Add a config flag to inhibit `M_USER_IN_USE` during registration (#11743)

This is mostly motivated by the tchap use case, where usernames are automatically generated from the user's email address (in a way that allows figuring out the email address from the username). Therefore, it's an issue if we respond to requests on /register and /register/available with M_USER_IN_USE, because it can potentially leak email addresses (which include the user's real name and place of work).

This commit adds a flag to inhibit the M_USER_IN_USE errors that are raised both by /register/available, and when providing a username early into the registration process. This error will still be raised if the user completes the registration process but the username conflicts. This is particularly useful when using modules (https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/11790 adds a module callback to set the username of users at registration) or SSO, since they can ensure the username is unique.

More context is available in the PR that introduced this behaviour to synapse-dinsic: matrix-org/synapse-dinsic#48 - as well as the issue in the matrix-dinsic repo: matrix-org/matrix-dinsic#476

1 files changed, 12 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/synapse/config/registration.py b/synapse/config/registration.py
index 7a059c6dec..ea9b50fe97 100644
--- a/synapse/config/registration.py
+++ b/synapse/config/registration.py
@@ -190,6 +190,8 @@ class RegistrationConfig(Config):
         # The success template used during fallback auth.
         self.fallback_success_template = self.read_template("auth_success.html")
 
+        self.inhibit_user_in_use_error = config.get("inhibit_user_in_use_error", False)
+
     def generate_config_section(self, generate_secrets=False, **kwargs):
         if generate_secrets:
             registration_shared_secret = 'registration_shared_secret: "%s"' % (
@@ -446,6 +448,16 @@ class RegistrationConfig(Config):
         # Defaults to true.
         #
         #auto_join_rooms_for_guests: false
+
+        # Whether to inhibit errors raised when registering a new account if the user ID
+        # already exists. If turned on, that requests to /register/available will always
+        # show a user ID as available, and Synapse won't raise an error when starting
+        # a registration with a user ID that already exists. However, Synapse will still
+        # raise an error if the registration completes and the username conflicts.
+        #
+        # Defaults to false.
+        #
+        #inhibit_user_in_use_error: true
         """
             % locals()
         )