Matrix Homeserver on fly.io

Quick notes on how to run dendrite for a small scale Matrix homeserver on fly.io with sqlite storage.

Requirements

A domain name where you can create/change A, AAAA and SRV records
A fly.io account and the flyctl cli installed
Docker or similar container runtime installed

Preparations

For federation (talking to other homeservers), your server needs is a matrix server key.

Generate the server key using either the dendrite container:

docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/key -w /key --entrypoint /usr/bin/generate-keys matrixdotorg/dendrite-monolith:latest --private-key matrix_key.pem

or the generate-keys app:

go run github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/cmd/generate-keys \
  --private-key=matrix_key.pem \
  --tls-cert=server.crt \
  --tls-key=server.key

Do not loose this key!

Next, make copy the dendrite-sample.in.yaml to dentrite.in.yaml and change the global.server_name to your desired domain.

Finally, change the app = "dendrite-on-fly" line in fly.toml to an app name of your desire.

Deployment

Choose your Fly.io region (flyctl platform regions) and edit the fly.toml file. Create a 10GB persistent volume mount in your desired region.

flyctl volumes create dendrite_data --region bos --size 10

Now you simply can deploy dendrite using

flyctl deploy

Secrets

flyctl secrets set "DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:pass@hostname/database?params=..."
flyctl secrets set "REGISTRATION_SHARED_SECRET=imabad5cret!"
base64 -w0 matrix_key.pem | flyctl secrets set MATRIX_KEY_PEM=-

Domain configuration

After deployment, execute flyctl info to obtain the IP addresses your app runs on.

Use these IPs to create A and AAAA records for the domain name you configured in dendrite.yaml

Usually matrix federates on port 8448, but it is possible to use a SRV record to specify a different port (8443 in our case).

Create a SRV record at _matrix._tcp.<the-original-domain> with values 10 10 8443 <the-original-domain>

It is possible to test federation with the Matrix federation tester.

Once you have set up the A and AAAA records, obtain a TLS certificate using flyctl

flyctl certs add <hostname>

You now can create accounts on your homeserver and start chatting with people.

Still to figure out

How to backup your sqlite file

Useful information

flyctl v0.0.181 and dendrite v0.3.11 were used

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