10 ms·

Disabling Matrix Portalling

107 points by matricaria 3y ago

susam 3y ago
I have had my own share of problems with both portalled rooms as well as plumbed rooms on Matrix. Dropped messages, dropped connections, etc. were some of the problems. Sometimes the re-connection times can be several hours long. Despite these problems, the portalled rooms have been a convenient way to quickly set up a relatively persistent connection to the IRC network via the Matrix bridge. That convenience is now going to be lost unless the IRC channel operators opt-in to create an account on Matrix, then set up a plumbed room on Matrix, and then advertise the plumbed rooms sufficiently well. Of course, many regular IRC users set up an IRC bouncer (I use ZNC myself) to keep a persistent connection to the IRC network, so this move would not affect them. But the portalled rooms served as a good alternative to setting up IRC bouncers yourself and unfortunately, this nice alternative is now going away. As a channel moderator, I haven't been too happy with the plumbed channels either. For example, one of the things I have found to be a little problematic is that the Matrix bridge service joins the Matrix room with Admin power level. To avoid these complications, I wrote my own tiny script to bridge the Matrix rooms and IRC channels I needed. Since my script joins the networks as an ordinary client, it does not need elevated privileges in the channels/rooms. In case, anyone is interested in the script, I have shared it here: https://github.com/susam/nimb https://github.com/susam/nimb The section "Differences from Matrix Appservice" at the bottom of the README in the preceding link explains some of the inconveniences I faced with the Matrix bridge service for plumbed channels and why I had to write my own script to avoid them.
3np 3y ago
Here's an alternative for Matrix<>IRC bridging for Matrix homeserver operators: https://github.com/hifi/heisenbridge https://github.com/hifi/heisenbridge
jeltz 3y ago
A pity, and maybe they have good reasons (load, abuse, the bridge being too flaky, ..), but I do not like the user experience of plumbed rooms and the limitation of only certain rooms being plumbed even further makes this uninteresting so this would mean I would need to run my own instance of the bridge or stop using Libera. And, no, I am no fan of the proposed new channel mode either. It was how it just worked and included all channels which made the bridge so useful. I liked the bridge despite its occasional technical issues.
- progval 3y ago
  What issues do you have with plumbed rooms that you don't with portal rooms, besides the initial plumbing?
Arathorn 3y ago
As a user, this is miserable. Matrix is used as a decentralised bouncer for tens of thousands of users to access IRC (including me) and while the bridge has certainly had problems over the years (e.g. occasional delays & a recent spate of dropped messages), it's also improved loads too - e.g. with support for restarting the bridge without reconnecting all the IRC users (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/issues/1669 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/issues/1...) and all the other stuff in https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/blob/dev.... By now requiring users to go and contact chanops to ask them to explicitly plumb IRC channels to Matrix, it's just going to waste time for chanops, precipitate weird cross-plumbing failures, or fail outright (given plumbing channels with more than 100 users has to be done manually to prevent abuse). It's very unfortunate that it's come to this, and I can only hope that the whole "opt in with a chanmode" thing happens, if portalling is off the table. In fact, wouldn't it have been better to just ban the bridge by default, and let chanops unban it if they want people to be able to access via Matrix, rather than encourage people into the weird world of plumbing? EDIT: clarifying that i'm not neutral on this, given i'm project lead for Matrix, and also responsible for running the Libera bridge at Element.
- jeltz 3y ago
  I totally agree with everything you said (as a normal user of Matrix and this bridge) but shouldn't you clarify that you work for Element? You are a user but also more than.
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    have clarified. i was posting from a user point of view, though (given i love lurking and hanging out in loads of IRC channels via the bridge today, and i'm gutted to lose that. it feels like the ultimate splintering of communities.)
- tredre3 3y ago
  I'm one of those who is affected by the decision, and I also hope the chan mode ends up being the chosen solution and implemented before times runs out. There's no need for hyperbole though. Libera overall only has a few tens of thousands of users, there's no way the vast majority are accessing it via Matrix like you say/imply. I'd wager we're less than 1000 impacted on libera.
proto_lambda 3y ago
Unfortunate, but the IRC bridge is an absolute dumpster fire at least at these scales, and Element seems to have been unable to do much about this so far.
detaro 3y ago
Sadly not too surprising. Matrix can do a lot of really cool stuff, but also is just wonky in random places, and at scale that really hurts. And the bugfixing seems to endlessly run behind the work piling features on the other end.
- solarkraft 3y ago
  It is so painful. I really want Matrix to be good, but most people I talk about it with have struggled with it. The clients aren't good at all. Matrix 2.0 is a step in the right direction, they better be serious about it (and to me that means not only mobile Element X, but also a new web app!).
  - raybb 3y ago
    I agree. Very excited for element X. It's def a rough tradeoff that they've slowed fixing bugs to get X out. However, they just released a new version using the rust crypto library which I hope makes error related to waiting for decryption less often.
dopa42365 3y ago
Might as well just ditch IRC (it's dead, grandpa) and use Matrix directly.
gunapologist99 3y ago
Are there any metrics as far as how many normal users will be impacted by this?
jordemort 3y ago
I guess I'll add "set up Heisenbridge" to my TODO list; the number of "actual" Matrix rooms that I'm in is very few compared to the number of bridged IRC channels, and most of those are on Libera.
Gordonjcp 3y ago
Why is using Matrix supposed to be easier than irssi and tmux?
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  Because by the time you're 30 minutes into explaining the phrase "userland daemon", Grandma and the preschoolers have already created a matrix account and signed into it on their ipads.
  - Gordonjcp 3y ago
    Not really the Matrix-to-IRC bridge demographic, are they?
denkmoon 3y ago
Can someone explain what caused this decision? I use and love matrix but I don't really get the context of the article.
guerby 3y ago
We use matterbridge to bridge IRC to matrix at https://tetaneutral.net https://tetaneutral.net https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge
infinitezest 3y ago
In case anyone else was confused by the terminology here: https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/ https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-...

107 points by matricaria 3y ago

I have had my own share of problems with both portalled rooms as well as plumbed rooms on Matrix. Dropped messages, dropped connections, etc. were some of the problems. Sometimes the re-connection times can be several hours long. Despite these problems, the portalled rooms have been a convenient way to quickly set up a relatively persistent connection to the IRC network via the Matrix bridge. That convenience is now going to be lost unless the IRC channel operators opt-in to create an account on Matrix, then set up a plumbed room on Matrix, and then advertise the plumbed rooms sufficiently well. Of course, many regular IRC users set up an IRC bouncer (I use ZNC myself) to keep a persistent connection to the IRC network, so this move would not affect them. But the portalled rooms served as a good alternative to setting up IRC bouncers yourself and unfortunately, this nice alternative is now going away. As a channel moderator, I haven't been too happy with the plumbed channels either. For example, one of the things I have found to be a little problematic is that the Matrix bridge service joins the Matrix room with Admin power level. To avoid these complications, I wrote my own tiny script to bridge the Matrix rooms and IRC channels I needed. Since my script joins the networks as an ordinary client, it does not need elevated privileges in the channels/rooms. In case, anyone is interested in the script, I have shared it here: https://github.com/susam/nimb https://github.com/susam/nimb The section "Differences from Matrix Appservice" at the bottom of the README in the preceding link explains some of the inconveniences I faced with the Matrix bridge service for plumbed channels and why I had to write my own script to avoid them.

3np 3y ago

Here's an alternative for Matrix<>IRC bridging for Matrix homeserver operators: https://github.com/hifi/heisenbridge https://github.com/hifi/heisenbridge

jeltz 3y ago

A pity, and maybe they have good reasons (load, abuse, the bridge being too flaky, ..), but I do not like the user experience of plumbed rooms and the limitation of only certain rooms being plumbed even further makes this uninteresting so this would mean I would need to run my own instance of the bridge or stop using Libera. And, no, I am no fan of the proposed new channel mode either. It was how it just worked and included all channels which made the bridge so useful. I liked the bridge despite its occasional technical issues.

progval 3y ago
What issues do you have with plumbed rooms that you don't with portal rooms, besides the initial plumbing?

Arathorn 3y ago

As a user, this is miserable. Matrix is used as a decentralised bouncer for tens of thousands of users to access IRC (including me) and while the bridge has certainly had problems over the years (e.g. occasional delays & a recent spate of dropped messages), it's also improved loads too - e.g. with support for restarting the bridge without reconnecting all the IRC users (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/issues/1669 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/issues/1...) and all the other stuff in https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/blob/dev.... By now requiring users to go and contact chanops to ask them to explicitly plumb IRC channels to Matrix, it's just going to waste time for chanops, precipitate weird cross-plumbing failures, or fail outright (given plumbing channels with more than 100 users has to be done manually to prevent abuse). It's very unfortunate that it's come to this, and I can only hope that the whole "opt in with a chanmode" thing happens, if portalling is off the table. In fact, wouldn't it have been better to just ban the bridge by default, and let chanops unban it if they want people to be able to access via Matrix, rather than encourage people into the weird world of plumbing? EDIT: clarifying that i'm not neutral on this, given i'm project lead for Matrix, and also responsible for running the Libera bridge at Element.

jeltz 3y ago
I totally agree with everything you said (as a normal user of Matrix and this bridge) but shouldn't you clarify that you work for Element? You are a user but also more than.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  have clarified. i was posting from a user point of view, though (given i love lurking and hanging out in loads of IRC channels via the bridge today, and i'm gutted to lose that. it feels like the ultimate splintering of communities.)
tredre3 3y ago
I'm one of those who is affected by the decision, and I also hope the chan mode ends up being the chosen solution and implemented before times runs out. There's no need for hyperbole though. Libera overall only has a few tens of thousands of users, there's no way the vast majority are accessing it via Matrix like you say/imply. I'd wager we're less than 1000 impacted on libera.

proto_lambda 3y ago

Unfortunate, but the IRC bridge is an absolute dumpster fire at least at these scales, and Element seems to have been unable to do much about this so far.

detaro 3y ago

Sadly not too surprising. Matrix can do a lot of really cool stuff, but also is just wonky in random places, and at scale that really hurts. And the bugfixing seems to endlessly run behind the work piling features on the other end.

solarkraft 3y ago
It is so painful. I really want Matrix to be good, but most people I talk about it with have struggled with it. The clients aren't good at all. Matrix 2.0 is a step in the right direction, they better be serious about it (and to me that means not only mobile Element X, but also a new web app!).
- raybb 3y ago
  I agree. Very excited for element X. It's def a rough tradeoff that they've slowed fixing bugs to get X out. However, they just released a new version using the rust crypto library which I hope makes error related to waiting for decryption less often.

dopa42365 3y ago

Might as well just ditch IRC (it's dead, grandpa) and use Matrix directly.

gunapologist99 3y ago

Are there any metrics as far as how many normal users will be impacted by this?

jordemort 3y ago

I guess I'll add "set up Heisenbridge" to my TODO list; the number of "actual" Matrix rooms that I'm in is very few compared to the number of bridged IRC channels, and most of those are on Libera.

Gordonjcp 3y ago

Why is using Matrix supposed to be easier than irssi and tmux?

vorpalhex 3y ago
Because by the time you're 30 minutes into explaining the phrase "userland daemon", Grandma and the preschoolers have already created a matrix account and signed into it on their ipads.
- Gordonjcp 3y ago
  Not really the Matrix-to-IRC bridge demographic, are they?

denkmoon 3y ago

Can someone explain what caused this decision? I use and love matrix but I don't really get the context of the article.

guerby 3y ago

We use matterbridge to bridge IRC to matrix at https://tetaneutral.net https://tetaneutral.net https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge

infinitezest 3y ago

In case anyone else was confused by the terminology here: https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/ https://matrix.org/blog/2017/03/11/how-do-i-bridge-thee-let-...