Initial bridge config

These bridges contain quite a lot of configuration options. This page is meant to help with finding the important ones that must be changed when setting up a bridge, as well as highlight some options that are usually useful.

Mandatory fields

When setting up a bridge, some fields have default example values, and must be changed to match your setup. The bridge simply won't work without them, and if you forget any of them, the bridge won't start up successfully and will print errors in logs.

  • homeserver -> address - the address that the bridge can use to connect to your homeserver (like Synapse or Conduit). This should usually be a localhost or internal docker network address (like http://localhost:8008 or http://synapse:8008).
    • If you use workers, then it should probably point at your reverse proxy, but you can still configure your reverse proxy to expose a local non-TLS interface with the same routing rules as the public TLS interface.
  • homeserver -> domain - the domain of the homeserver. This is always the same as server_name in the homeserver config, it is not affected by any reverse proxies, docker networking or other such things.
  • If you're using Docker, you'll have to change appservice -> address too. That address is what the homeserver will use to connect to the bridge. localhost won't work in Docker, but container names do (e.g. http://mautrixbridge:29318), as long as the bridge and homeserver are in the same Docker network.
    • Note that the address field only affects the generated registration file. The host/port where the bridge listens are the two fields below address, but those usually don't need to be changed.
  • The database config has an example postgres URI, which obviously won't work. You can either point it at a real Postgres database, or change it to use SQLite. Postgres is recommended if you have multiple users, but SQLite is fine for small instances.
    • Never point the bridge at another program's (like synapse's) database. When using Postgres, you can create a new database in an existing Postgres instance.
  • Way below in bridge -> permissions, you'll have to change the examples to match your server.

Bridge-specific mandatory fields

mautrix-telegram

The Telegram bridge requires that you create an "app" at https://my.telegram.org/apps and provide the api_id and api_hash in the config. API keys don't grant access to any Telegram account, they're just required to connect to the API in the first place. Login happens afterwards using bridge commands.

mautrix-meta

The Meta bridge is effectively two bridges in one codebase: Facebook Messenger and Instagram DMs. However, it can't handle both types of accounts with one instance. Instead it has a config option (meta -> mode) to choose which service to connect to.

When changing the service, you'll also need to change a bunch of other fields, or otherwise it'll look like an Instagram bot connecting to Messenger. The fields to change listed below. For most fields, you can just replace "instagram" with "facebook".

List of fields
  • meta -> mode (duh)
  • appservice -> id
  • appservice -> bot -> username
  • appservice -> bot -> displayname
  • appservice -> bot -> avatar
    • Instagram: mxc://maunium.net/JxjlbZUlCPULEeHZSwleUXQv
    • Messenger: mxc://maunium.net/ygtkteZsXnGJLJHRchUwYWak
  • bridge -> username_template
  • bridge -> management_room_text -> welcome

If you're duplicating an already-working bridge config, also remember to change the appservice port and database URI (you can't share one database for two bridges). The as_token and hs_token will be regenerated when you generate a new registration.

Other useful things

  • Setting up double puppeting is strongly recommended. The relevant config field for automatic double puppeting is bridge -> login_shared_secret_map.
    • If you only set it up for your own server, you don't need to touch double_puppet_server_map, that's only for remote servers.
    • For the bridges that sync favorite/pin/archive/mute status, you can enable that part with the pinned_tag/archive_tag/mute_bridging config options.
  • End-to-bridge encryption works best if set up before logging into the bridge, because there's currently no proper way to enable encryption in existing rooms.
  • Most bridges have some automatic portal creation and message backfill, so checking the backfill or history_sync config section under bridge is recommended. Backfilling after creating rooms is not possible, so it has to be configured to your liking before logging in.
    • Related to backfill, most bridges also have options to specify how many chats to backfill initially. Those options may be under backfill config, or separately inside the bridge section.