Setting up a Matrix <-> Meshtastic bridge (optional)

The playbook can install and configure meshtastic-matrix-relay (sometimes referred to as mmrelay) for you — a bridge between Matrix and Meshtastic mesh networks.

See the project’s documentation to learn what it does and why it might be useful to you.

Prerequisites

You need a Matrix account for the bot. You can either register the bot account manually or let the playbook create it when running ansible-playbook … --tags=ensure-matrix-users-created. Either way, you’ll need the account’s password to configure the bridge — unlike most other bridges in this playbook, mmrelay authenticates with a password and creates its own session (optionally with End-to-End Encryption material).

You also need access to a Meshtastic device, connected to the server via one of:

TCP: the device is reachable on the network (e.g. a Meshtastic node running the TCP API),
Serial: the device is plugged in via USB and available on the host (e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0),
BLE: the device is reachable via Bluetooth Low Energy from the host.

Adjusting the playbook configuration

To enable the bridge, add the following configuration to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.example.com/vars.yml file:

matrix_meshtastic_relay_enabled: true

# Password for the bot's Matrix account.
# On first startup, the bridge uses this to log in and persist credentials
# (including End-to-End Encryption material) under its data directory.
# After that, the password can be removed from this variable.
matrix_meshtastic_relay_matrix_bot_password: "PASSWORD_FOR_THE_BOT"

# How the bridge connects to your Meshtastic device.
# One of: tcp, serial, ble
matrix_meshtastic_relay_connection_type: tcp

# For connection_type: tcp
matrix_meshtastic_relay_tcp_host: "meshtastic.local"

# For connection_type: serial
# matrix_meshtastic_relay_serial_port: "/dev/ttyUSB0"

# For connection_type: ble
# matrix_meshtastic_relay_ble_address: "AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF"

# Matrix rooms to bridge to Meshtastic channels.
matrix_meshtastic_relay_matrix_rooms_list:
  - id: "#meshtastic:{{ matrix_domain }}"
    meshtastic_channel: "0"

By default, the bot’s Matrix ID is @meshtasticbot:{{ matrix_domain }}. To change it, adjust matrix_meshtastic_relay_matrix_bot_user_id.

Bluetooth (BLE) connections

When matrix_meshtastic_relay_connection_type is ble, the container runs with --network=host and bind-mounts the host’s DBus socket — both are required for Bluetooth pairing/communication. Only use this connection type if you trust the playbook-managed host and are comfortable with these privileges.

Serial connections

When matrix_meshtastic_relay_connection_type is serial, the host device referenced by matrix_meshtastic_relay_serial_port is passed through to the container. Make sure that matrix_user_uid / matrix_user_gid have read/write access to that device (e.g. by adding the matrix user to the dialout group, or adjusting udev rules).

Extending the configuration

There are some additional things you may wish to configure about the bridge.

Take a look at:

roles/custom/matrix-bridge-meshtastic-relay/defaults/main.yml for some variables that you can customize via your vars.yml file. You can override individual matrix_meshtastic_relay_* variables, or make finer-grained adjustments via matrix_meshtastic_relay_configuration_extension_yaml.

Installing

After configuring the playbook, run the playbook with playbook tags as below:

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts setup.yml --tags=setup-all,start

The shortcut commands with the just program are also available: just install-all or just setup-all.

just install-all is useful for maintaining your setup quickly (2x-5x faster than just setup-all) when its components remain unchanged. If you adjust your vars.yml to remove other components, you’d need to run just setup-all, or these components will still remain installed. Note these shortcuts run the ensure-matrix-users-created tag too.

Usage

Invite the bot to the Matrix rooms listed in matrix_meshtastic_relay_matrix_rooms_list and it will relay between Matrix and the corresponding Meshtastic channel. Messages sent on Meshtastic will appear in Matrix and vice versa.

See the project’s wiki for details about commands, plugins and advanced usage.

Troubleshooting

As with all other services, you can find the logs in systemd-journald by logging in to the server with SSH and running journalctl -fu matrix-meshtastic-relay.

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