web server", I think i know what you mean now, and admittedly I have my private matrix home server running behind nginx...but that's only because I've set it up via DigitalOcean, and simply picked one of their pre-set "LEMP" server images. I believe others have installed/run a matrix home server without nginx or apache, etc. Again, since this is all just a test for my family, i literally went into my DigitalOcean account, generated a new droplet (what they call their virtual servers), and picked a "LEMP" pre-set server. From there, i went installing the synapse server. Because nginx was already installed, I did have to forward/proxy stuff from nginx to synapse...I fully expect to kill this test matrix server off. Now having lived this, I would not have picked the LEMP image, instead just use a basic linux server from DigitalOcean and then install synapse (and any associated requirements/dependencies), that way it doesn't have nginx/apache, etc. I have no experience with Pallium, but I suppose because there are several different implementations (python-based, Go-based, etc.) of the matrix homeserver, there could be different nuances for implementation. Side note: The DigitalOcean droplet that I'm using for my private test matrix home server is the $5/month version (w/512MB memory, 20GB storage). Once I create the production matrix homeserver for my family, I was thinking on using the next level up $10/month version (1GB memory, 30GB storage).
- chriswarbo 10y ago
  > "...By default, registration of new users is disabled." It's good to know that it can be disabled, but I'm mostly concerned with attack surface, minimalism/hackability and not getting caught on an upgrade treadmill. At the moment my personal Web site is static, the Web UI to my git repos is static and read-only, pushing to those repos is done via SSH, I accept patches by email, etc. I'm hesistant to run anything dynamic at all, let alone something more complex than I need (e.g. a Web frontend) with the capability to perform destructive actions which I don't need (even if they're marked 'disabled'). It would be nice to have an Internet-facing server which only deals with untrusted data, accumulates incoming updates to a file (e.g. sqlite), pushes out posts from a queue (e.g. a directory) and serves the necessary public info when requested, maybe using static files for stuff like my profile. I can then read and write those files over SSH, maybe transforming them into some easy to consume format like maildir. Of course, the first rule of security is don't write it yourself, but this is beginning to sound like a nice weekend project :)