Is federated matrix / synapse actually usable now with large groups? any alternatives? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-08 09:52 Hey guys! A year or so ago I tried hosting a federated matrix and synapse server. While at the beginning it seemed nice, the moment I tried to join a large room it died completely for 10-20 minutes while blasting my DNS server with 10K+ requests. Sometimes at the end it wouldn't join, while filling the logs with errors. It really didn't seem like a good user-experience. Ironically, one of the groups I tried to join was the support group, but I failed, because it was too big. I am wondering if it has improved since, or it's pretty much the same. At the same time, I'm also wondering if there's a good, fast self- hosted alternative, that kinda just works. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-10-08 10:10 Depending on your config, joining a large group means syncing backlogs of weeks/months/years of posted media, so what do you expect? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-08 10:13 Not waiting 20 minutes in 2023 for a messaging platform to sync if I join a single group with default settings. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-10-08 10:17 You do understand that running a federated server means that you are taking over hosting duties for that chat protocol, right? I wonder, why do you want to run a federation outpost if the requirements to do that seem annoying to you? Just join the group via matrix.org's own server and you are settled, they have the knowledge and the resources to run a proper matrix server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-10-08 10:19 I have a few matrix servers, one has 1200 members, there are no such issues you describe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-08 10:21 Are they federated? Did you change anything from the default / recommend settings? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-08 10:23 Sorry - so the default, recommended settings try to cache absolutely everything from a single group, including cat gifs posted 5 years ago? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-10-08 10:25 I have no idea, I have zero desire to host a matrix server. But I wanted to have one, I would make sure to check what the actual requirements in terms of bandwidth and storage are and what will happen if I fire up the server. It's like hosting a TOR exit node and then complaining about all the data going over my network. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-08 10:27 Oh, so you never even had a matrix server hosted, but you're telling me I'm wrong. Hahaha! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-10-08 10:30 I just say you seem extremely uninformed for somebody who want to run a federation outpost, i.e. from the FAQ: https://matrix.org/docs/older/faq/ --- Why is the state_groups_state table so large? What is it storing? Room state takes up a lot of space! To be specific, regular snapshots are taken of room states, so you can rapidly find out the state for historical events. Why is it so important to record this, and to know the past room state including full member list? It's needed to enable access control and state resolution, for example the homeserver needs to be able to decide: "who can see this message at that point in time?" "what was the state of the room was when this message was received, and so is it allowed to be received?" Synapse stores these snapshots approximately every 100 messages, with deltas in between. --- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-10-08 10:32 They are all federated yes. I did cluster some synapse services but besides that pretty standard configuration. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-08 10:36 Thank you! I might give it a try again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-10-08 10:37 I must stress though that all my matrix systems have unlimited RAM and CPU at their disposal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-08 10:44 Well, I'd assume 8GB ram (ddr4 3200) dedicated to it and 4-6 ryzen (5700x) cores should be enough. Especially if I'm planning to host it for a max of... 30 users. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-08 10:47 Well, I can't recall every minute detail I've delt with a year ago. I shared my past experience and asked if it would be more or less the same. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-10-08 10:48 I guess, if not, you can always add more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- somebodyknows_ · 2023-10-08 11:09 IRC. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- revereddesecration · 2023-10-08 11:29 IRC doesn’t enforce authentication or encryption. That’s why it doesn’t rate a mention in any conversation that includes Matrix. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alive1 · 2023-10-08 11:51 My current experience with synapse is that as a single user on my matrix server i somehow managed to have spent the entire 120 gigabytes worth of ssd i dedicated to the service. I am really not interested in the cat gif from 5 years ago as you say. A retention of 1 week on 99% of the channels I'm in would be overkill. Private messages would realistically not be more than perhaps a few hundred megabytes (besides the media) if ever that much. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-10-08 12:05 That's normal on this sub. People chime in with their opinion not their experience. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- microtoniac · 2023-10-08 13:34 Synapse will soon natively implement sliding sync which will make almost instant any chat synchronization no matter how big the chat is or how many users there are in it. Element X (it's like element 2.0) and an experimental release of this improvement (MSC 3575) in the form of a proxy service do already work now with sliding sync if you want to check them out without waiting for synapse to natively implement sliding sync. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-08 16:20 That is wonderful news, thank you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- daedric · 2023-10-08 17:44 Depends... with Dendrite or Conduite, maybe. With Synapse, maybe not. Remember, it's Synapse + Postgres. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jasondaigo · 2023-10-08 17:50 Isn’t it rather far away in the future ? A month ago I was told sliding sync will be separate for a long time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- microtoniac · 2023-10-08 18:15 Is that so? Would you mind sharing the source for such statement? Perhaps I should install the proxy service now instead of waiting for synapse to catch up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jasondaigo · 2023-10-08 18:18 I asked that question in synapse admins. No guarantee that it’s accurate. I only skipped he proxy yet because not many users. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AmateursPls · 2023-10-09 03:07 How convenient. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AmateursPls · 2023-10-09 03:16 This guy is providing you with decent insight relating to the realities of the situation you're facing, including cited sources to support what he's saying to you and you're being a cute little smartass dismissing him for no other reason than because it's not what you want to hear. If all you're interested in hearing is what you want to hear and have somebody tell you "haha no you're totally right haha cat gifs from years ago are pointless hahaha" go out your question to ChatGPT in such a way that will get you your desired response. Don't be a snide little snot to people actually trying to help you with informed answers as to why those cat gifs have relevance and importance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- YaneonY · 2023-10-09 10:58 Make sure you're using PostgreSQL and not SQLite. Last one is slow as hell. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dangernoodle01 · 2023-10-09 11:55 thanks, noted. Once I'm done with some calls I'll jump into it, I'll also make sure the storage gets about 200GB of a Samsung pro NVME. That should be enough.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- terrytw · 2023-10-22 04:41 Hi, a quick question: do self hosted synapse support features of element X? I was quite interested in the new element call, but unsure as to whether it will be available if I self host instead of using the official [matrix.org](https://matrix.org) server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- microtoniac · 2023-10-23 16:05 Self hosted synapse will support all the features of element x, just not yet. Also we don't know when the native support for synapse will arrive for self hosting. Soon hopefully. From an entry of one of their blogs: "What’s more, Element Call is built entirely on Matrix: it doesn’t need any additional servers to get going. You can run it against your existing Matrix homeserver to provide complete self-sovereignty…" No release date thought. Blog source: https://element.io/blog/introducing-native-matrix-voip- with-element-call/