• Create a system-user

      SYNAPSE_USER_DIR=/var/lib/synapse
  sudo adduser --system synapse --home $SYNAPSE_USER_DIR/synapse

  • Install a Python3 virtual environment and Synapse

      SYNAPSE_DIR=$SYNAPSE_USER_DIR/synapse
  sudo -u synapse mkdir -p $SYNAPSE_DIR
  sudo -u synapse python3 -m venv $SYNAPSE_DIR/.venv
  sudo -u synapse $SYNAPSE_DIR/.venv/bin/pip install matrix-synapse
  sudo -u synapse $SYNAPSE_DIR/.venv/bin/pip install psycopg2-binary

  • Create and edit the configuration file. See https://matrix-org.github.io/synapse/develop/setup/installation.html for details.

      sudo -u synapse /.venv/bin/python3 -m synapse.app

    Incomplete

    Alternatively, copy the file from another installation and edit it

  • Create and install a systemd .service file

      (
  cat <<EOF
  [Unit]
  Description=Synapse Matrix server
  Documentation=https://www.matrix.org
  After=network.target
  #After=postgresql.service

  [Service]
  Type=notify
  NotifyAccess=main
  Restart=on-abort

  User=synapse
  Group=nogroup
  WorkingDirectory=$SYNAPSE_DIR
  ExecStart=$SYNAPSE_DIR/.venv/bin/python3 -m synapse.app.homeserver --config-path=$SYNAPSE_DIR/homeserver.yaml
  ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
  SyslogIdentifier=matrix-synapse

  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target
  EOF
  ) | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/matrix-synapse.service

    Derived from https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/contrib/systemd/matrix-synapse.service

  • Start service

      sudo systemctl start matrix-synapse

  • Verify that it has started

      systemctl status
  journalctl -u matrix-synapse

  • Set it to start automatically

      sudo systemctl enable matrix-synapse