Element Matrix Services

• Add Additional Users
• Add Users
• Apply coupon/discount
• Client Look & Feel
• EMS Server With Custom Domain
• How to Get an EMS Server
• Migrate From EMS to Self-Hosted
• Migrate From Self-Hosted to EMS
• Reset User Password
• Token based registration
• Adding a Trust & Safety Contact

Add Additional Users

1. Click Your Account and Manage Servers or click this link https://ems.element.io/user/hosting.
2. Click the Hosts tab.
3. Change Total Monthly Active User Seats to the number of users you want and click Save at the bottom.
   
   • Note that you cannot decrease your user count later.

Add Users

1. Click Your Account and Manage Servers or click this link: https://ems.element.io/user/hosting

2. Click Server Admin

3. Select your host

4. Click Add user Enter the username and click Add
   

5. Select Make new user server admin if you want this user to be able to use the Synapse Admin API to perform administrative tasks on your server. Be careful with this as this option has a lot of power on your server.

6. The username and password for the new user is displayed. You will only be able to see this information once so send the password to the user in a secure manner and then delete it
   

Apply coupon/discount

Coupons can only be applied by new customers before purchasing any products. However, if you are an existing customer and want to add a coupon, please contact support at https://ems.element.io/support.

Terms and Conditions apply. See the page for your coupon or ask your Element contact or support.

• Create your EMS account normally
• If you have agreed to pay by invoice/bank transfer, stop here and let your Element contact know you have created your account so they can enable invoice payment for you
• Add your billing address and payment card on https://ems.element.io/user/billing, or click Your Account, then Billing
  
• Go to https://ems.element.io/user/account, or click Your Account, then Account
• If you are a business, you must enter your company name and if applicable, VAT ID here
  
• Click Show Discounts
• Enter your coupon code and click Apply coupon
  
  
• Continue host setup normally. The discount will automatically be applied to all applicable products
  

Client Look & Feel

This feature allows you to customize the home and welcome page on your EMS-provided Element Web client.

Blog posts

See also our blog posts on the subject:

• Build your own custom branded chat platform at the touch of a button!
• A white label messaging app to create your own brand messenger

Create home and login template

1. Create the files you want to use.

   1. Edit ems_home.html. This can be as simple as a couple of lines of HTML, for example:

      <h1>Snow Leopard LTD</h1>
      <h2>Rooms to join</h2>
      <ul>
          <li><a href='/#/room/#welcome:snowleopard-staging.ems.host'>Welcome to Demo web chat (#welcome)</a></li>
          <li><a href='/#/room/#support:snowleopard-staging.ems.host'>Support (#support)</a></li>
          <li><a href='/#/room/#offtopic:snowleopard-staging.ems.host'>Off topic conversation (#offtopic)</a></li>
      </ul>
      

      You can also add a more complex HTML and styling.

   2. It looks like this in your web browser:
      

   3. Edit ems_welcome.html. This is a bit more complex, but it can be almost anything you want as long as it has links to Log in (/#/login) and Create account (/#/register). The default design is based on this template. You can get creative with the CSS and the !important tag.

      Click to see ems_welcome contents

      The only change I made from the template is adding <p>This is some demo text!</p> on line 177.

      <style type="text/css">
      
      /* we deliberately inline style here to avoid flash-of-CSS problems, and to avoid
      * voodoo where we have to set display: none by default
      */
      
      h1::after {
          content: "!";
      }
      
      .mx_Parent {
          display: -webkit-box;
          display: -webkit-flex;
          display: -ms-flexbox;
          display: flex;
          -webkit-box-orient: vertical;
          -webkit-box-direction: normal;
          -webkit-flex-direction: column;
          -ms-flex-direction: column;
          flex-direction: column;
          -webkit-box-pack: center;
          -webkit-justify-content: center;
          -ms-flex-pack: center;
          justify-content: center;
          -webkit-box-align: center;
          -webkit-align-items: center;
          -ms-flex-align: center;
          align-items: center;
          text-align: center;
          padding: 25px 35px;
          color: #2e2f32;
      }
      
      .mx_Logo {
          height: 54px;
          margin-top: 2px;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonGroup {
          margin-top: 10px;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonRow {
          display: -webkit-box;
          display: -webkit-flex;
          display: -ms-flexbox;
          display: flex;
          -webkit-justify-content: space-around;
          -ms-flex-pack: distribute;
          -webkit-box-align: center;
          -webkit-align-items: center;
          -ms-flex-align: center;
          align-items: center;
          justify-content: space-between;
          box-sizing: border-box;
          margin: 12px 0 0;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonRow > * {
          margin: 0 10px;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonRow > *:first-child {
          margin-left: 0;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonRow > *:last-child {
          margin-right: 0;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonParent {
          display: -webkit-box;
          display: -webkit-flex;
          display: -ms-flexbox;
          display: flex;
          padding: 10px 20px;
          -webkit-box-orient: horizontal;
          -webkit-box-direction: normal;
          -webkit-flex-direction: row;
          -ms-flex-direction: row;
          flex-direction: row;
          -webkit-box-pack: center;
          -webkit-justify-content: center;
          -ms-flex-pack: center;
          justify-content: center;
          -webkit-box-align: center;
          -webkit-align-items: center;
          -ms-flex-align: center;
          align-items: center;
          border-radius: 4px;
          width: 150px;
          background-repeat: no-repeat;
          background-position: 10px center;
          text-decoration: none;
          color: #2e2f32 !important;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonLabel {
          margin-left: 20px;
      }
      
      .mx_Header_title {
          font-size: 24px;
          font-weight: 600;
          margin: 20px 0 0;
      }
      
      .mx_Header_subtitle {
          font-size: 12px;
          font-weight: normal;
          margin: 8px 0 0;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonSignIn {
          background-color: #368BD6;
          color: white !important;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonCreateAccount {
          background-color: #0DBD8B;
          color: white !important;
      }
      
      .mx_SecondaryButton {
          background-color: #FFFFFF;
          color: #2E2F32;
      }
      
      .mx_Button_iconSignIn {
          background-image: url('welcome/images/icon-sign-in.svg');
      }
      .mx_Button_iconCreateAccount {
          background-image: url('welcome/images/icon-create-account.svg');
      }
      .mx_Button_iconHelp {
          background-image: url('welcome/images/icon-help.svg');
      }
      .mx_Button_iconRoomDirectory {
          background-image: url('welcome/images/icon-room-directory.svg');
      }
      
      /*
      .mx_WelcomePage_loggedIn is applied by EmbeddedPage from the Welcome component
      If it is set on the page, we should show the buttons. Otherwise, we have to assume
      we don't have an account and should hide them. No account == no guest account either.
      */
      .mx_WelcomePage:not(.mx_WelcomePage_loggedIn) .mx_WelcomePage_guestFunctions {
          display: none;
      }
      
      .mx_ButtonRow.mx_WelcomePage_guestFunctions {
          margin-top: 20px;
      }
      .mx_ButtonRow.mx_WelcomePage_guestFunctions > div {
          margin: 0 auto;
      }
      
      @media only screen and (max-width: 480px) {
          .mx_ButtonRow {
              flex-direction: column;
          }
      
          .mx_ButtonRow > * {
              margin: 0 0 10px 0;
          }
      }
      
      </style>
      
      <div class="mx_Parent">
          <a href="https://element.io" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
              <img src="welcome/images/logo.svg" alt="" class="mx_Logo"/>
          </a>
          <h1 class="mx_Header_title">_t("Welcome to Element")</h1>
          <!-- XXX: Our translations system isn't smart enough to recognize variables in the HTML, so we manually do it -->
          <h4 class="mx_Header_subtitle">_t("Decentralised, encrypted chat &amp; collaboration powered by $matrixLogo")</h4>
          <p>This is some demo text!</p>
          <div class="mx_ButtonGroup">
              <div class="mx_ButtonRow">
                  <a href="#/login" class="mx_ButtonParent mx_ButtonSignIn mx_Button_iconSignIn">
                      <div class="mx_ButtonLabel">_t("Sign In")</div>
                  </a>
                  <a href="#/register" class="mx_ButtonParent mx_ButtonCreateAccount mx_Button_iconCreateAccount">
                      <div class="mx_ButtonLabel">_t("Create Account")</div>
                  </a>
              </div>
              <!-- The comments below are meant to be used by Ansible as a quick way
                  to strip out the marked content when desired.
                  See https://github.com/element-hq/element-web/issues/8622.
                  TODO: Strip out these comments and rely on the guest flag -->
              <!-- BEGIN Ansible: Remove these lines when guest access is disabled -->
              <div class="mx_ButtonRow mx_WelcomePage_guestFunctions">
                  <div>
                      <a href="#/directory" class="mx_ButtonParent mx_SecondaryButton mx_Button_iconRoomDirectory">
                          <div class="mx_ButtonLabel">_t("Explore rooms")</div>
                      </a>
                  </div>
              </div>
              <!-- END Ansible: Remove these lines when guest access is disabled -->
          </div>
      </div>
      

   4. It looks like this in your web browser:
      

Serve the files

You must host the files somewhere where they are publickly accessible and you need to enable the CORS header Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * on the web server for these files. See https://enable-cors.org/ for instructions on how to do this.

Configure your EMS server

1. Add the URLs to the Client look & feel section in the EMS Control Panel. Click Save.
   
   ^{Unfortunately, we have a bug in the validator affecting files hosted on Matrix. Just ignore the error.}

   • Note if you are hosting the files on your own web server, you only need to change your EMS server configuration or reprovision if the URLs have changed. Changes to the contents of existing files are applied automatically

2. Once your host finishes reprovisioning, check your Element Web to ensure the changes are applied correctly.

   1. Welcome page image and Welcome page content
      

   2. Client logo
      

   3. Home page content
      

Image Credits

• Client logo image by Charles Miller used under the terms of Free to use License.
• Welcome page image by Pixabay used under the terms of Free to use (CC0) License.

EMS Server With Custom Domain

For this guide, I will be using the domain element.io. I will set up EMS so that the Matrix usernames becomes @someone:element.io, and the Element client will be at https://chat.element.io/

From the guide at Get Your Own EMS Server, I will be replacing the EMS hostname ems-demo-staging.ems.host with element.ems.host

Custom domains are only supported with Element Enterprise Cloud plans.

Prerequisites

• You own and control the domain you want to use
• If you do not have a website on the domain you want to use with your EMS server:
  • You can create a CNAME DNS record for the domain. Some providers call this ALIAS or CNAME Flattening when used on the root of the domain (domain root = yourdomain.com, not something.yourdomain.com)
• If you have a website on the domain you want to use with your EMS server:
  • Your website has HTTPS enabled using a valid certificate issued by a commonly recognized provider. For example, Comodo or LetsEncrypt.
  • You can serve plain-text JSON files at these exact paths
    • https://yourdomain.com/.well-known/matrix/client
    • https://yourdomain.com/.well-known/matrix/server
    • Note that these files do not and cannot have a file extension
  • You can add the header Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * to the client file on the web server

See also

• FAQ: Can I use a subdomain instead of the root domain with my EMS server?
• FAQ: Can I use EMS-hosted well-knowns with the root of my domain?

Setup

Some providers for DNS and website hosting providers need special configuration. See Provider specific instructions at the bottom for known solutions.

1. Follow steps 1 - 10 from Get Your Own EMS Server

2. On step 10 from Get Your Own EMS Server, turn ON Custom DNS
   

3. In the Custom Homeserver domain field, enter element.io
   

4. Create two files on your website according to the instructions given.
   The path cannot be changed, but up to 30 redirects are supported.
   While not required, you should add the header Content-Type application/json to both files.

   1. https://element.io/.well-known/matrix/server
      

      {
          "m.server": "element.ems.host:443"
      }
      

   2. https://element.io/.well-known/matrix/client
      
      You need to enable the CORS header Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * on the web server for this file. See https://enable-cors.org/ for instructions on how to do this. If you are using redicrects, the CORS headers must be set on all steps/hops.

      {
          "m.homeserver": {
              "base_url": "https://element.ems.host"
          },
          "m.identity_server": {
              "base_url": "https://vector.im"
          },
          "org.matrix.msc4143.rtc_foci": [
              {
                  "type": "livekit",
                  "livekit_service_url": "https://jwt.call.element.io"
              }
          ]
      }
      

   Optional Nginx-specific configuration

   If your web server is running Nginx, you can set this in the Nginx config instead of creating actual files.

   server {
       server_name element.io
   
       ...
   
       # Matrix well-known files
       location /.well-known/matrix/client {
           return 200 '{"m.homeserver":{"base_url":"https://element.ems.host"},"m.identity_server":{"base_url":"https://vector.im"},"org.matrix.msc4143.rtc_foci":[{"type":"livekit","livekit_service_url":"https://jwt.call.element.io"}]}';
           add_header Content-Type application/json;
           add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
       }
       location /.well-known/matrix/server {
           return 200 '{"m.server": "element.ems.host:443"}';
           add_header Content-Type application/json;
       }
   }
   

5. Click Check again to verify that your .well-known files are configured correctly
   

   You can also verify your `.well-known` files from the command line

   Note the lines access-control-allow-origin: * and content-type: application/json

   1. On Mac or Linux, using the terminal

      $ curl -i https://element.io/.well-known/matrix/client
      HTTP/2 200 
      date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 09:11:21 GMT
      content-type: application/json
      content-length: 129
      set-cookie: __cfduid=x...; expires=Sun, 30-Aug-20 09:11:21 GMT; path=/; domain=.element.io; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax
      access-control-allow-origin: *
      cf-cache-status: DYNAMIC
      cf-request-id: 0...
      expect-ct: max-age=604800, report-uri="https://report-uri.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/beacon/expect-ct"
      server: cloudflare
      cf-ray: 5...
      
      {
          "m.homeserver": {
              "base_url": "https://element.ems.host"
          },
          "m.identity_server": {
              "base_url": "https://vector.im"
          },
          "org.matrix.msc4143.rtc_foci": [
              {
                  "type": "livekit",
                  "livekit_service_url": "https://jwt.call.element.io"
              }
          ]
      }
      
      $ curl -i https://element.io/.well-known/matrix/server
      HTTP/2 200 
      date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 09:11:25 GMT
      content-type: application/json
      content-length: 52
      set-cookie: __cfduid=x...; expires=Sun, 30-Aug-20 09:11:25 GMT; path=/; domain=.element.io; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax
      access-control-allow-origin: *
      cf-cache-status: DYNAMIC
      cf-request-id: 0...
      expect-ct: max-age=604800, report-uri="https://report-uri.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/beacon/expect-ct"
      server: cloudflare
      cf-ray: 5...
      
      {
          "m.server": "element.ems.host:443"
      }  
      

   2. On Windows, using PowerShell

      PS C:\Users\twilight> Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://element.io/.well-known/matrix/client
      
      
      StatusCode        : 200
      StatusDescription : OK
      Content           : {
                              "m.homeserver": {
                                  "base_url": "https://element.ems.host"
                              },
                              "m.identity_server": {
                                  "base_url": "https://vector.im"
                              },
                              "org.matrix.msc4143.rtc_foci": [
                                  {
                                      "type": "livekit",
                                      "livekit_service_url": "https://jwt.call.element.io"
                                  }
                              ]
                          }
      RawContent        : HTTP/1.1 200 OK
                          Connection: keep-alive
                          Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
                          CF-Cache-Status: DYNAMIC
                          cf-request-id: 0...
                          Expect-CT: max-age=604800, report-uri="https://repor...
      Forms             : {}
      Headers           : {[Connection, keep-alive], [Access-Control-Allow-Origin, *], [CF-Cache-Status, DYNAMIC], [cf-request-id, 0...]...}
      Images            : {}
      InputFields       : {}
      Links             : {}
      ParsedHtml        : System.__ComObject
      RawContentLength  : 129
      
      
      PS C:\Users\twilight> Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://element.io/.well-known/matrix/server
      
      
      StatusCode        : 200
      StatusDescription : OK
      Content           : {
                              "m.server": "element.ems.host:443"
                          }
      RawContent        : HTTP/1.1 200 OK
                          Connection: keep-alive
                          Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
                          CF-Cache-Status: DYNAMIC
                          cf-request-id: 0...
                          Expect-CT: max-age=604800, report-uri="https://repor...
      Forms             : {}
      Headers           : {[Connection, keep-alive], [Access-Control-Allow-Origin, *], [CF-Cache-Status, DYNAMIC], [cf-request-id, 0...]...}
      Images            : {}
      InputFields       : {}
      Links             : {}
      ParsedHtml        : System.__ComObject
      RawContentLength  : 52
      

6. You can continue without the .well-known files in place, but your server will have limited functionality until this is fixed

7. In the Custom Client domain field, enter chat.element.io. This can be any domain, except the same as Custom Homeserver domain
   

8. Create a CNAME DNS record with your DNS provider according to the instructions given
   chat.element.io. CNAME element.element.io.
   

9. This shows how this is done with Cloudflare DNS. Depending on your DNS provider, this might be different. Consult the documentation for your provider. Note that Proxy must be turned off with Cloudflare.
   

10. Back on EMS, click Check again. Note that sometimes it might take a while for your new DNS record to propagate. You can continue, but functionality will be limited. Check back with the Hosts tab on https://ems.element.io/user/hosting and click Rebuild Host once the DNS record is in place.
    

    You can also verify the CNAME DNS record using the command line

    1. On Mac or Linux, using the terminal

       $ dig chat.element.io CNAME
       
       ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> chat.element.io CNAME
       ;; global options: +cmd
       ;; Got answer:
       ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 57888
       ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
       
       ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
       ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
       ;; QUESTION SECTION:
       ;chat.element.io.   IN CNAME
       
       ;; ANSWER SECTION:
       chat.element.io. 299 IN CNAME element.element.io.
       
       ;; Query time: 32 msec
       ;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1)
       ;; WHEN: Fri Jul 31 10:21:56 BST 2020
       ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 91
       

    2. On Windows, using PowerShell

       PS C:\Users\twilight> Resolve-DnsName -Name chat.element.io -Type CNAME
       
       Name                           Type   TTL   Section    NameHost
       ----                           ----   ---   -------    --------
       chat.element.io                 CNAME  299   Answer     element.element.io
       

11. Continue from step 11 on Get Your Own EMS Server

Provider-specific instructions

GitHub Pages

If you are hosting your website with GitHub Pages, add this to the Jekyll config file _config.yml

include:
  - .well-known

Microsoft Azure

If you are using Microsoft 365 / Azure to manage your domain or the rest of your infrastructure, please use the following instructions to host the .well-known/matrix URI (RFC 8615).

In this section, we will configure Azure to serve https://yourdomain.com/.well-known/matrix/client and https://yourdomain.com/.well-known/matrix/client.

The summary of steps is as follows:

• prepare json files
• create a Storage account then enable a Static website
• upload the json files to .well-known/matrix/ in the $web container
• create a CDN and an endpoint for this container
• create a CNAME DNS entry for your custom domain, pointing to your CDN endpoint
• associate your custom domain to your CDN endpoint

Prepare client and server .well-known files locally

On your computer, prepare two plain text files called client and server (again, notice the lack of file extension such as ".txt") which contain the following:

client

{
    "m.homeserver": {
        "base_url": "https://your-tenant.ems.host"
    },
    "m.identity_server": {
        "base_url": "https://vector.im"
    },
    "org.matrix.msc4143.rtc_foci": [
        {
            "type": "livekit",
            "livekit_service_url": "https://jwt.call.your-tenant.io"
        }
    ]
}

Remember to replace your-tenant by the name of your EMS tenant.

server

{
    "m.homeserver": {
        "base_url": "https://your-tenant.ems.host:443"
    }
}

Remember to replace your-tenant by the name of your EMS tenant.

You will be uploading these shortly.

Create a Storage account and Static website

Storage account

In the Azure Portal, create a Storage account.

The name needs to be unique to Azure. yourdomainwellknown is an option that should work well in most scenarios.

Performarce can be left to Standard.
Redundancy should be set to Geo-redundant storage (GRS) as the .well-known URI will be a core part of your EMS deployment.
You can leave all other options to their default or change them to fit your specific deployment scenario.

Finally, click create.

Static website

Once the Storage account is created, you will need to create a Static website in this Storage account.
In the Storage account overview, choose "Static website", in the Data management section.

You do not need to provide a specific Index document name or Error document path.

Enabling the Static website in your Storage account will automatically create a $web storage container to which you can upload the json text files which will be served at the .well-known URI.

Go to "Containers", in the "Data storage" section, to upload the client and server files you prepered earlier.

Click on the $web container, then chose "Upload", which will open a panel on the right.

When uploading the client and server files, make sure to open the "advanced" part of the upload panel and choose to upload to a specific folder: .well-known/matrix/

Create a CDN, CNAME DNS entry for your custom domain and Custom domain name for the CDN endpoint

Creating a CDN is needed because Azure does not allow serving HTTPS over a custom domain using only a Storage account Static website. To do so, a CDN is necessary.

Create a CDN endpoint

Go back to your Storage account's main view and choose "Front Door and CDN" in the Security + Networking section, to create a CDN endpoint.

Service type: Azure CDN is sufficient, the more advanced features of Azure Front Door are not necessary here.

If you need to create a new profile, you may call the Profile name and Endpoint name as you wish.
For consistency, it is suggested to call them yourdomainwellknown as previously.

For Origin host name, pick your Static website.

For Query string caching behaviour, pick Ignore Query String, although this setting is not important in our context.

Once your endpoint is deployed, go to the resource, then go to your endpoint's further settings by clicking on it. Make note of its hostname (rfc8615demo.azureedge.net in our example) as you will need it shortly.

Create CNAME DNS entry for your custom domain

You will now create a DNS entry for your custom domain, a CNAME pointing to your Azure CDN endpoint's hostname. How to do so exactly will depend on who hosts your DNS servers. The specifics of this are beyond this documentation, but the following general information should be sufficient.

In your DNS provider's admin panel, add a DNS entry with the following details:

• Type: CNAME
• Domain: your custom domain, such as yourdomain.com
• Target: your Azure CDN Endpoint's hostname, such as rfc8615demo.azureedge.net in our example

Once created, this DNS entry may take some time to propagate, but in most cases will be picked up quickly by Azure, as needed in the next step.

Associate your custom domain with your CDN Endpoint

In the endpoint's settings, choose "+ custom domain" to start adding your custom domain. A panel will open on the right.

Enter your custom domain: yourdomain.com and finally, click add.

If the CNAME entry can be seen by Azure, after a few minutes your custom domain should be associated with your CDN Endpoint.

Final result

https://yourdomain.com/.well-known/matrix/client and https://yourdomain.com/.well-known/matrix/server are now served over HTTPS by Azure.

You should now have the following resources in your Azure account:

• Storage account
• Front Door and CDN Profile
• Endpoint

Resources

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cdn/cdn-create-a-storage-account-with-cdn
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cdn/cdn-storage-custom-domain-https

How to Get an EMS Server

1. Go to https://ems.element.io/user/hosting#/hosts and click the “Register” link below the sign-in button.

2. Fill in your details and click the Register button. Note: Your password must be at least 12 characters long.

3. Look in your inbox for your verification email. (If it doesn’t appear after a couple of minutes - check your spam!) Click the link in the email to verify your email address.

4. You will be automatically redirected to the EMS Hosting site. Before proceeding any further, agree to our terms and conditions.

5. Click “Set up a host now” to start setting up your first EMS server

6. Choose your host size and click Continue.

7. Choose a hostname and click “Check” to check availability.

8. Configure your new host.

9. Set up your payment card.

10. Check your payment information and click Purchase to build the host.

11. Sit tight for a few minutes while your server is being built

12. Once your host is ready, click Manage hosts to configure additional settings and add users.

Migrate From EMS to Self-Hosted

For support on Synapse or matrix-media-repo, ask in the Matrix rooms #synapse:matrix.org and #mediarepo:t2bot.io. For support on bridges, see the bridge documentation for each bridge's support channel.

See also this excellent blog post by Robin Riley at The Matrix.org Foundation.

Important

• It is impossible to change the domain of any Matrix server. Therefore if your EMS server is not using Custom DNS (i.e. your Matrix IDs are @someone:hostname.ems.host), unfortunately it is not possible to import your export to your own or another environment.
  • You can run an export with this domain in a local environment if you set up your own DNS and self-signed certificates. But you will not be able to federate with the public Matrix federation.
• Do not cancel your EMS server until you have downloaded your export and verified its content. Canceling your server will erase your data.
• You will experience some downtime as your server will be stopped while the export is running. The EMS export tool will estimate the actual downtime when initiated.
• Ensure all your users have key backup configured and working before starting the export and migration. All clients need to log out and in again after the migration. See the Cross Signing section for more information about key backup.
• It is impossible to read encrypted messages or media from the export. Encrypted data in Matrix can only be decrypted by the user in their client when they have the required decryption keys.

Export data

1. Go to https://ems.element.io/user/hosting#/exports
2. Select the server you want to export from in the drop-down box, then click Create export
3. Wait for the export of your config, database, and media to complete
4. Once all exports have completed, download all files provided

Import process

For all components, you must install the same version as your EMS server is running. Version information is provided in the hostname-config.md file. If a newer version is available, once the import is completed and verified, follow the official upgrade documentation for each component to upgrade.

All required configuration values are provided in the hostname-config.md file.

1. Following official documentation, install and configure
   1. PostgreSQL. Refer to the Synapse PostgreSQL documentation for database setup
   2. Synapse
   3. Optional (see media step below): matrix-media-repo
2. When generating your Synapse configuration file, you MUST use the same domain as your EMS server
3. Do not start Synapse yet
4. In the Synapse config file (usually homeserver.yaml), set:
   1. pepper. If you do not do this, you have to reset all passwords
   2. Signing key. This is stored in a file. See this config file option for path. Alternatively, add the public key for your EMS hosted server to old_signing_keys. If your EMS server is still running, you can find your public signing key at https://yourHostname.ems.host/_matrix/key/v2/server
   3. macaroon_secret_key
5. Import the Synapse database
   1. Create a new database per the Synapse PostgreSQL documentation
   2. Or, if your Synapse database is not empty, empty it
      WARNING - THIS WILL IMMEDIATELY AND IRRECOVERABLY DELETE DATA, PLEASE TAKE CARE. WE ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY IF YOU DELETE THE WRONG DATABASE OR DATA
      Connect to the database with psql, then run the following queries:

      DO $$ DECLARE
      r RECORD;
      BEGIN
          FOR r IN (SELECT tablename FROM pg_tables WHERE schemaname = current_schema()) LOOP
              EXECUTE 'DROP TABLE ' || quote_ident(r.tablename) || ' CASCADE';
          END LOOP;
      END $$;
      
      DROP sequence cache_invalidation_stream_seq;
      DROP sequence state_group_id_seq;
      DROP sequence user_id_seq;
      DROP sequence account_data_sequence;
      DROP sequence application_services_txn_id_seq;
      DROP sequence device_inbox_sequence;
      DROP sequence device_lists_sequence;
      DROP sequence e2e_cross_signing_keys_sequence;
      DROP sequence event_auth_chain_id;
      DROP sequence events_backfill_stream_seq;
      DROP sequence events_stream_seq;
      DROP sequence presence_stream_sequence;
      DROP sequence push_rules_stream_sequence;
      DROP sequence pushers_sequence;
      DROP sequence receipts_sequence;
      DROP sequence un_partial_stated_event_stream_sequence;
      DROP sequence un_partial_stated_room_stream_sequence;
      

      Enter the command \d and make sure no tables or sequences remain.
      Disconnect from the database
   3. Extract the database dump

      unzip emsHostname-synapse-database.zip
      

   4. Import the database dump

      pg_restore \
          --username USERNAME \
          --host HOSTNAME \
          --dbname DATABASE_NAME \
          --no-owner \
          /path/to/id-emsHostname-synapse-database.dir/
      

   5. Verify that sequence was set correctly. Connect to the database and run the query

      SELECT * FROM state_group_id_seq;
      

      last_value should be greater than 1
6. Import media into matrix-media-repo according to documentation here or import media into Synapses built-in media repository using the import_to_synapse executable available from the latest matrix-media-repo release
7. Start Synapse and ensure everything is working as expected
8. Optionally, install Element Web or use another Matrix client
9. If you have any bridges, please see the documentation for each bridge
   Discord | Hookshot | IRC | Signal | Slack | Telegram | Whatsapp
   • The process for importing the bridge databases is the same as with Synapse
10. Cancel your EMS server. See this FAQ document for instructions. Note, this cannot be undone and all your data will be lost. Ensure your imported server is working as expected before doing this

Migrate From Self-Hosted to EMS

Notes

Before starting with this guide, please contact EMS support from https://ems.element.io/support or by emailing ems-support@element.io

• Except where specified, you should be able to just copy-paste each command in succession.
• Please do not change any file names anywhere.

Preparation

This section outlines what you should do ahead of the migration in order to ensure the migration goes as quickly as possible and without issues.

• At the latest 48 hours before your migration is scheduled, set the TTL on any DNS records that need to be updated to the lowest allowed value.
• Upgrade your Synapse to the same version as EMS is running. Generally this will be the latest stable release. https://element.ems.host/_matrix/federation/v1/version is a good indicator, but confirm version with your EMS contact.
  • This is not required, but if your Synapse version is not the same as the EMS version, your migration will take longer.
• Check the size of your database and report to your EMS contact:
  • PostgreSQL: Connect to your database and issue the command \l+
  • SQLite: ls -lah /path/to/homeserver.db
• Check the size of your media repository and report to your EMS contact.
  • Synapse Media Store: du -hs /path/to/synapse/media_store/
  • Matrix Media Repo: https://github.com/turt2live/matrix-media-repo/blob/master/docs/admin.md#per-server-usage
• If you are using SQLite instead of PostgreSQL, you should port your database to PostgreSQL by following this guide before dumping your database and sending to your EMS contact.
  • This step is not required, but will speed up your migration.

SSH to your matrix server

You might want to run everything in a tmux or a screen session to avoid disruption in case of a lost SSH connection.

Generate password for gpg encryption

pwgen -s 64 1

Alternatively, you can use our GPG key. element-support-public.pgp

GPG

If gpg is being uncooperative, use the command gpgconf --kill gpg-agent.

Create a folder to store everything

mkdir -p /tmp/synapse_export
cd /tmp/synapse_export

The guide from here on assumes your current working directory is /tmp/synapse_export.

Set restrictive permissions on the folder

If you are working as root: (otherwise set restrictive permissions as needed):

chmod 000 /tmp/synapse_export

Copy Synapse config

Copy the following files and send to EMS Support:

• Your Synapse configuration file (usually homeserver.yaml)
• Your message signing key.
  • This is stored in a separate file. See the Synapse config file for the path. The variable is signing_key_path https://element-hq.github.io/synapse/latest/usage/configuration/config_documentation.html#signing_key_path

Stop Synapse

DO NOT START IT AGAIN AFTER THIS
Doing so can cause issues with federation and inconsistent data for your users.

While you wait for the database to export or files to transfer, you should edit or create the well-known files and DNS records to point to your EMS host. This can take a while to update so should be done as soon as possible in order to ensure your server will function properly when the migration is complete.

Database export

PostgreSQL

Dump, compress and encrypt

Replace:

• <dbhost> (ip or fqdn for your database server)
• <dbusername> (username for your synapse database)
• <dbname> (the name of the database for synapse)

pg_dump -O -h <dbhost> -U <dbusername> -d <dbname> | gzip > customer_db_export.sql.gz
gpg --symmetric --no-symkey-cache customer_db_export.sql.gz
rm customer_db_export.sql.gz

If required, split into smaller files

Please only do this if you have a slow connection and are worried about transferring a single large file.

split -b 100m customer_db_export.sql.gz.gpg customer_db_export.sql.gz.gpg.part-
rm customer_db_export.sql.gz.gpg

SQLIte

Compress and encrypt

tar -zcvf homeserver.db.tar.gz /path/to/homeserver.db
gpg --symmetric --no-symkey-cache homeserver.db.tar.gz
rm homeserver.db.tar.gz

If required, split into smaller files

Please only do this if you have a slow connection and are worried about transferring a single large file.

split -b 100m homeserver.db.tar.gz homeserver.db.tar.gz.part-
rm homeserver.db.tar.gz

Media export

If you are using SQLIte as database

Skip ahead to and follow Backup media export.

Download the export tool

Download the latest version of export_synapse_for_import-linux-x64 (or export_synapse_for_import-win-x64.exe) from https://github.com/turt2live/matrix-media-repo/releases

wget https://github.com/turt2live/matrix-media-repo/releases/download/vx.x.x/export_synapse_for_import-linux-x64
chmod +x export_synapse_for_import-linux-x64

Run the export

Replace:

• <dbhost> (ip or fqdn for your database server)
• <dbname> (the name of the database for synapse)
• <dbusername> (username for your synapse database)
• /path/to/synapse/media_store (the path to where synapse stores your media)
• <yourdomain.tld> (the domain for your server. this is the part that is in your usernames)

./export_synapse_for_import-linux-x64 -h
./export_synapse_for_import-linux-x64 -dbHost <dbhost> -dbPort 5432 -dbName <dbname> -dbUsername <dbusername> -mediaDirectory /path/to/synapse/media_store -serverName <yourdomain.tld> -destination ./customer_media_export
mv logs customer_media_export
mv media-repo.yaml customer_media_export
rm export_synapse_for_import-linux-x64

Compress and encrypt

tar -zcvf customer_media_export.tar.gz customer_media_export
gpg --symmetric --no-symkey-cache customer_media_export.tar.gz
rm customer_media_export.tar.gz
rm -r customer_media_export

If required, split into smaller files

Please only do this if you have a slow connection and are worried about transferring a single large file.

split -b 100m customer_media_export.tar.gz.gpg customer_media_export.tar.gz.gpg.part-
rm customer_media_export.tar.gz.gpg

Backup media export

Compress and encrypt

Replace * /path/to/synapse/media_store (the path to where synapse stores your media)

tar -zcvf customer_backup_media_export.tar.gz /path/to/synapse/media_store
gpg --symmetric --no-symkey-cache customer_backup_media_export.tar.gz
rm customer_backup_media_export.tar.gz

If required, split into smaller files

Please only do this if you have a slow connection and are worried about transferring a single large file.

split -b 100m customer_backup_media_export.tar.gz.gpg customer_backup_media_export.tar.gz.gpg.part-
rm customer_backup_media_export.tar.gz.gpg

Transfer

Download the files, then upload to the Google Drive folder shared by EMS or a location as agreed with your EMS contact.

On your local computer:

scp -r -P 1234 -i ~/.ssh/matrix-server youruser@1.2.3.4:/tmp/synapse_export /some/local/folder

Cleanup

We strongly recommend that you leave the export and Synapse untouched until the import is finished and everything is verified working.

Note on users and Element

Element does have support for changing the delegated homeserver URL. All your users will have to sign out and sign in again to Element. You should ensure everyone has Key Backup configured and working.

Your users will not be able to decrypt messages send in their encrypted rooms while your server is offline for the migration.

Force logout of old sessions after migration

If you do not log out all sessions for your users before the migration, you can force this later. Below is a sample config file for nginx that tells all clients trying to connect to it to sign out.

Note that the headers are important, otherwise this will not work one one or more of the Element clients. Valid HTTPS is required.

This is not tested on any other Matrix clients, but it should work in theory if the client follows the Matrix Spec.

server {
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    listen 443 ssl http2;

    server_name old.delegated.url.com;

    location / {
        if ($request_method = 'OPTIONS') {
            add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*';
            add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS';
            add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'authorization,DNT,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Range';
            add_header 'Access-Control-Max-Age' 1728000;
            add_header 'Content-Type' 'text/plain; charset=utf-8';
            add_header 'Content-Length' 0;
            return 204;
        }
        if ($request_method = 'POST') {
            add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*' always;
            add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS' always;
            add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'authorization,DNT,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Range' always;
            add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'Content-Length,Content-Range' always;
        }
        if ($request_method = 'GET') {
            add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' '*' always;
            add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods' 'GET, POST, OPTIONS' always;
            add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers' 'authorization,DNT,User-Agent,X-Requested-With,If-Modified-Since,Cache-Control,Content-Type,Range' always;
            add_header 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers' 'Content-Length,Content-Range' always;
        }

        default_type application/json;
        return 401 '{"errcode":"M_UNKNOWN_TOKEN","error":"Server moved, please log in again."}';
    }

    ssl_session_timeout 1d;
    ssl_session_cache shared:MozSSL:10m;  # about 40000 sessions
    ssl_session_tickets off;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.3;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000" always;
    ssl_stapling on;
    ssl_stapling_verify on;

    error_log /var/log/nginx/old.delegated.url.com.error.log;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/old.delegated.url.com.access.log;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/old.delegated.url.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/old.delegated.url.com/privkey.pem;
}

# Redirect HTTP to HTTPS
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;

    server_name old.delegated.url.com;

    if ($host = old.delegated.url.com) {
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    }

    return 404;
}

Reset User Password

Resetting an account password will log out all sessions. Before doing this, make sure that

• all sessions are connected to key backup,
• all sessions have backed up all their keys. See Check Status, and
• the correct key backup passphrase is available.

1. Click Your Account and Manage Servers or click this link https://ems.element.io/user/hosting.

2. Click Server Admin, select your host, then Users

3. Click the user you want to manage
   

4. Click Reset password, enter a new password and click Go
   

Token based registration

Create a new registration token using the Synapse Admin API. Give this to your users.

The registration flow looks like this:

1. Enter username, password and email as normal. Click Register
   

2. Enter the registration token and click Continue
   

3. Continue registration like normal
   

Adding a Trust & Safety Contact

1. Click Your Account and Manage Servers or click this link https://ems.element.io/user/hosting.
2. Click the Hosts tab.
3. Add an email address to the Trust and Safety contact field and click Save at the bottom.

This contact should be a user with access to respond to content takedown notices and other trust & safety concerns (such as deactivating users).