Some quick questions [LWN.net]

Some quick questions

Posted Feb 21, 2019 8:56 UTC (Thu) by callegar (guest, #16148)
Parent article: France enters the Matrix

- Does the matrix allow users to migrate from one homeserver to another? The problem with decentralized services is that often you cannot know well all the decentralized service providers to immediately make the best choice among them. Furthermore, their lasting through time may not be guaranteed.

- Does the matrix allow you to search users globally? I really think that one of the reasons for the success of things like skype or facebook is the fact that you can rapidly build your own network of people to communicate with by searching them (with them only accepting being searched). Without global searches, someone must first tell you how to find him/her.

- Do you need to configure the connection to a turn server in order to be able to use it from natted connections or is nat traversal autoconfigured (as it is in skype, whatsapp, etc)? For instance, one of the issues with ring/jami is that (at least in my experience) it cannot be used reliably on machines that are moving around like laptops/mobile phones as way to often you get an internet connection from which the application stops working.

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Some quick questions

Posted Feb 22, 2019 22:08 UTC (Fri) by wiml (guest, #130596) [Link] (1 responses)

1: My understanding is that, no, a user account is tied to a homeserver, much like an email address is tied to an email provider; there are plans to make it possible to move or share user ids at some point in the future.

Rooms, on the other hand, are IRC-like in that they aren't associated with any specific server but exist on all servers which have a participant.

2: That's handled by "identity providers" which are sort of outside the core Matrix protocol, and provide a mapping from third-party identifiers (email addresses, phone numbers, personal names, or other identifiers) to matrix user IDs. I don't know what the state of play is for those, really. They exist and have client integration but I think the system is still more of a usability hack than a polished design.

Some quick questions

Posted Feb 22, 2019 23:15 UTC (Fri) by Arathorn (guest, #101018) [Link]

just to clarify on answer 2: identity servers simply map 3PIDs (e.g. email addresses) to MXIDs. They do not provide a directory service; homeservers provide this instead. The only exception is if the identity server implementation gutwrenchs into the rest of the protocol to override directory lookup APIs which would otherwise be provided by the homeserver.

Some quick questions

Posted Feb 22, 2019 23:13 UTC (Fri) by Arathorn (guest, #101018) [Link]

These are excellent questions.

1. Migration is currently a matter of using a script or other tool to invite your new account to all the rooms your old account was in, and then (optionally) parting the old account. It's a bit like migrating between IMAP servers, and generally cumbersome and suboptimal. We're trying to replace it by decentralising user IDs, so that user accounts can span multiple servers, at which point we get migration for free. This is https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/1228.

2. There isn't a global user directory. Directories are instead done per homeserver, and search all users you share with a room with (or are present in public rooms existent on that server). In practice tends to work relatively well, though, as on a busy homeserver, many of the users you want to find will already be hanging out in public rooms (a bit like on IRC).

3. You have to run a TURN server, but we provide easy instructions for how to do so, and most of the docker or ansible setups automate this: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/docs/tu.... We don't have the same problems that Jami has due to the thinclient nature. Even when we go fully P2P this shouldn't be a problem, given TURN & ICE is pretty straightforward (mainly due to pre-Matrix us being a VoIP stack shop...)