Inline URL preview documentation. (#13261)

Inline URL preview documentation near the implementation.

1 files changed, 58 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/synapse/rest/media/v1/preview_url_resource.py b/synapse/rest/media/v1/preview_url_resource.py
index 54a849eac9..b36c98a08e 100644
--- a/synapse/rest/media/v1/preview_url_resource.py
+++ b/synapse/rest/media/v1/preview_url_resource.py
@@ -109,10 +109,64 @@ class MediaInfo:
 
 class PreviewUrlResource(DirectServeJsonResource):
     """
-    Generating URL previews is a complicated task which many potential pitfalls.
-
-    See docs/development/url_previews.md for discussion of the design and
-    algorithm followed in this module.
+    The `GET /_matrix/media/r0/preview_url` endpoint provides a generic preview API
+    for URLs which outputs Open Graph (https://ogp.me/) responses (with some Matrix
+    specific additions).
+
+    This does have trade-offs compared to other designs:
+
+    * Pros:
+      * Simple and flexible; can be used by any clients at any point
+    * Cons:
+      * If each homeserver provides one of these independently, all the homeservers in a
+        room may needlessly DoS the target URI
+      * The URL metadata must be stored somewhere, rather than just using Matrix
+        itself to store the media.
+      * Matrix cannot be used to distribute the metadata between homeservers.
+
+    When Synapse is asked to preview a URL it does the following:
+
+    1. Checks against a URL blacklist (defined as `url_preview_url_blacklist` in the
+       config).
+    2. Checks the URL against an in-memory cache and returns the result if it exists. (This
+       is also used to de-duplicate processing of multiple in-flight requests at once.)
+    3. Kicks off a background process to generate a preview:
+       1. Checks URL and timestamp against the database cache and returns the result if it
+          has not expired and was successful (a 2xx return code).
+       2. Checks if the URL matches an oEmbed (https://oembed.com/) pattern. If it
+          does, update the URL to download.
+       3. Downloads the URL and stores it into a file via the media storage provider
+          and saves the local media metadata.
+       4. If the media is an image:
+          1. Generates thumbnails.
+          2. Generates an Open Graph response based on image properties.
+       5. If the media is HTML:
+          1. Decodes the HTML via the stored file.
+          2. Generates an Open Graph response from the HTML.
+          3. If a JSON oEmbed URL was found in the HTML via autodiscovery:
+             1. Downloads the URL and stores it into a file via the media storage provider
+                and saves the local media metadata.
+             2. Convert the oEmbed response to an Open Graph response.
+             3. Override any Open Graph data from the HTML with data from oEmbed.
+          4. If an image exists in the Open Graph response:
+             1. Downloads the URL and stores it into a file via the media storage
+                provider and saves the local media metadata.
+             2. Generates thumbnails.
+             3. Updates the Open Graph response based on image properties.
+       6. If the media is JSON and an oEmbed URL was found:
+          1. Convert the oEmbed response to an Open Graph response.
+          2. If a thumbnail or image is in the oEmbed response:
+             1. Downloads the URL and stores it into a file via the media storage
+                provider and saves the local media metadata.
+             2. Generates thumbnails.
+             3. Updates the Open Graph response based on image properties.
+       7. Stores the result in the database cache.
+    4. Returns the result.
+
+    The in-memory cache expires after 1 hour.
+
+    Expired entries in the database cache (and their associated media files) are
+    deleted every 10 seconds. The default expiration time is 1 hour from download.
     """
 
     isLeaf = True