People who were disabling matrix-nginx-proxy (in favor of their own
nginx webserver) and also overriding `matrix_federation_public_port`,
found that the generated nginx configuration still hardcoded `8448`,
which forced their nginx server to use that, regardless of the fact
that `matrix_federation_public_port` was pointing elsewhere.
We now allow for the in-container federation port to be configurable,
and also automatically wire things properly.
We do this by creating one more layer of indirection.
First we reach some generic vhost handling matrix.DOMAIN.
A bunch of override rules are added there (capturing traffic to send to
ma1sd, etc). nginx-status and similar generic things also live there.
We then proxy to the homeserver on some other vhost (only Synapse being
available right now, but repointing this to Dendrite or other will be
possible in the future).
Then that homeserver-specific vhost does its thing to proxy to the
homeserver. It may or may not use workers, etc.
Without matrix-corporal, the flow is now:
1. matrix.DOMAIN (matrix-nginx-proxy/matrix-domain.conf)
2. matrix-nginx-proxy/matrix-synapse.conf
3. matrix-synapse
With matrix-corporal enabled, it becomes:
1. matrix.DOMAIN (matrix-nginx-proxy/matrix-domain.conf)
2. matrix-corporal
3. matrix-nginx-proxy/matrix-synapse.conf
4. matrix-synapse
(matrix-corporal gets injected at step 2).
Not sure if it breaks with them or not, but no other directive
uses quotes and the nginx docs show examples without quotes,
so we're being consistent with all of that.
The different configurations are now all lower case, for consistent
naming.
`matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_config` is now called
`matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_preset`. The different options for "modern",
"intermediate" and "old" are stored in the main.yml file, instead of
being hardcoded in the configuration files. This will improve the
maintainability of the code.
The "custom" preset was removed. Now if one of the variables is set, it
will use it instead of the preset. This will allow to mix and match more
easily, for example using all the intermediate options but only
supporting TLSv1.2. This will also provide better backward
compatibility.
A new variable called `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_config` is created for
configuring how the nginx proxy configures SSL. Also a new configuration
validation option and other auxiliary variables are created.
A new variable configuration called `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_config` is
created. This allow to set the SSL configuration easily using the
default options proposed by Mozilla. The default configuration is set to
"Intermediate", removing the weak ciphers used in the old
configurations.
The new variable can also be set to "Custom" for a more granular control.
This allows to set another three variables called:
- `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_protocols`,
- `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_prefer_server_ciphers`
- `matrix_nginx_proxy_ssl_ciphers`
Also a new task is added to validate the SSL configuration variable.
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.
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.
Julian-Samuel Gebühr
Slavi Pantaleev
JokerGermany
Colin Shea
Michael Collins
oxmie
sakkiii
sakkiii
Aaron Raimist
Michael
Agustin Ferrario
Daniel Hoffend
Yuri Moens
p5t2vspoqqw
microchipster
Eduardo Beltrame
Hugues De Keyzer