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User Directory

Description

This feature allows you to search for existing and/or potential users that are already present in your Identity backend or that already share a room with you on the Homeserver.

Without any integration, synapse:

  • Only search within the users already known to you or in public rooms
  • Only search on the Display Name and the Matrix ID

By enabling this feature, you can by default:

  • Search on Matrix ID, Display name and 3PIDs (Email, phone numbers) of any users already in your configured backend
  • Search for users which you are not in contact with yet. Super useful for corporations who want to give Matrix access internally, so users can just find themselves prior to having any common room(s)
  • Add extra attributes of your backend to extend the search
  • Include your homeserver search results to those found by mxisd

By integrating mxisd, you get the default behaviour and a bunch of extras, ensuring your users will always find each other.

Overview

This is performed by intercepting the Homeserver endpoint /_matrix/client/r0/user_directory/search like so:

           +----------------------------------------------+
Client --> | Reverse proxy                                                                         Step 2
           |                                              Step 1    +-------------------------+
           |   /_matrix/client/r0/user_directory/search ----------> |                         |  Search in   +---------+
           |                        /\                              | mxisd - Identity server | -----------> | Backend |
           |   /_matrix/*            \----------------------------- |                         |  all users   +---------+
           |        |            Step 4: Send back merged results   +-------------------------+
           +        |                                                            |
                    |                                                          Step 3
                    |                                                            |
                    |    +------------+                                Search in known users
                    \--> | Homeserver | <----------------------------------------/
                         +------------+   /_matrix/client/r0/user_directory/search

Steps:

  1. The intercepted request is directly sent to mxisd instead of the Homeserver.
  2. Identity stores are queried for any match on the search value sent by the client.
  3. The Homeserver, from which the request was intercepted, is queried using the same request as the client. Its address is resolved using the DNS Overwrite feature to reach its internal address on a non-encrypted port.
  4. Results from Identity stores and the Homeserver are merged together and sent back to the client, believing it was the HS which directly answered the request.

Requirements

  • Reverse proxy setup, which you should already have in place if you use mxisd
  • At least one compatible Identity store enabled

Configuration

Reverse Proxy

Apache2

The specific configuration to put under the relevant VirtualHost:

ProxyPass /_matrix/client/r0/user_directory/ http://0.0.0.0:8090/_matrix/client/r0/user_directory/

ProxyPreserveHost or equivalent must be enabled to detect to which Homeserver mxisd should talk to when building results.

Your VirtualHost should now look like this:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName example.org
    
    ...
    
    ProxyPreserveHost on
    ProxyPass /_matrix/client/r0/user_directory/ http://localhost:8090/_matrix/client/r0/user_directory/
    ProxyPass /_matrix/identity http://localhost:8090/_matrix/identity
    ProxyPass /_matrix http://localhost:8008/_matrix
</VirtualHost>

nginx

The specific configuration to add under your server section is:

location /_matrix/client/r0/user_directory {
    proxy_pass http://0.0.0.0:8090/_matrix/client/r0/user_directory;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
}

Your server section should now look like this:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name example.org;
    
    ...
    
    location /_matrix/client/r0/user_directory {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8090/_matrix/client/r0/user_directory;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    }
    
    location /_matrix/identity {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8090/_matrix/identity;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    }
    
    location /_matrix {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8008/_matrix;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    }
}

DNS Overwrite

Just like you need to configure a reverse proxy to send client requests to mxisd, you also need to configure mxisd with the internal IP of the Homeserver so it can talk to it directly to integrate its directory search.

To do so, use the following configuration:

dns:
  overwrite:
    homeserver:
      client:
        - name: 'example.org'
          value: 'http://localhost:8008'
  • name must be the hostname of the URL that clients use when connecting to the Homeserver.
  • value is the base internal URL of the Homeserver, without any /_matrix/.. or trailing /.

Next steps

Homeserver results

You can configure if the Homeserver should be queried at all when doing a directory search.
To disable Homeserver results, set the following in mxisd configuration file:

directory:
  exclude:
    homeserver: true

3PID exclusion in search

You can configure if the 3PID should also be included when doing a directory search. By default, a search is performed on the 3PIDs. If you would like to not include them:

directory:
  exclude:
    threepid: true