Starting with Docker 20.10, `--hostname` seems to have the side-effect
of making Docker's internal DNS server resolve said hostname to the IP
address of the container.
Because we were giving the mailer service a hostname of `matrix.DOMAIN`,
all requests destined for `matrix.DOMAIN` originating from other
services on the container network were resolving to `matrix-mailer`.
This is obviously wrong.
Initially reported here: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/pull/748
We normally try to not use the public hostname (and IP address) on the
container network and try to make services talk to one another locally,
but it sometimes could happen.
With this, we use a `matrix-mailer` hostname for the matrix-mailer
container. My testing shows that it doesn't cause any trouble with
email deliverability.
The Docker 19.04 -> 20.10 upgrade contains the following change
in `/usr/lib/systemd/system/docker.service`:
```
-BindsTo=containerd.service
-After=network-online.target firewalld.service containerd.service
+After=network-online.target firewalld.service containerd.service multi-user.target
-Requires=docker.socket
+Requires=docker.socket containerd.service
Wants=network-online.target
```
The `multi-user.target` requirement in `After` seems to be in conflict
with our `WantedBy=multi-user.target` and `After=docker.service` /
`Requires=docker.service` definitions, causing the following error on
startup for all of our systemd services:
> Job matrix-synapse.service/start deleted to break ordering cycle starting with multi-user.target/start
A workaround which appears to work is to add `DefaultDependencies=no`
to all of our services.
Depending on the distro, common commands like sleep and chown may either
be located in /bin or /usr/bin.
Systemd added path lookup to ExecStart in v239, allowing only the
command name to be put in unit files and not the full path as
historically required. At least Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is however still on
v237 so we should maintain portability for a while longer.
Reasoning is the same as for matrix-org/synapse#5023.
For us, the journal used to contain `docker` for all services, which
is not very helpful when looking at them all together (`journalctl -f`).
We run containers as a non-root user (no effective capabilities).
Still, if a setuid binary is available in a container image, it could
potentially be used to give the user the default capabilities that the
container was started with. For Docker, the default set currently is:
- "CAP_CHOWN"
- "CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE"
- "CAP_FSETID"
- "CAP_FOWNER"
- "CAP_MKNOD"
- "CAP_NET_RAW"
- "CAP_SETGID"
- "CAP_SETUID"
- "CAP_SETFCAP"
- "CAP_SETPCAP"
- "CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE"
- "CAP_SYS_CHROOT"
- "CAP_KILL"
- "CAP_AUDIT_WRITE"
We'd rather prevent such a potential escalation by dropping ALL
capabilities.
The problem is nicely explained here: https://github.com/projectatomic/atomic-site/issues/203
This makes all containers (except mautrix-telegram and
mautrix-whatsapp), start as a non-root user.
We do this, because we don't trust some of the images.
In any case, we'd rather not trust ALL images and avoid giving
`root` access at all. We can't be sure they would drop privileges
or what they might do before they do it.
Because Postfix doesn't support running as non-root,
it had to be replaced by an Exim mail server.
The matrix-nginx-proxy nginx container image is patched up
(by replacing its main configuration) so that it can work as non-root.
It seems like there's no other good image that we can use and that is up-to-date
(https://hub.docker.com/r/nginxinc/nginx-unprivileged is outdated).
Likewise for riot-web (https://hub.docker.com/r/bubuntux/riot-web/),
we patch it up ourselves when starting (replacing the main nginx
configuration).
Ideally, it would be fixed upstream so we can simplify.
As suggested in #63 (Github issue), splitting the
playbook's logic into multiple roles will be beneficial for
maintainability.
This patch realizes this split. Still, some components
affect others, so the roles are not really independent of one
another. For example:
- disabling mxisd (`matrix_mxisd_enabled: false`), causes Synapse
and riot-web to reconfigure themselves with other (public)
Identity servers.
- enabling matrix-corporal (`matrix_corporal_enabled: true`) affects
how reverse-proxying (by `matrix-nginx-proxy`) is done, in order to
put matrix-corporal's gateway server in front of Synapse
We may be able to move away from such dependencies in the future,
at the expense of a more complicated manual configuration, but
it's probably not worth sacrificing the convenience we have now.
As part of this work, the way we do "start components" has been
redone now to use a loop, as suggested in #65 (Github issue).
This should make restarting faster and more reliable.
Pretty much all variables live in their own `matrix_<whatever>`
prefix now and are grouped closer together in the default
variables file (`roles/matrix-server/defaults/main.yml`).
`--log-driver=none` is used for all Docker containers now.
All these containers are started through systemd anyway and get logged in journald,
so there's no need for Docker to be logging the same thing using the default `json-file` driver.
Doing that was growing `/var/lib/docker/containers/..` infinitely until service/container restart.
As a result of this, things like `docker logs matrix-synapse` won't work anymore.
`journalctl -u matrix-synapse` is how one can see the logs.
Slavi Pantaleev
Chris van Dijk
Hugues De Keyzer
Sylvia van Os