matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/docs/configuring-playbook-bridge-mautrix-whatsapp.md

Setting up Mautrix Whatsapp bridging (optional)

The playbook can install and configure mautrix-whatsapp for you.

See the project's documentation to learn what it does and why it might be useful to you.

Prerequisite (optional)

If you want to set up Double Puppeting (hint: you most likely do) for this bridge automatically, you need to have enabled Appservice Double Puppet or Shared Secret Auth service for this playbook.

For details about configuring Double Puppeting for this bridge, see the section below: Set up Double Puppeting

Adjusting the playbook configuration

To enable the bridge, add the following configuration to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.example.com/vars.yml file:

matrix_mautrix_whatsapp_enabled: true

Whatsapp multidevice beta is required, now it is enough if Whatsapp is connected to the Internet every 2 weeks.

The relay bot functionality is off by default. If you would like to enable the relay bot, add the following to your vars.yml file:

matrix_mautrix_whatsapp_bridge_relay_enabled: true

By default, only admins are allowed to set themselves as relay users. To allow anyone on your homeserver to set themselves as relay users add this to your vars.yml file:

matrix_mautrix_whatsapp_bridge_relay_admin_only: false

If you want to activate the relay bot in a room, send !wa set-relay. To deactivate, send !wa unset-relay.

Installing

After configuring the playbook, run it with playbook tags as below:

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts setup.yml --tags=setup-all,ensure-matrix-users-created,start

Notes:

• The ensure-matrix-users-created playbook tag makes the playbook automatically create the bot's user account.

• 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 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.

Usage

You then need to start a chat with @whatsappbot:example.com (where example.com is your base domain, not the matrix. domain).

💡 Set up Double Puppeting

After successfully enabling bridging, you may wish to set up Double Puppeting (hint: you most likely do).

To set it up, you have 2 ways of going about it.

Method 1: automatically, by enabling Appservice Double Puppet or Shared Secret Auth

The bridge automatically performs Double Puppeting if Appservice Double Puppet or Shared Secret Auth service is configured and enabled on the server for this playbook.

Enabling Appservice Double Puppet is the recommended way of setting up Double Puppeting, as it's easier to accomplish, works for all your users automatically, and has less of a chance of breaking in the future.

Enabling double puppeting by enabling the Shared Secret Auth service works at the time of writing, but is deprecated and will stop working in the future.

Method 2: manually, by asking each user to provide a working access token

When using this method, each user that wishes to enable Double Puppeting needs to follow the following steps:

• retrieve a Matrix access token for yourself. Refer to the documentation on how to do that.

• send the access token to the bot. Example: login-matrix MATRIX_ACCESS_TOKEN_HERE

• make sure you don't log out the Mautrix-Whatsapp device some time in the future, as that would break the Double Puppeting feature