Throughout this series I've shown you how to set up a Matrix server and client using Synapse and Riot, and make it much more robust as a service by integrating a database server and a mechanism for making VoIP more reliable.  Now we'll wrap it up by doing something neat, building a simple agent network in Huginn to post what I'm listening to into a Matrix Room.  I have an account on libre.fm that my media players log to which we'll be using as our data source.  Of course, this is only a demonstration of the basic technique, you …

Previously in this series I showed you how to migrate a Matrix server to use Postgres, a database server designed for busy workloads, such as those of a busy chat server.  This time around I'll demonstrate how to integrate Synapse with a STUN/TURN server to make the voice and video conferencing features of the Matrix network more reliable.  It's remarkably easy to do but it does take a little planning.  Here's why I recommend doing this:

If you are reading this, chances are you're behind a NATting firewall, which means that your device doesn't have a publically routable IP …

In my last post about the Matrix network I covered how to set up a public Synapse server as well as a web-based client called Riot.  In so doing I left out a part of the process for the sake of clarity (because it's a hefty procedure and there's no reason not to break it down into logical modules), which was using a database back-end that's designed for workloads above and beyond what SQLite was meant for.  I'll be the first to tell you, I'm not a database professional, I don't know a whole lot about how to use or …

EDIT - 20200804 - Updated the Nginx stanzas because the newer versions of Certbot do all the work of setting up SSL/TLS support for you, including the most basic Nginx settings.  If you have them there you'll run into trouble unless you delete them or comment them out.  Also, Certbot centralizes all of the appropriate SSL configuration and hardening settings into a single includable file (/etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf) for ease of maintenance.

A couple of years ago I spent some time trying to set up Matrix, a self-hosted instant messaging and chat system that works a little like Jabber, a …