Ceate a dokku droplet from digital ocean marketplace 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 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 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:https://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) [...]
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 <[email protected]>"
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.
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 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 https://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 https://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.
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 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/.