Can you double check that the way I have this set only exposes it locally? It is important that the manhole is not available to the outside world since it is quite powerful and the password is hard coded.

matrix_synapse_storage_path is already defined in matrix-synapse/defaults/main.yml (with a default of "{{ matrix_synapse_base_path }}/storage"), but was not being used for its presumed purpose in matrix-synapse.service.j2. As a result, if matrix_synapse_storage_path was overridden (in a vars.yml), the synapse service failed to start.

Bridges start matrix-synapse.service as a dependency, but
Synapse is sometimes slow to start, while bridges are quick to
hit it and die (if unavailable).

They'll auto-restart later, but .. this still breaks `--tags=start`,
which doesn't wait long enough for such a restart to happen.

This attempts to slow down bridge startup enough to ensure Synapse
is up and no failures happen at all.

Fixes #171 (Github Issue).

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`).

Use Jinja2 lstrip_blocks option in templates to ensure consistent
indentation in generated files.

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.

We do match the defaults anyway (by default that is),
but people can customize `matrix_user_uid` and `matrix_user_uid`
and it wouldn't be correct then.

In any case, it's better to be explicit about such an important thing.

With this change, the following roles are now only dependent
on the minimal `matrix-base` role:
- `matrix-corporal`
- `matrix-coturn`
- `matrix-mailer`
- `matrix-mxisd`
- `matrix-postgres`
- `matrix-riot-web`
- `matrix-synapse`

The `matrix-nginx-proxy` role still does too much and remains
dependent on the others.

Wiring up the various (now-independent) roles happens
via a glue variables file (`group_vars/matrix-servers`).
It's triggered for all hosts in the `matrix-servers` group.

According to Ansible's rules of priority, we have the following
chain of inclusion/overriding now:
- role defaults (mostly empty or good for independent usage)
- playbook glue variables (`group_vars/matrix-servers`)
- inventory host variables (`inventory/host_vars/matrix.<your-domain>`)

All roles default to enabling their main component
(e.g. `matrix_mxisd_enabled: true`, `matrix_riot_web_enabled: true`).
Reasoning: if a role is included in a playbook (especially separately,
in another playbook), it should "work" by default.

Our playbook disables some of those if they are not generally useful
(e.g. `matrix_corporal_enabled: false`).

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.