matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/docs/configuring-playbook-element-admin.md

Setting up Element Admin (optional)

The playbook can install and configure Element Admin for you.

Element Admin is a web-based administration panel for Synapse and Matrix Authentication Service.

See the project's documentation to learn more.

💡 Note: This project is still very young and doesn't have many features. For now, it's recommended to use Synapse Admin instead. Deployments that use Matrix Authentication Service can use Element Admin for user-management (something that Synapse Admin can't do), while continuing to use Synapse Admin for all other purposes.

Prerequisites

• A Synapse homeserver with its Admin API enabled (the playbook automatically enables it for you when you enable Element Admin)
• Matrix Authentication Service with its Admin API enabled (the playbook automatically enables it for you when you enable Element Admin)

Decide on a domain and path

By default, the Element Admin is configured to be served on the admin.element.example.com domain.

If you'd like to run Element Admin on another hostname, see the Adjusting the Element Admin URL section below.

Adjusting DNS records (optional)

By default, this playbook installs Element Admin on the admin.element. subdomain (admin.element.example.com) and requires you to create a CNAME record for admin.element, which targets matrix.example.com.

When setting these values, replace example.com with your own.

Adjusting the playbook configuration

Add the following configuration to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.example.com/vars.yml file:

matrix_element_admin_enabled: true

Adjusting the Element Admin URL (optional)

By tweaking the matrix_element_admin_hostname variable, you can easily make the service available at a different hostname than the default one.

Example additional configuration for your vars.yml file:

matrix_element_admin_hostname: element-admin.example.com

Warning

A matrix_element_admin_path_prefix variable is also available and mean to let you configure a path prefix for the Element Admin service, but Element Admin does not support running under a sub-path yet.

Installing

After configuring the playbook and potentially adjusting your DNS records, run the playbook with playbook tags as below:

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts setup.yml --tags=setup-all,start

The shortcut commands with the just program are also available: just install-all or just setup-all

just install-all is useful for maintaining your setup quickly (2x-5x faster than just setup-all) when its components remain unchanged. If you adjust your vars.yml to remove other components, you'd need to run just setup-all, or these components will still remain installed. Note these shortcuts run the ensure-matrix-users-created tag too.