matrix synapse install

To install the Synapse homeserver run:

mkdir -p ~/synapse
virtualenv -p python3 ~/synapse/env
source ~/synapse/env/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install --upgrade setuptools
pip install matrix-synapse
This will download Synapse from PyPI and install it, along with the python libraries it uses, into a virtual environment under ~/synapse/env. Feel free to pick a different directory if you prefer.

This Synapse installation can then be later upgraded by using pip again with the update flag:

source ~/synapse/env/bin/activate
pip install -U matrix-synapse
Before you can start Synapse, you will need to generate a configuration file. To do this, run (in your virtualenv, as before)::

cd ~/synapse
python -m synapse.app.homeserver \
    --server-name my.domain.name \
    --config-path homeserver.yaml \
    --generate-config \
    --report-stats=[yes|no]
... substituting an appropriate value for --server-name.

This command will generate you a config file that you can then customise, but it will also generate a set of keys for you. These keys will allow your Home Server to identify itself to other Home Servers, so don't lose or delete them. It would be wise to back them up somewhere safe. (If, for whatever reason, you do need to change your Home Server's keys, you may find that other Home Servers have the old key cached. If you update the signing key, you should change the name of the key in the <server name>.signing.key file (the second word) to something different. See the spec for more information on key management.)

To actually run your new homeserver, pick a working directory for Synapse to run (e.g. ~/synapse), and::

cd ~/synapse
source env/bin/activate
synctl start