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Using a reverse proxy with Synapse

It is recommended to put a reverse proxy such as nginx, Apache, Caddy, HAProxy or relayd in front of Synapse. One advantage of doing so is that it means that you can expose the default https port (443) to Matrix clients without needing to run Synapse with root privileges.

You should configure your reverse proxy to forward requests to /_matrix or /_synapse/client to Synapse, and have it set the X-Forwarded-For and X-Forwarded-Proto request headers.

You should remember that Matrix clients and other Matrix servers do not necessarily need to connect to your server via the same server name or port. Indeed, clients will use port 443 by default, whereas servers default to port 8448. Where these are different, we refer to the 'client port' and the 'federation port'. See the Matrix specification for more details of the algorithm used for federation connections, and Delegation for instructions on setting up delegation.

NOTE: Your reverse proxy must not canonicalise or normalise the requested URI in any way (for example, by decoding %xx escapes). Beware that Apache will canonicalise URIs unless you specify nocanon.

Let's assume that we expect clients to connect to our server at https://matrix.example.com, and other servers to connect at https://example.com:8448. The following sections detail the configuration of the reverse proxy and the homeserver.

Homeserver Configuration

The HTTP configuration will need to be updated for Synapse to correctly record client IP addresses and generate redirect URLs while behind a reverse proxy.

In homeserver.yaml set x_forwarded: true in the port 8008 section and consider setting bind_addresses: ['127.0.0.1'] so that the server only listens to traffic on localhost. (Do not change bind_addresses to 127.0.0.1 when using a containerized Synapse, as that will prevent it from responding to proxied traffic.)

Reverse-proxy configuration examples

NOTE: You only need one of these.

nginx

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

    # For the federation port
    listen 8448 ssl http2 default_server;
    listen [::]:8448 ssl http2 default_server;

    server_name matrix.example.com;

    location ~ ^(/_matrix|/_synapse/client) {
        # note: do not add a path (even a single /) after the port in `proxy_pass`,
        # otherwise nginx will canonicalise the URI and cause signature verification
        # errors.
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8008;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;

        # Nginx by default only allows file uploads up to 1M in size
        # Increase client_max_body_size to match max_upload_size defined in homeserver.yaml
        client_max_body_size 50M;
    }
}

Caddy v2

matrix.example.com {
  reverse_proxy /_matrix/* localhost:8008
  reverse_proxy /_synapse/client/* localhost:8008
}

example.com:8448 {
  reverse_proxy localhost:8008
}

Delegation example:

example.com {
	header /.well-known/matrix/* Content-Type application/json
	header /.well-known/matrix/* Access-Control-Allow-Origin *
	respond /.well-known/matrix/server `{"m.server": "matrix.example.com:443"}`
	respond /.well-known/matrix/client `{"m.homeserver":{"base_url":"https://matrix.example.com"},"m.identity_server":{"base_url":"https://identity.example.com"}}`
}

matrix.example.com {
    reverse_proxy /_matrix/* localhost:8008
    reverse_proxy /_synapse/client/* localhost:8008
}

Apache

<VirtualHost *:443>
    SSLEngine on
    ServerName matrix.example.com

    RequestHeader set "X-Forwarded-Proto" expr=%{REQUEST_SCHEME}
    AllowEncodedSlashes NoDecode
    ProxyPreserveHost on
    ProxyPass /_matrix http://127.0.0.1:8008/_matrix nocanon
    ProxyPassReverse /_matrix http://127.0.0.1:8008/_matrix
    ProxyPass /_synapse/client http://127.0.0.1:8008/_synapse/client nocanon
    ProxyPassReverse /_synapse/client http://127.0.0.1:8008/_synapse/client
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:8448>
    SSLEngine on
    ServerName example.com

    RequestHeader set "X-Forwarded-Proto" expr=%{REQUEST_SCHEME}
    AllowEncodedSlashes NoDecode
    ProxyPass /_matrix http://127.0.0.1:8008/_matrix nocanon
    ProxyPassReverse /_matrix http://127.0.0.1:8008/_matrix
</VirtualHost>

NOTE: ensure the nocanon options are included.

NOTE 2: It appears that Synapse is currently incompatible with the ModSecurity module for Apache (mod_security2). If you need it enabled for other services on your web server, you can disable it for Synapse's two VirtualHosts by including the following lines before each of the two </VirtualHost> above:

<IfModule security2_module>
    SecRuleEngine off
</IfModule>

NOTE 3: Missing ProxyPreserveHost on can lead to a redirect loop.

HAProxy

frontend https
  bind *:443,[::]:443 ssl crt /etc/ssl/haproxy/ strict-sni alpn h2,http/1.1
  http-request set-header X-Forwarded-Proto https if { ssl_fc }
  http-request set-header X-Forwarded-Proto http if !{ ssl_fc }
  http-request set-header X-Forwarded-For %[src]

  # Matrix client traffic
  acl matrix-host hdr(host) -i matrix.example.com matrix.example.com:443
  acl matrix-path path_beg /_matrix
  acl matrix-path path_beg /_synapse/client

  use_backend matrix if matrix-host matrix-path

frontend matrix-federation
  bind *:8448,[::]:8448 ssl crt /etc/ssl/haproxy/synapse.pem alpn h2,http/1.1
  http-request set-header X-Forwarded-Proto https if { ssl_fc }
  http-request set-header X-Forwarded-Proto http if !{ ssl_fc }
  http-request set-header X-Forwarded-For %[src]

  default_backend matrix

backend matrix
  server matrix 127.0.0.1:8008

Delegation example:

frontend https
  acl matrix-well-known-client-path path /.well-known/matrix/client
  acl matrix-well-known-server-path path /.well-known/matrix/server
  use_backend matrix-well-known-client if matrix-well-known-client-path
  use_backend matrix-well-known-server if matrix-well-known-server-path
 
backend matrix-well-known-client
  http-after-response set-header Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
  http-after-response set-header Access-Control-Allow-Methods "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS"
  http-after-response set-header Access-Control-Allow-Headers "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, Authorization"
  http-request return status 200 content-type application/json string '{"m.homeserver":{"base_url":"https://matrix.example.com"},"m.identity_server":{"base_url":"https://identity.example.com"}}'

backend matrix-well-known-server
  http-after-response set-header Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
  http-after-response set-header Access-Control-Allow-Methods "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS"
  http-after-response set-header Access-Control-Allow-Headers "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, Authorization"
  http-request return status 200 content-type application/json string '{"m.server":"matrix.example.com:443"}'

Relayd

table <webserver>    { 127.0.0.1 }
table <matrixserver> { 127.0.0.1 }

http protocol "https" {
    tls { no tlsv1.0, ciphers "HIGH" }
    tls keypair "example.com"
    match header set "X-Forwarded-For"   value "$REMOTE_ADDR"
    match header set "X-Forwarded-Proto" value "https"

    # set CORS header for .well-known/matrix/server, .well-known/matrix/client
    # httpd does not support setting headers, so do it here
    match request path "/.well-known/matrix/*" tag "matrix-cors"
    match response tagged "matrix-cors" header set "Access-Control-Allow-Origin" value "*"

    pass quick path "/_matrix/*"         forward to <matrixserver>
    pass quick path "/_synapse/client/*" forward to <matrixserver>

    # pass on non-matrix traffic to webserver
    pass                                 forward to <webserver>
}

relay "https_traffic" {
    listen on egress port 443 tls
    protocol "https"
    forward to <matrixserver> port 8008 check tcp
    forward to <webserver>    port 8080 check tcp
}

http protocol "matrix" {
    tls { no tlsv1.0, ciphers "HIGH" }
    tls keypair "example.com"
    block
    pass quick path "/_matrix/*"         forward to <matrixserver>
    pass quick path "/_synapse/client/*" forward to <matrixserver>
}

relay "matrix_federation" {
    listen on egress port 8448 tls
    protocol "matrix"
    forward to <matrixserver> port 8008 check tcp
}

Health check endpoint

Synapse exposes a health check endpoint for use by reverse proxies. Each configured HTTP listener has a /health endpoint which always returns 200 OK (and doesn't get logged).

Synapse administration endpoints

Endpoints for administering your Synapse instance are placed under /_synapse/admin. These require authentication through an access token of an admin user. However as access to these endpoints grants the caller a lot of power, we do not recommend exposing them to the public internet without good reason.