Bridge setup with Docker

Please select a bridge above. If you don't select a bridge, you'll have to manually replace occurrences of $bridge with the correct name before running commands.

This page contains instructions for setting up the bridge in Docker. To set up the bridge outside of Docker, see the language-specific instructions: Python, Go (to find out which bridge language the bridge you want is written in, check the sidebar to see which section it's under).

If you need help with setting up the bridge, you can ask in the Matrix room: #$bridge:maunium.net. For help with setting up other parts like the homeserver that aren't the bridge, refer to their documentation to find support rooms.

Requirements

  • Docker
  • A Matrix homeserver that supports application services (e.g. Synapse) You need access to register an appservice, which usually involves editing the homeserver config file.
  • mautrix-whatsapp: A WhatsApp client running on a phone or in an emulated Android VM.
  • mautrix-signal: A Signal client that can add linked devices (both official mobile apps and some unofficial clients like signal-cli work).

Setup

Docker images are hosted on dock.mau.dev. Available docker tags are generally :latest, :git tag, :git commit-amd64 and :git commit-arm64. The latest and git tag specific docker tags are manifests that contain both amd64 and arm64 images.

  1. Create a directory for the bridge and cd into it: mkdir mautrix-$bridge && cd mautrix-$bridge.
    N.B. The docker image will chown its /data directory to UID 1337. The commands below mount the working directory as /data, so make sure you always run them in the correct directory.
  2. Pull the docker image with docker pull dock.mau.dev/mautrix/$bridge:<version>. Replace <version> with the version you want to run (e.g. latest or v0.6.0).
  3. Run the container for the first time, so it can create a config file for you:
    docker run --rm -v `pwd`:/data:z dock.mau.dev/mautrix/$bridge:<version>
    
  4. Update the config to your liking. See the initial bridge config page for recommendations.
    • Keep in mind that localhost is not the correct address inside Docker (unless using network=host mode). Usually you should have the bridge and homeserver in the same Docker network, and use the container names as addresses (e.g. http://mautrix-$bridge:$bridgeport and http://synapse:8008).
    • Make sure you don't share databases between unrelated programs. Shared postgres instance is fine, but shared database is not.
  5. Generate the appservice registration by running the container again, same command as above.
  6. Register the bridge on your homeserver (see Registering appservices).
  7. Run the bridge:
    docker run --restart unless-stopped -v `pwd`:/data:z dock.mau.dev/mautrix/$bridge:<version>
    
    Additionally, you should either add the bridge to the same Docker network as Synapse with --network=synapsenet (when both are running in Docker), or expose the correct port with -p $bridgeport:$bridgeport (when the homeserver is outside Docker).

Upgrading

  1. Pull the new version (setup step 1)
  2. Start the new version (setup step 6)

Docker compose

  1. Create a directory for the bridge like step #0 in the Docker CLI instructions above.
  2. Create docker-compose.yml that contains something like this:
    version: "3.7"
    
    services:
      mautrix-$bridge:
        container_name: mautrix-$bridge
        image: dock.mau.dev/mautrix/$bridge:<version>
        restart: unless-stopped
        volumes:
        - .:/data
    
        # If you put the service above in the same docker-compose as the homeserver,
        # ignore the parts below. Otherwise, see below for configuring networking.
    
        # If synapse is running outside of docker, you'll need to expose the port.
        # Note that in most cases you should either run everything inside docker
        # or everything outside docker, rather than mixing docker things with
        # non-docker things.
        #ports:
        #- "$bridgeport:$bridgeport"
        # You'll also probably want this so the bridge can reach Synapse directly
        # using something like `http://host.docker.internal:8008` as the address:
        #extra_hosts:
        #- "host.docker.internal:host-gateway"
    
        # If synapse is in a different network, then add this container to that network.
        #networks:
        #- synapsenet
    # This is also a part of the networks thing above
    #networks:
    #  synapsenet:
    #    external:
    #      name: synapsenet
    
    
  3. Follow the rest of the Docker setup, but use compose commands instead of the raw docker commands: docker-compose up -d to start, docker-compose stop to stop and docker-compose pull to update.

If you want to set it up in an existing docker-compose file instead of a new dedicated one, simply adjust the volumes section to mount a subdirectory instead of the current directory as the data directory:

volumes:
- ./mautrix-$bridge:/data

When you put the bridge and Synapse in the same docker-compose file, networking should work out of the box, which means you don't need any of the commented ports or networks things in the example compose file.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes setups aren't officially supported. However, there are some things you should note if you want to run the bridges in k8s or similar systems:

  • You can bypass the startup script and just run the main bridge command directly to avoid permission mangling, automatic registration generation, and other such things. The bridge also doesn't need the registration file at all when doing this, only the config file is needed.
    • You can also add --no-update to the command to tell the bridge to not try to write the config to disk.
  • A StatefulSet is likely the best way to run the bridge, because only one container can be running at a time. Multiple containers even briefly are extremely unsupported and may cause your server to explode.
  • You should set publishNotReadyAddresses: true. The bridges will check homeserver -> bridge connectivity on startup, which may fail or be delayed if k8s delays publishing the bridge address. There is also no reason to not publish addresses ASAP, because you can only have one instance of the bridge running at a time.
  • Liveness and readiness endpoints are available at /_matrix/mau/live and /_matrix/mau/ready respectively, but they aren't particularly useful due to the points mentioned above.