Before upgrading check if any special steps are required to upgrade from the version you currently have installed to the current version of Synapse. The extra instructions that may be required are listed later in this document.
-
Check that your versions of Python and PostgreSQL are still supported.
Synapse follows upstream lifecycles for Python and PostgreSQL, and removes support for versions which are no longer maintained.
The website https://endoflife.date also offers convenient summaries.
-
If Synapse was installed using prebuilt packages, you will need to follow the normal process for upgrading those packages.
-
If Synapse was installed from source, then:
-
Activate the virtualenv before upgrading. For example, if Synapse is installed in a virtualenv in
~/synapse/envthen run:source ~/synapse/env/bin/activate
-
If Synapse was installed using pip then upgrade to the latest version by running:
pip install --upgrade matrix-synapse
If Synapse was installed using git then upgrade to the latest version by running:
git pull pip install --upgrade . -
Restart Synapse:
synctl restart
-
To check whether your update was successful, you can check the running server version with:
# you may need to replace 'localhost:8008' if synapse is not configured
# to listen on port 8008.
curl http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v1/server_versionRolling back to previous releases can be difficult, due to database schema changes between releases. Where we have been able to test the rollback process, this will be noted below.
In general, you will need to undo any changes made during the upgrade process, for example:
-
pip:
source env/bin/activate # replace `1.3.0` accordingly: pip install matrix-synapse==1.3.0
-
Debian:
# replace `1.3.0` and `stretch` accordingly: wget https://packages.matrix.org/debian/pool/main/m/matrix-synapse-py3/matrix-synapse-py3_1.3.0+stretch1_amd64.deb dpkg -i matrix-synapse-py3_1.3.0+stretch1_amd64.deb
The non-standard groups/communities feature in Synapse has been deprecated and will be disabled by default in Synapse v1.58.0.
You can test disabling it by adding the following to your homeserver configuration:
experimental_features:
groups_enabled: falseSynapse now refuses to start when using PostgreSQL with non-C values for COLLATE and
CTYPE unless the config flag allow_unsafe_locale, found in the database section of
the configuration file, is set to true. See the PostgreSQL documentation
for more information and instructions on how to fix a database with incorrect values.
Synapse will refuse to start if registration is enabled without email, captcha, or token-based verification unless the new config
flag enable_registration_without_verification is set to "true".
The synctl script
has been made an
entry point
and no longer exists at the root of Synapse's source tree. If you wish to use
synctl to manage your homeserver, you should invoke synctl directly, e.g.
synctl start instead of ./synctl start or /path/to/synctl start.
You will need to ensure synctl is on your PATH.
- This is automatically the case when using Debian packages or docker images provided by Matrix.org.
- When installing from a wheel, sdist, or PyPI, a
synctlexecutable is added to your Python installation'sbin. This should be on yourPATHautomatically, though you might need to activate a virtual environment depending on how you installed Synapse.
Synapse v1.55.0 drops support for Mjolnir 1.3.1 and earlier. If you use the Mjolnir module to moderate your homeserver, please upgrade Mjolnir to version 1.3.2 or later before upgrading Synapse.
This release removes support for the structured: true logging configuration
which was deprecated in Synapse v1.23.0. If your logging configuration contains
structured: true then it should be modified based on the
structured logging documentation.
Per the deprecation notice in Synapse v1.51.0, listeners of type webclient
are no longer supported and configuring them is a now a configuration error.
Configuring a non-HTTP(S) web_client_location configuration is is now a
configuration error. Since the webclient listener is no longer supported, this
setting only applies to the root path / of Synapse's web server and no longer
the /_matrix/client/ path.
The unstable validity-check endpoint for the Registration Tokens feature has been stabilised and moved from:
/_matrix/client/unstable/org.matrix.msc3231/register/org.matrix.msc3231.login.registration_token/validity
to:
/_matrix/client/v1/register/m.login.registration_token/validity
Please update any relevant reverse proxy or firewall configurations appropriately.
Formerly, entries in the cache were not evicted regardless of whether they were accessed after storing.
This behavior has now changed. By default entries in the cache are now evicted after 30m of not being accessed.
To change the default behavior, go to the caches section of the config and change the expire_caches and
cache_entry_ttl flags as necessary. Please note that these flags replace the expiry_time flag in the config.
The expiry_time flag will still continue to work, but it has been deprecated and will be removed in the future.
The capabilities of MSC3283 from the REST API /_matrix/client/r0/capabilities
becomes stable.
The old capabilities
org.matrix.msc3283.set_displayname,org.matrix.msc3283.set_avatar_urlandorg.matrix.msc3283.3pid_changes
are deprecated and scheduled to be removed in Synapse v1.54.0.
The new capabilities
m.set_displayname,m.set_avatar_urlandm.3pid_changes
are now active by default.
As announced with the release of Synapse 1.47.0,
the deprecated user_may_create_room_with_invites module callback has been removed.
Modules relying on it can instead implement user_may_invite
and use the get_room_state
module API to infer whether the invite is happening while creating a room (see this function
as an example). Alternately, modules can also implement on_create_room.
Note that Twisted 22.1.0
has recently been released, which fixes a security issue
within the Twisted library. We do not believe Synapse is affected by this vulnerability,
though we advise server administrators who installed Synapse via pip to upgrade Twisted
with pip install --upgrade Twisted treq as a matter of good practice. The Docker image
matrixdotorg/synapse and the Debian packages from packages.matrix.org are using the
updated library.
Listeners of type webclient are deprecated and scheduled to be removed in
Synapse v1.53.0.
Similarly, a non-HTTP(S) web_client_location configuration is deprecated and
will become a configuration error in Synapse v1.53.0.
In line with our deprecation policy, we've dropped support for Python 3.6 and PostgreSQL 9.6, as they are no longer supported upstream.
This release of Synapse requires Python 3.7+ and PostgreSQL 10+.
The following admin APIs were deprecated in Synapse 1.34 (released on 2021-05-17) and have now been removed:
POST /_synapse/admin/v1/<room_id>/delete
Any scripts still using the above APIs should be converted to use the Delete Room API.
The user_may_create_room_with_invites is deprecated and will be removed in a future
version of Synapse. Modules implementing this callback can instead implement
user_may_invite
and use the get_room_state
module API method to infer whether the invite is happening in the context of creating a
room.
We plan to remove this callback in January 2022.
Changes required to media storage provider modules when reading from the Synapse configuration object
Media storage provider modules that read from the Synapse configuration object (i.e. that
read the value of hs.config.[...]) now need to specify the configuration section they're
reading from. This means that if a module reads the value of e.g. hs.config.media_store_path,
it needs to replace it with hs.config.media.media_store_path.
The url_cache/ and url_cache_thumbnails/ directories in the media store are
no longer mirrored to storage providers. These two directories can be safely
deleted from any configured storage providers to reclaim space.
The available worker applications documentation
has been updated to reflect that calls to the /spaces, /hierarchy, and
/summary endpoints can now be routed to workers for both client API and
federation requests.
The following admin APIs were deprecated in Synapse 1.25 (released on 2021-01-13) and have now been removed:
POST /_synapse/admin/v1/purge_roomPOST /_synapse/admin/v1/shutdown_room/<room_id>
Any scripts still using the above APIs should be converted to use the Delete Room API.
This may affect you if you make use of custom HTML templates for the reCAPTCHA or terms fallback pages.
The template is now provided an error variable if the authentication
process failed. See the default templates linked above for an example.
Users will stop receiving message updates via email for addresses that were once, but not still, linked to their account.
Since Synapse 1.6.0 (2019-11-26) you can set a proxy for outbound HTTP requests via http_proxy/https_proxy environment variables. This proxy was set for:
- push
- url previews
- phone-home stats
- recaptcha validation
- CAS auth validation
- OpenID Connect
- Federation (checking public key revocation)
In this version we have added support for outbound requests for:
- Outbound federation
- Downloading remote media
- Fetching public keys of other servers
These requests use the same proxy configuration. If you have a proxy configuration we
recommend to verify the configuration. It may be necessary to adjust the no_proxy
environment variable.
See using a forward proxy with Synapse documentation for details.
The template_dir settings in the sso, account_validity and email sections of the
configuration file are now deprecated. Server admins should use the new
templates.custom_template_directory setting in the configuration file and use one single
custom template directory for all aforementioned features. Template file names remain
unchanged. See the related documentation
for more information and examples.
We plan to remove support for these settings in October 2021.
The media repository worker documentation
has been updated to reflect that calls to /_synapse/admin/v1/users/{userId}/media
must now be handled by media repository workers. This is due to the new DELETE method
of this endpoint modifying the media store.
The current third-party rules module interface is deprecated in favour of the new generic modules system introduced in Synapse v1.37.0. Authors of third-party rules modules can refer to this documentation to update their modules. Synapse administrators can refer to this documentation to update their configuration once the modules they are using have been updated.
We plan to remove support for the current third-party rules interface in September 2021.
This release includes a database schema update which requires re-indexing one of
the larger tables in the database, events. This could result in increased
disk I/O for several hours or days after upgrading while the migration
completes. Furthermore, because we have to keep the old indexes until the new
indexes are ready, it could result in a significant, temporary, increase in
disk space.
To get a rough idea of the disk space required, check the current size of one
of the indexes. For example, from a psql shell, run the following sql:
SELECT pg_size_pretty(pg_relation_size('events_order_room'));We need to rebuild four indexes, so you will need to multiply this result by four to give an estimate of the disk space required. For example, on one particular server:
synapse=# select pg_size_pretty(pg_relation_size('events_order_room'));
pg_size_pretty
----------------
288 MB
(1 row)
On this server, it would be wise to ensure that at least 1152MB are free.
The additional disk space will be freed once the migration completes.
SQLite databases are unaffected by this change.
The current spam checker interface is deprecated in favour of a new generic modules system. Authors of spam checker modules can refer to [this documentation](modules/porting_legacy_module.md to update their modules. Synapse administrators can refer to this documentation to update their configuration once the modules they are using have been updated.
We plan to remove support for the current spam checker interface in August 2021.
More module interfaces will be ported over to this new generic system in future versions of Synapse.
The room_invite_state_types configuration setting has been deprecated
and replaced with room_prejoin_state. See the sample configuration
file.
If you have set room_invite_state_types to the default value you
should simply remove it from your configuration file. The default value
used to be:
room_invite_state_types:
- "m.room.join_rules"
- "m.room.canonical_alias"
- "m.room.avatar"
- "m.room.encryption"
- "m.room.name"If you have customised this value, you should remove
room_invite_state_types and configure room_prejoin_state instead.
This may affect you if you have enabled the account validity feature,
and have made use of a custom HTML template specified by the
account_validity.template_dir or
account_validity.account_renewed_html_path Synapse config options.
The template can now accept an expiration_ts variable, which
represents the unix timestamp in milliseconds for the future date of
which their account has been renewed until. See the default
template
for an example of usage.
ALso note that a new HTML template, account_previously_renewed.html,
has been added. This is is shown to users when they attempt to renew
their account with a valid renewal token that has already been used
before. The default template contents can been found
here,
and can also accept an expiration_ts variable. This template replaces
the error message users would previously see upon attempting to use a
valid renewal token more than once.
This release introduces a regression that can overwhelm connected Prometheus instances. This issue is not present in Synapse v1.32.0rc1.
If you have been affected, please downgrade to 1.31.0. You then may need to remove excess writeahead logs in order for Prometheus to recover. Instructions for doing so are provided here.
In line with our deprecation policy, we've dropped support for Python 3.5 and PostgreSQL 9.5, as they are no longer supported upstream.
This release of Synapse requires Python 3.6+ and PostgresSQL 9.6+ or SQLite 3.22+.
The deprecated v1 "list accounts" admin API
(GET /_synapse/admin/v1/users/<user_id>) has been removed in this
version.
The v2 list accounts API
has been available since Synapse 1.7.0 (2019-12-13), and is accessible
under GET /_synapse/admin/v2/users.
The deprecation of the old endpoint was announced with Synapse 1.28.0 (released on 2021-02-25).
In compliance with the Application Service
spec,
Application Services are now required to use the
m.login.application_service type when registering users via the
/_matrix/client/r0/register endpoint. This behaviour was deprecated in
Synapse v1.30.0.
Please ensure your Application Services are up to date.
When using Synapse with a reverse proxy (in particular, when using the
x_forwarded option on an HTTP listener), Synapse now
expects to receive an X-Forwarded-Proto header on incoming
HTTP requests. If it is not set, Synapse will log a warning on each
received request.
To avoid the warning, administrators using a reverse proxy should ensure
that the reverse proxy sets X-Forwarded-Proto header to
https or http to indicate the protocol used
by the client.
Synapse also requires the Host header to be preserved.
See the reverse proxy documentation, where the example configurations have been updated to show how to set these headers.
(Users of Caddy are unaffected, since we
believe it sets X-Forwarded-Proto by default.)
This version changes the URI used for callbacks from OAuth2 and SAML2 identity providers:
-
If your server is configured for single sign-on via an OpenID Connect or OAuth2 identity provider, you will need to add
[synapse public baseurl]/_synapse/client/oidc/callbackto the list of permitted "redirect URIs" at the identity provider.See the OpenID docs for more information on setting up OpenID Connect.
-
If your server is configured for single sign-on via a SAML2 identity provider, you will need to add
[synapse public baseurl]/_synapse/client/saml2/authn_responseas a permitted "ACS location" (also known as "allowed callback URLs") at the identity provider.The "Issuer" in the "AuthnRequest" to the SAML2 identity provider is also updated to
[synapse public baseurl]/_synapse/client/saml2/metadata.xml. If your SAML2 identity provider uses this property to validate or otherwise identify Synapse, its configuration will need to be updated to use the new URL. Alternatively you could create a new, separate "EntityDescriptor" in your SAML2 identity provider with the new URLs and leave the URLs in the existing "EntityDescriptor" as they were.
The HTML templates for SSO and email notifications now have Jinja2's
autoescape
enabled for files ending in .html, .htm, and .xml. If you have
customised these templates and see issues when viewing them you might
need to update them. It is expected that most configurations will need
no changes.
If you have customised the templates names for these templates, it is
recommended to verify they end in .html to ensure autoescape is
enabled.
The above applies to the following templates:
add_threepid.htmladd_threepid_failure.htmladd_threepid_success.htmlnotice_expiry.htmlnotice_expiry.htmlnotif_mail.html(which, by default, includesroom.htmlandnotif.html)password_reset.htmlpassword_reset_confirmation.htmlpassword_reset_failure.htmlpassword_reset_success.htmlregistration.htmlregistration_failure.htmlregistration_success.htmlsso_account_deactivated.htmlsso_auth_bad_user.htmlsso_auth_confirm.htmlsso_auth_success.htmlsso_error.htmlsso_login_idp_picker.htmlsso_redirect_confirm.html
v1.26.0 includes a lot of large changes. If something problematic occurs, you may want to roll-back to a previous version of Synapse. Because v1.26.0 also includes a new database schema version, reverting that version is also required alongside the generic rollback instructions mentioned above. In short, to roll back to v1.25.0 you need to:
-
Stop the server
-
Decrease the schema version in the database:
UPDATE schema_version SET version = 58;
-
Delete the ignored users & chain cover data:
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS ignored_users; UPDATE rooms SET has_auth_chain_index = false;
For PostgreSQL run:
TRUNCATE event_auth_chain_links; TRUNCATE event_auth_chains;
For SQLite run:
DELETE FROM event_auth_chain_links; DELETE FROM event_auth_chains;
-
Mark the deltas as not run (so they will re-run on upgrade).
DELETE FROM applied_schema_deltas WHERE version = 59 AND file = "59/01ignored_user.py"; DELETE FROM applied_schema_deltas WHERE version = 59 AND file = "59/06chain_cover_index.sql";
-
Downgrade Synapse by following the instructions for your installation method in the "Rolling back to older versions" section above.
This is the last release of Synapse which guarantees support with Python 3.5, which passed its upstream End of Life date several months ago.
We will attempt to maintain support through March 2021, but without guarantees.
In the future, Synapse will follow upstream schedules for ending support of older versions of Python and PostgreSQL. Please upgrade to at least Python 3.6 and PostgreSQL 9.6 as soon as possible.
Synapse v1.25.0 includes new settings, ip_range_blacklist and
ip_range_whitelist, for controlling outgoing requests from Synapse for
federation, identity servers, push, and for checking key validity for
third-party invite events. The previous setting,
federation_ip_range_blacklist, is deprecated. The new
ip_range_blacklist defaults to private IP ranges if it is not defined.
If you have never customised federation_ip_range_blacklist it is
recommended that you remove that setting.
If you have customised federation_ip_range_blacklist you should update
the setting name to ip_range_blacklist.
If you have a custom push server that is reached via private IP space
you may need to customise ip_range_blacklist or ip_range_whitelist.
This release allows the OpenID Connect mapping provider to perform normalisation of the localpart of the Matrix ID. This allows for the mapping provider to specify different algorithms, instead of the default way.
If your Synapse configuration uses a custom mapping provider
(oidc_config.user_mapping_provider.module is specified and
not equal to
synapse.handlers.oidc_handler.JinjaOidcMappingProvider)
then you must ensure that map_user_attributes of the
mapping provider performs some normalisation of the
localpart returned. To match previous behaviour you can
use the map_username_to_mxid_localpart function provided
by Synapse. An example is shown below:
from synapse.types import map_username_to_mxid_localpart
class MyMappingProvider:
def map_user_attributes(self, userinfo, token):
# ... your custom logic ...
sso_user_id = ...
localpart = map_username_to_mxid_localpart(sso_user_id)
return {"localpart": localpart}Historically, the Synapse Admin API has been accessible under:
/_matrix/client/api/v1/admin/_matrix/client/unstable/admin/_matrix/client/r0/admin/_synapse/admin/v1
The endpoints with /_matrix/client/* prefixes have been removed as of
v1.24.0. The Admin API is now only accessible under:
/_synapse/admin/v1
The only exception is the /admin/whois endpoint, which is
also available via the client-server
API.
The deprecation of the old endpoints was announced with Synapse 1.20.0 (released on 2020-09-22) and makes it easier for homeserver admins to lock down external access to the Admin API endpoints.
This release deprecates use of the structured: true logging
configuration for structured logging. If your logging configuration
contains structured: true then it should be modified based on the
structured logging documentation.
The structured and drains logging options are now deprecated and
should be replaced by standard logging configuration of handlers and
formatters.
A future will release of Synapse will make using structured: true an
error.
This release introduces a backwards-incompatible change to modules
making use of ThirdPartyEventRules in Synapse. If you make use of a
module defined under the third_party_event_rules config option, please
make sure it is updated to handle the below change:
The http_client argument is no longer passed to modules as they are
initialised. Instead, modules are expected to make use of the
http_client property on the ModuleApi class. Modules are now passed
a module_api argument during initialisation, which is an instance of
ModuleApi. ModuleApi instances have a http_client property which
acts the same as the http_client argument previously passed to
ThirdPartyEventRules modules.
The reverse proxy documentation
has been updated to include reverse proxy directives for
/_synapse/client/* endpoints. As the user password reset flow now uses
endpoints under this prefix, you must update your reverse proxy
configurations for user password reset to work.
Additionally, note that the Synapse worker documentation has been updated to
: state that the /_synapse/client/password_reset/email/submit_token
endpoint can be handled
by all workers. If you make use of Synapse's worker feature, please update your reverse proxy configuration to reflect this change.
A new HTML template,
password_reset_confirmation.html,
has been added to the synapse/res/templates directory. If you are
using a custom template directory, you may want to copy the template
over and modify it.
Note that as of v1.20.0, templates do not need to be included in custom template directories for Synapse to start. The default templates will be used if a custom template cannot be found.
This page will appear to the user after clicking a password reset link that has been emailed to them.
To complete password reset, the page must include a way to make a
POST request to
/_synapse/client/password_reset/{medium}/submit_token with the query
parameters from the original link, presented as a URL-encoded form. See
the file itself for more details.
The saml_error.html template was removed from Synapse and replaced
with the sso_error.html template. If your Synapse is configured to use
SAML and a custom sso_redirect_confirm_template_dir configuration then
any customisations of the saml_error.html template will need to be
merged into the sso_error.html template. These templates are similar,
but the parameters are slightly different:
- The
msgparameter should be renamed toerror_description. - There is no longer a
codeparameter for the response code. - A string
errorparameter is available that includes a short hint of why a user is seeing the error page.
From 10th August 2020, we will no longer publish Docker images with the
-py3 tag suffix. The images tagged with the
-py3 suffix have been identical to the non-suffixed tags
since release 0.99.0, and the suffix is obsolete.
On 10th August, we will remove the latest-py3 tag.
Existing per-release tags (such as v1.18.0-py3 will not
be removed, but no new -py3 tags will be added.
Scripts relying on the -py3 suffix will need to be
updated.
When setting up worker processes, we now recommend the use of a Redis server for replication. The old direct TCP connection method is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. See workers for more details.
This version includes a database update which is run as part of the upgrade, and which may take a couple of minutes in the case of a large server. Synapse will not respond to HTTP requests while this update is taking place.
A bug was introduced in Synapse 1.4.0 which could cause the room directory to be incomplete or empty if Synapse was upgraded directly from v1.2.1 or earlier, to versions between v1.4.0 and v1.12.x.
This will not be a problem for Synapse installations which were:
: - created at v1.4.0 or later, - upgraded via v1.3.x, or - upgraded straight from v1.2.1 or earlier to v1.13.0 or later.
If completeness of the room directory is a concern, installations which are affected can be repaired as follows:
-
Run the following sql from a
psqlorsqlite3console:INSERT INTO background_updates (update_name, progress_json, depends_on) VALUES ('populate_stats_process_rooms', '{}', 'current_state_events_membership'); INSERT INTO background_updates (update_name, progress_json, depends_on) VALUES ('populate_stats_process_users', '{}', 'populate_stats_process_rooms');
-
Restart synapse.
New templates (sso_auth_confirm.html, sso_auth_success.html, and
sso_account_deactivated.html) were added to Synapse. If your Synapse
is configured to use SSO and a custom
sso_redirect_confirm_template_dir configuration then these templates
will need to be copied from
synapse/res/templates into that directory.
Plugins using the complete_sso_login method of
synapse.module_api.ModuleApi should update to using the async/await
version complete_sso_login_async which includes additional checks. The
non-async version is considered deprecated.
v1.13.0 includes a lot of large changes. If something problematic occurs, you may want to roll-back to a previous version of Synapse. Because v1.13.0 also includes a new database schema version, reverting that version is also required alongside the generic rollback instructions mentioned above. In short, to roll back to v1.12.4 you need to:
-
Stop the server
-
Decrease the schema version in the database:
UPDATE schema_version SET version = 57;
-
Downgrade Synapse by following the instructions for your installation method in the "Rolling back to older versions" section above.
This version includes a database update which is run as part of the upgrade, and which may take some time (several hours in the case of a large server). Synapse will not respond to HTTP requests while this update is taking place.
This is only likely to be a problem in the case of a server which is participating in many rooms.
-
As with all upgrades, it is recommended that you have a recent backup of your database which can be used for recovery in the event of any problems.
-
As an initial check to see if you will be affected, you can try running the following query from the
psqlorsqlite3console. It is safe to run it while Synapse is still running.SELECT MAX(q.v) FROM ( SELECT ( SELECT ej.json AS v FROM state_events se INNER JOIN event_json ej USING (event_id) WHERE se.room_id=rooms.room_id AND se.type='m.room.create' AND se.state_key='' LIMIT 1 ) FROM rooms WHERE rooms.room_version IS NULL ) q;
This query will take about the same amount of time as the upgrade process: ie, if it takes 5 minutes, then it is likely that Synapse will be unresponsive for 5 minutes during the upgrade.
If you consider an outage of this duration to be acceptable, no further action is necessary and you can simply start Synapse 1.12.0.
If you would prefer to reduce the downtime, continue with the steps below.
-
The easiest workaround for this issue is to manually create a new index before upgrading. On PostgreSQL, his can be done as follows:
CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY tmp_upgrade_1_12_0_index ON state_events(room_id) WHERE type = 'm.room.create';
The above query may take some time, but is also safe to run while Synapse is running.
We assume that no SQLite users have databases large enough to be affected. If you are affected, you can run a similar query, omitting the
CONCURRENTLYkeyword. Note however that this operation may in itself cause Synapse to stop running for some time. Synapse admins are reminded that SQLite is not recommended for use outside a test environment. -
Once the index has been created, the
SELECTquery in step 1 above should complete quickly. It is therefore safe to upgrade to Synapse 1.12.0. -
Once Synapse 1.12.0 has successfully started and is responding to HTTP requests, the temporary index can be removed:
DROP INDEX tmp_upgrade_1_12_0_index;
Synapse will now log a warning on start up if used with a PostgreSQL database that has a non-recommended locale set.
See Postgres for details.
Specifying a log_file config option will now cause Synapse to refuse
to start, and should be replaced by with the log_config option.
Support for the log_file option was removed in v1.3.0 and has since
had no effect.
In an attempt to configure Synapse in a privacy preserving way, the
default behaviours of allow_public_rooms_without_auth and
allow_public_rooms_over_federation have been inverted. This means that
by default, only authenticated users querying the Client/Server API will
be able to query the room directory, and relatedly that the server will
not share room directory information with other servers over federation.
If your installation does not explicitly set these settings one way or
the other and you want either setting to be true then it will
necessary to update your homeserver configuration file accordingly.
For more details on the surrounding context see our explainer.
This release includes a database migration which may take several
minutes to complete if there are a large number (more than a million or
so) of entries in the devices table. This is only likely to a be a
problem on very large installations.
If you have configured a custom template directory with the
email.template_dir option, be aware that there are new templates
regarding registration and threepid management (see below) that must be
included.
registration.htmlandregistration.txtregistration_success.htmlandregistration_failure.htmladd_threepid.htmlandadd_threepid.txtadd_threepid_failure.htmlandadd_threepid_success.html
Synapse will expect these files to exist inside the configured template directory, and will fail to start if they are absent. To view the default templates, see synapse/res/templates.
Note: As of this release, users will be unable to add phone numbers or email addresses to their accounts, without changes to the Synapse configuration. This includes adding an email address during registration.
It is possible for a user to associate an email address or phone number with their account, for a number of reasons:
- for use when logging in, as an alternative to the user id.
- in the case of email, as an alternative contact to help with account recovery.
- in the case of email, to receive notifications of missed messages.
Before an email address or phone number can be added to a user's account, or before such an address is used to carry out a password-reset, Synapse must confirm the operation with the owner of the email address or phone number. It does this by sending an email or text giving the user a link or token to confirm receipt. This process is known as '3pid verification'. ('3pid', or 'threepid', stands for third-party identifier, and we use it to refer to external identifiers such as email addresses and phone numbers.)
Previous versions of Synapse delegated the task of 3pid verification to
an identity server by default. In most cases this server is vector.im
or matrix.org.
In Synapse 1.4.0, for security and privacy reasons, the homeserver will no longer delegate this task to an identity server by default. Instead, the server administrator will need to explicitly decide how they would like the verification messages to be sent.
In the medium term, the vector.im and matrix.org identity servers
will disable support for delegated 3pid verification entirely. However,
in order to ease the transition, they will retain the capability for a
limited period. Delegated email verification will be disabled on Monday
2nd December 2019 (giving roughly 2 months notice). Disabling delegated
SMS verification will follow some time after that once SMS verification
support lands in Synapse.
Once delegated 3pid verification support has been disabled in the
vector.im and matrix.org identity servers, all Synapse versions that
depend on those instances will be unable to verify email and phone
numbers through them. There are no imminent plans to remove delegated
3pid verification from Sydent generally. (Sydent is the identity server
project that backs the vector.im and matrix.org instances).
Following upgrade, to continue verifying email (e.g. as part of the registration process), admins can either:-
- Configure Synapse to use an email server.
- Run or choose an identity server which allows delegated email verification and delegate to it.
To configure an SMTP server for Synapse, modify the configuration
section headed email, and be sure to have at least the
smtp_host, smtp_port and notif_from fields filled out.
You may also need to set smtp_user, smtp_pass, and
require_transport_security.
See the sample configuration file for more details on these settings.
Some admins will wish to continue using email verification as part of the registration process, but will not immediately have an appropriate SMTP server at hand.
To this end, we will continue to support email verification delegation
via the vector.im and matrix.org identity servers for two months.
Support for delegated email verification will be disabled on Monday 2nd
December.
The account_threepid_delegates dictionary defines whether the
homeserver should delegate an external server (typically an identity
server) to handle
sending confirmation messages via email and SMS.
So to delegate email verification, in homeserver.yaml, set
account_threepid_delegates.email to the base URL of an identity
server. For example:
account_threepid_delegates:
email: https://example.com # Delegate email sending to example.comNote that account_threepid_delegates.email replaces the deprecated
email.trust_identity_server_for_password_resets: if
email.trust_identity_server_for_password_resets is set to true, and
account_threepid_delegates.email is not set, then the first entry in
trusted_third_party_id_servers will be used as the
account_threepid_delegate for email. This is to ensure compatibility
with existing Synapse installs that set up external server handling for
these tasks before v1.4.0. If
email.trust_identity_server_for_password_resets is true and no
trusted identity server domains are configured, Synapse will report an
error and refuse to start.
If email.trust_identity_server_for_password_resets is false or
absent and no email delegate is configured in
account_threepid_delegates, then Synapse will send email verification
messages itself, using the configured SMTP server (see above). that
type.
Synapse does not support phone-number verification itself, so the only
way to maintain the ability for users to add phone numbers to their
accounts will be by continuing to delegate phone number verification to
the matrix.org and vector.im identity servers (or another identity
server that supports SMS sending).
The account_threepid_delegates dictionary defines whether the
homeserver should delegate an external server (typically an identity
server) to handle
sending confirmation messages via email and SMS.
So to delegate phone number verification, in homeserver.yaml, set
account_threepid_delegates.msisdn to the base URL of an identity
server. For example:
account_threepid_delegates:
msisdn: https://example.com # Delegate sms sending to example.comThe matrix.org and vector.im identity servers will continue to
support delegated phone number verification via SMS until such time as
it is possible for admins to configure their servers to perform phone
number verification directly. More details will follow in a future
release.
If you encounter problems with v1.4.0, it should be possible to roll back to v1.3.1, subject to the following:
-
The 'room statistics' engine was heavily reworked in this release (see #5971), including significant changes to the database schema, which are not easily reverted. This will cause the room statistics engine to stop updating when you downgrade.
The room statistics are essentially unused in v1.3.1 (in future versions of Synapse, they will be used to populate the room directory), so there should be no loss of functionality. However, the statistics engine will write errors to the logs, which can be avoided by setting the following in
homeserver.yaml:stats: enabled: false
Don't forget to re-enable it when you upgrade again, in preparation for its use in the room directory!
Some counter metrics have been renamed, with the old names deprecated. See the metrics documentation for details.
Synapse v1.1.0 removes support for older Python and PostgreSQL versions, as outlined in our deprecation notice.
Synapse v1.1.0 has a minimum Python requirement of Python 3.5. Python 3.6 or Python 3.7 are recommended as they have improved internal string handling, significantly reducing memory usage.
If you use current versions of the Matrix.org-distributed Debian packages or Docker images, action is not required.
If you install Synapse in a Python virtual environment, please see "Upgrading to v0.34.0" for notes on setting up a new virtualenv under Python 3.
If using PostgreSQL under Synapse, you will need to use PostgreSQL 9.5 or above. Please see the PostgreSQL documentation for more details on upgrading your database.
Synapse v1.0 is the first release to enforce validation of TLS certificates for the federation API. It is therefore essential that your certificates are correctly configured.
Note, v1.0 installations will also no longer be able to federate with servers that have not correctly configured their certificates.
In rare cases, it may be desirable to disable certificate checking: for example, it might be essential to be able to federate with a given legacy server in a closed federation. This can be done in one of two ways:-
- Configure the global switch
federation_verify_certificatestofalse. - Configure a whitelist of server domains to trust via
federation_certificate_verification_whitelist.
See the sample configuration file for more details on these settings.
When a user requests a password reset, Synapse will send an email to the user to confirm the request.
Previous versions of Synapse delegated the job of sending this email to an identity server. If the identity server was somehow malicious or became compromised, it would be theoretically possible to hijack an account through this means.
Therefore, by default, Synapse v1.0 will send the confirmation email itself. If Synapse is not configured with an SMTP server, password reset via email will be disabled.
To configure an SMTP server for Synapse, modify the configuration
section headed email, and be sure to have at least the smtp_host,
smtp_port and notif_from fields filled out. You may also need to set
smtp_user, smtp_pass, and require_transport_security.
If you are absolutely certain that you wish to continue using an
identity server for password resets, set
trust_identity_server_for_password_resets to true.
See the sample configuration file for more details on these settings.
Some new templates have been added to the default template directory for the purpose of
the homeserver sending its own password reset emails. If you have configured a
custom template_dir in your Synapse config, these files will need to be added.
password_reset.html and password_reset.txt are HTML and plain text
templates respectively that contain the contents of what will be emailed
to the user upon attempting to reset their password via email.
password_reset_success.html and password_reset_failure.html are HTML
files that the content of which (assuming no redirect URL is set) will
be shown to the user after they attempt to click the link in the email
sent to them.
Please be aware that, before Synapse v1.0 is released around March 2019, you will need to replace any self-signed certificates with those verified by a root CA. Information on how to do so can be found at the ACME docs.
-
This release is the first to fully support Python 3. Synapse will now run on Python versions 3.5, or 3.6 (as well as 2.7). We recommend switching to Python 3, as it has been shown to give performance improvements.
For users who have installed Synapse into a virtualenv, we recommend doing this by creating a new virtualenv. For example:
virtualenv -p python3 ~/synapse/env3 source ~/synapse/env3/bin/activate pip install matrix-synapse
You can then start synapse as normal, having activated the new virtualenv:
cd ~/synapse source env3/bin/activate synctl start
Users who have installed from distribution packages should see the relevant package documentation. See below for notes on Debian packages.
-
When upgrading to Python 3, you must make sure that your log files are configured as UTF-8, by adding
encoding: utf8to theRotatingFileHandlerconfiguration (if you have one) in your<server>.log.configfile. For example, if yourlog.configfile contains:handlers: file: class: logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler formatter: precise filename: homeserver.log maxBytes: 104857600 backupCount: 10 filters: [context] console: class: logging.StreamHandler formatter: precise filters: [context]
Then you should update this to be:
handlers: file: class: logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler formatter: precise filename: homeserver.log maxBytes: 104857600 backupCount: 10 filters: [context] encoding: utf8 console: class: logging.StreamHandler formatter: precise filters: [context]
There is no need to revert this change if downgrading to Python 2.
We are also making available Debian packages which will run Synapse on Python 3. You can switch to these packages with
apt-get install matrix-synapse-py3, however, please read debian/NEWS before doing so. The existingmatrix-synapsepackages will continue to use Python 2 for the time being. -
-
This release removes the
riot.imfrom the default list of trusted identity servers.If
riot.imis in your homeserver's list oftrusted_third_party_id_servers, you should remove it. It was added in case a hypothetical future identity server was put there. If you don't remove it, users may be unable to deactivate their accounts. -
This release no longer installs the (unmaintained) Matrix Console web client as part of the default installation. It is possible to re-enable it by installing it separately and setting the
web_client_locationconfig option, but please consider switching to another client.
This release removes the example email notification templates from
res/templates (they are now internal to the python package). This
should only affect you if you (a) deploy your Synapse instance from a
git checkout or a github snapshot URL, and (b) have email notifications
enabled.
If you have email notifications enabled, you should ensure that
email.template_dir is either configured to point at a directory where
you have installed customised templates, or leave it unset to use the
default templates.
This release expands the anonymous usage stats sent if the opt-in
report_stats configuration is set to true. We now capture RSS memory
and cpu use at a very coarse level. This requires administrators to
install the optional psutil python module.
We would appreciate it if you could assist by ensuring this module is
available and report_stats is enabled. This will let us see if
performance changes to synapse are having an impact to the general
community.
If you want to use the new URL previewing API
(/_matrix/media/r0/preview_url) then you have to explicitly enable it
in the config and update your dependencies dependencies. See README.rst
for details.
This release includes the option to send anonymous usage stats to
matrix.org, and requires that administrators explictly opt in or out by
setting the report_stats option to either true or false.
We would really appreciate it if you could help our project out by reporting anonymized usage statistics from your homeserver. Only very basic aggregate data (e.g. number of users) will be reported, but it helps us to track the growth of the Matrix community, and helps us to make Matrix a success, as well as to convince other networks that they should peer with us.
Application services have had a breaking API change in this version.
They can no longer register themselves with a home server using the AS
HTTP API. This decision was made because a compromised application
service with free reign to register any regex in effect grants full
read/write access to the home server if a regex of .* is used. An
attack where a compromised AS re-registers itself with .* was deemed
too big of a security risk to ignore, and so the ability to register
with the HS remotely has been removed.
It has been replaced by specifying a list of application service
registrations in homeserver.yaml:
app_service_config_files: ["registration-01.yaml", "registration-02.yaml"]Where registration-01.yaml looks like:
url: <String> # e.g. "https://my.application.service.com"
as_token: <String>
hs_token: <String>
sender_localpart: <String> # This is a new field which denotes the user_id localpart when using the AS token
namespaces:
users:
- exclusive: <Boolean>
regex: <String> # e.g. "@prefix_.*"
aliases:
- exclusive: <Boolean>
regex: <String>
rooms:
- exclusive: <Boolean>
regex: <String>Servers which use captchas will need to add their public key to:
static/client/register/register_config.js
window.matrixRegistrationConfig = {
recaptcha_public_key: "YOUR_PUBLIC_KEY"
};
This is required in order to support registration fallback (typically used on mobile devices).
New dependencies are:
- pydenticon
- simplejson
- syutil
- matrix-angular-sdk
To pull in these dependencies in a virtual env, run:
python synapse/python_dependencies.py | xargs -n 1 pip install
To pull in new dependencies, run:
python setup.py develop --user
This update includes a change to the database schema. To upgrade you first need to upgrade the database by running:
python scripts/upgrade_db_to_v0.6.0.py <db> <server_name> <signing_key>
Where <db> is the location of the database,
<server_name> is the server name as specified in the
synapse configuration, and <signing_key> is the location
of the signing key as specified in the synapse configuration.
This may take some time to complete. Failures of signatures and content hashes can safely be ignored.
Depending on precisely when you installed v0.5.0 you may have ended up with a stale release of the reference matrix webclient installed as a python module. To uninstall it and ensure you are depending on the latest module, please run:
$ pip uninstall syweb
The webclient has been split out into a seperate repository/pacakage in this release. Before you restart your homeserver you will need to pull in the webclient package by running:
python setup.py develop --user
This release completely changes the database schema and so requires upgrading it before starting the new version of the homeserver.
The script "database-prepare-for-0.5.0.sh" should be used to upgrade the database. This will save all user information, such as logins and profiles, but will otherwise purge the database. This includes messages, which rooms the home server was a member of and room alias mappings.
If you would like to keep your history, please take a copy of your database file and ask for help in #matrix:matrix.org. The upgrade process is, unfortunately, non trivial and requires human intervention to resolve any resulting conflicts during the upgrade process.
Before running the command the homeserver should be first completely shutdown. To run it, simply specify the location of the database, e.g.:
./scripts/database-prepare-for-0.5.0.sh "homeserver.db"
Once this has successfully completed it will be safe to restart the homeserver. You may notice that the homeserver takes a few seconds longer to restart than usual as it reinitializes the database.
On startup of the new version, users can either rejoin remote rooms using room aliases or by being reinvited. Alternatively, if any other homeserver sends a message to a room that the homeserver was previously in the local HS will automatically rejoin the room.
This release needs an updated syutil version. Run:
python setup.py develop
You will also need to upgrade your configuration as the signing key format has changed. Run:
python -m synapse.app.homeserver --config-path <CONFIG> --generate-config
This registration API now closely matches the login API. This introduces a bit more backwards and forwards between the HS and the client, but this improves the overall flexibility of the API. You can now GET on /register to retrieve a list of valid registration flows. Upon choosing one, they are submitted in the same way as login, e.g:
{
type: m.login.password,
user: foo,
password: bar
}
The default HS supports 2 flows, with and without Identity Server email
authentication. Enabling captcha on the HS will add in an extra step to
all flows: m.login.recaptcha which must be completed before you can
transition to the next stage. There is a new login type:
m.login.email.identity which contains the threepidCreds key which
were previously sent in the original register request. For more
information on this, see the specification.
The VoIP specification has changed between v0.2.0 and v0.3.0. Users should refresh any browser tabs to get the latest web client code. Users on v0.2.0 of the web client will not be able to call those on v0.3.0 and vice versa.
The home server now requires setting up of SSL config before it can run. To automatically generate default config use:
$ python synapse/app/homeserver.py \
--server-name machine.my.domain.name \
--bind-port 8448 \
--config-path homeserver.config \
--generate-config
This config can be edited if desired, for example to specify a different SSL certificate to use. Once done you can run the home server using:
$ python synapse/app/homeserver.py --config-path homeserver.config
See the README.rst for more information.
Also note that some config options have been renamed, including:
- "host" to "server-name"
- "database" to "database-path"
- "port" to "bind-port" and "unsecure-port"
This release completely changes the database schema and so requires upgrading it before starting the new version of the homeserver.
The script "database-prepare-for-0.0.1.sh" should be used to upgrade the database. This will save all user information, such as logins and profiles, but will otherwise purge the database. This includes messages, which rooms the home server was a member of and room alias mappings.
Before running the command the homeserver should be first completely shutdown. To run it, simply specify the location of the database, e.g.:
./scripts/database-prepare-for-0.0.1.sh "homeserver.db"
Once this has successfully completed it will be safe to restart the homeserver. You may notice that the homeserver takes a few seconds longer to restart than usual as it reinitializes the database.
On startup of the new version, users can either rejoin remote rooms using room aliases or by being reinvited. Alternatively, if any other homeserver sends a message to a room that the homeserver was previously in the local HS will automatically rejoin the room.