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+* [Installing Synapse](#installing-synapse)
+  * [Installing from source](#installing-from-source)
+    * [Platform-Specific Instructions](#platform-specific-instructions)
+    * [Troubleshooting Installation](#troubleshooting-installation)
+  * [Prebuilt packages](#prebuilt-packages)
+* [Setting up Synapse](#setting-up-synapse)
+  * [TLS certificates](#tls-certificates)
+  * [Registering a user](#registering-a-user)
+  * [Setting up a TURN server](#setting-up-a-turn-server)
+  * [URL previews](#url-previews)
+
+# Installing Synapse
+
+## Installing from source
+
+(Prebuilt packages are available for some platforms - see [Prebuilt packages](#prebuilt-packages).)
+
+System requirements:
+
+- POSIX-compliant system (tested on Linux & OS X)
+- Python 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, or 2.7
+- At least 1GB of free RAM if you want to join large public rooms like #matrix:matrix.org
+
+Synapse is written in Python but some of the libraries it uses are written in
+C. So before we can install Synapse itself we need a working C compiler and the
+header files for Python C extensions. See [Platform-Specific
+Instructions](#platform-specific-instructions) for information on installing
+these on various platforms.
+
+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[all]
+```
+
+This will download Synapse from [PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/matrix-synapse)
+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[all]
+```
+
+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`. The server name
+determines the "domain" part of user-ids for users on your server: these will
+all be of the format `@user:my.domain.name`. It also determines how other
+matrix servers will reach yours for Federation. For a test configuration,
+set this to the hostname of your server. For a more production-ready setup, you
+will probably want to specify your domain (`example.com`) rather than a
+matrix-specific hostname here (in the same way that your email address is
+probably `user@example.com` rather than `user@email.example.com`) - but
+doing so may require more advanced setup. - see [Setting up Federation](README.rst#setting-up-federation). Beware that the server name cannot be changed later.
+
+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](https://matrix.org/docs/spec/server_server/latest.html#retrieving-server-keys)
+for more information on key management.)
+
+You will need to give Synapse a TLS certficate before it will start - see [TLS
+certificates](#tls-certificates).
+
+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
+
+### Platform-Specific Instructions
+
+#### Debian/Ubuntu/Raspbian
+
+Installing prerequisites on Ubuntu or Debian:
+
+```
+sudo apt-get install build-essential python3-dev libffi-dev \
+                     python-pip python-setuptools sqlite3 \
+                     libssl-dev python-virtualenv libjpeg-dev libxslt1-dev
+```
+
+#### ArchLinux
+
+Installing prerequisites on ArchLinux:
+
+```
+sudo pacman -S base-devel python python-pip \
+               python-setuptools python-virtualenv sqlite3
+```
+
+#### CentOS/Fedora
+
+Installing prerequisites on CentOS 7 or Fedora 25:
+
+```
+sudo yum install libtiff-devel libjpeg-devel libzip-devel freetype-devel \
+                 lcms2-devel libwebp-devel tcl-devel tk-devel redhat-rpm-config \
+                 python-virtualenv libffi-devel openssl-devel
+sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
+```
+
+#### Mac OS X
+
+Installing prerequisites on Mac OS X:
+
+```
+xcode-select --install
+sudo easy_install pip
+sudo pip install virtualenv
+brew install pkg-config libffi
+```
+
+#### OpenSUSE
+
+Installing prerequisites on openSUSE:
+
+```
+sudo zypper in -t pattern devel_basis
+sudo zypper in python-pip python-setuptools sqlite3 python-virtualenv \
+               python-devel libffi-devel libopenssl-devel libjpeg62-devel
+```
+
+#### OpenBSD
+
+Installing prerequisites on OpenBSD:
+
+```
+doas pkg_add python libffi py-pip py-setuptools sqlite3 py-virtualenv \
+              libxslt jpeg
+```
+
+There is currently no port for OpenBSD. Additionally, OpenBSD's security
+settings require a slightly more difficult installation process.
+
+XXX: I suspect this is out of date.
+
+1. Create a new directory in `/usr/local` called `_synapse`. Also, create a
+   new user called `_synapse` and set that directory as the new user's home.
+   This is required because, by default, OpenBSD only allows binaries which need
+   write and execute permissions on the same memory space to be run from
+   `/usr/local`.
+2. `su` to the new `_synapse` user and change to their home directory.
+3. Create a new virtualenv: `virtualenv -p python2.7 ~/.synapse`
+4. Source the virtualenv configuration located at
+   `/usr/local/_synapse/.synapse/bin/activate`. This is done in `ksh` by
+   using the `.` command, rather than `bash`'s `source`.
+5. Optionally, use `pip` to install `lxml`, which Synapse needs to parse
+   webpages for their titles.
+6. Use `pip` to install this repository: `pip install matrix-synapse`
+7. Optionally, change `_synapse`'s shell to `/bin/false` to reduce the
+   chance of a compromised Synapse server being used to take over your box.
+
+After this, you may proceed with the rest of the install directions.
+
+#### Windows
+
+If you wish to run or develop Synapse on Windows, the Windows Subsystem For
+Linux provides a Linux environment on Windows 10 which is capable of using the
+Debian, Fedora, or source installation methods. More information about WSL can
+be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 for
+Windows 10 and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-on-server
+for Windows Server.
+
+### Troubleshooting Installation
+
+XXX a bunch of this is no longer relevant.
+
+Synapse requires pip 8 or later, so if your OS provides too old a version you
+may need to manually upgrade it::
+
+    sudo pip install --upgrade pip
+
+Installing may fail with `Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement pymacaroons-pynacl (from matrix-synapse==0.12.0)`.
+You can fix this by manually upgrading pip and virtualenv::
+
+    sudo pip install --upgrade virtualenv
+
+You can next rerun `virtualenv -p python3 synapse` to update the virtual env.
+
+Installing may fail during installing virtualenv with `InsecurePlatformWarning: A true SSLContext object is not available. This prevents urllib3 from configuring SSL appropriately and may cause certain SSL connections to fail. For more information, see https://urllib3.readthedocs.org/en/latest/security.html#insecureplatformwarning.`
+You can fix this  by manually installing ndg-httpsclient::
+
+    pip install --upgrade ndg-httpsclient
+
+Installing may fail with `mock requires setuptools>=17.1. Aborting installation`.
+You can fix this by upgrading setuptools::
+
+    pip install --upgrade setuptools
+
+If pip crashes mid-installation for reason (e.g. lost terminal), pip may
+refuse to run until you remove the temporary installation directory it
+created. To reset the installation::
+
+    rm -rf /tmp/pip_install_matrix
+
+pip seems to leak *lots* of memory during installation.  For instance, a Linux
+host with 512MB of RAM may run out of memory whilst installing Twisted.  If this
+happens, you will have to individually install the dependencies which are
+failing, e.g.::
+
+    pip install twisted
+
+## Prebuilt packages
+
+As an alternative to installing from source, prebuilt packages are available
+for a number of platforms.
+
+### Docker images and Ansible playbooks
+
+There is an offical synapse image available at
+https://hub.docker.com/r/matrixdotorg/synapse which can be used with
+the docker-compose file available at [contrib/docker](contrib/docker). Further information on
+this including configuration options is available in the README on
+hub.docker.com.
+
+Alternatively, Andreas Peters (previously Silvio Fricke) has contributed a
+Dockerfile to automate a synapse server in a single Docker image, at
+https://hub.docker.com/r/avhost/docker-matrix/tags/
+
+Slavi Pantaleev has created an Ansible playbook,
+which installs the offical Docker image of Matrix Synapse
+along with many other Matrix-related services (Postgres database, riot-web, coturn, mxisd, SSL support, etc.).
+For more details, see
+https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
+
+
+### Debian/Ubuntu
+
+#### Matrix.org packages
+
+Matrix.org provides Debian/Ubuntu packages of the latest stable version of
+Synapse via https://matrix.org/packages/debian/. To use them:
+
+```
+sudo apt install -y lsb-release curl apt-transport-https
+echo "deb https://matrix.org/packages/debian `lsb_release -cs` main" |
+    sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/matrix-org.list
+curl "https://matrix.org/packages/debian/repo-key.asc" |
+    sudo apt-key add -
+sudo apt update
+sudo apt install matrix-synapse-py3
+```
+
+#### Downstream Debian/Ubuntu packages
+
+For `buster` and `sid`, Synapse is available in the Debian repositories and
+it should be possible to install it with simply:
+
+```
+    sudo apt install matrix-synapse
+```
+
+There is also a version of `matrix-synapse` in `stretch-backports`. Please see
+the [Debian documentation on
+backports](https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/) for information on how
+to use them.
+
+We do not recommend using the packages in downstream Ubuntu at this time, as
+they are old and suffer from known security vulnerabilities.
+
+### Fedora
+
+Synapse is in the Fedora repositories as `matrix-synapse`:
+
+```
+sudo dnf install matrix-synapse
+```
+
+Oleg Girko provides Fedora RPMs at
+https://obs.infoserver.lv/project/monitor/matrix-synapse
+
+### OpenSUSE
+
+Synapse is in the OpenSUSE repositories as `matrix-synapse`:
+
+```
+sudo zypper install matrix-synapse
+```
+
+### SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
+
+Unofficial package are built for SLES 15 in the openSUSE:Backports:SLE-15 repository at
+https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Backports:/SLE-15/standard/
+
+### ArchLinux
+
+The quickest way to get up and running with ArchLinux is probably with the community package
+https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/any/matrix-synapse/, which should pull in most of
+the necessary dependencies.
+
+pip may be outdated (6.0.7-1 and needs to be upgraded to 6.0.8-1 ):
+
+```
+sudo pip install --upgrade pip
+```
+
+If you encounter an error with lib bcrypt causing an Wrong ELF Class:
+ELFCLASS32 (x64 Systems), you may need to reinstall py-bcrypt to correctly
+compile it under the right architecture. (This should not be needed if
+installing under virtualenv):
+
+```
+sudo pip uninstall py-bcrypt
+sudo pip install py-bcrypt
+```
+
+### FreeBSD
+
+Synapse can be installed via FreeBSD Ports or Packages contributed by Brendan Molloy from:
+
+ - Ports: `cd /usr/ports/net-im/py-matrix-synapse && make install clean`
+ - Packages: `pkg install py27-matrix-synapse`
+
+
+### NixOS
+
+Robin Lambertz has packaged Synapse for NixOS at:
+https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/services/misc/matrix-synapse.nix
+
+# Setting up Synapse
+
+Once you have installed synapse as above, you will need to configure it.
+
+## TLS certificates
+
+The default configuration exposes a single HTTP port: http://localhost:8008. It
+is suitable for local testing, but for any practical use, you will either need
+to enable a reverse proxy, or configure Synapse to expose an HTTPS port.
+
+For information on using a reverse proxy, see
+[docs/reverse_proxy.rst](docs/reverse_proxy.rst).
+
+To configure Synapse to expose an HTTPS port, you will need to edit
+`homeserver.yaml`, as follows:
+
+* First, under the `listeners` section, uncomment the configuration for the
+  TLS-enabled listener. (Remove the hash sign (`#`) at the start of
+  each line). The relevant lines are like this:
+
+  ```
+    - port: 8448
+      type: http
+      tls: true
+      resources:
+        - names: [client, federation]
+  ```
+* You will also need to uncomment the `tls_certificate_path` and
+  `tls_private_key_path` lines under the `TLS` section. You can either
+  point these settings at an existing certificate and key, or you can
+  enable Synapse's built-in ACME (Let's Encrypt) support.  Instructions
+  for having Synapse automatically provision and renew federation 
+  certificates through ACME can be found at [ACME.md](docs/ACME.md).
+
+## Registering a user
+
+You will need at least one user on your server in order to use a Matrix
+client. Users can be registered either via a Matrix client, or via a
+commandline script.
+
+To get started, it is easiest to use the command line to register new
+users. This can be done as follows:
+
+```
+$ source ~/synapse/env/bin/activate
+$ synctl start # if not already running
+$ register_new_matrix_user -c homeserver.yaml http://localhost:8008
+New user localpart: erikj
+Password:
+Confirm password:
+Make admin [no]:
+Success!
+```
+
+This process uses a setting `registration_shared_secret` in
+`homeserver.yaml`, which is shared between Synapse itself and the
+`register_new_matrix_user` script. It doesn't matter what it is (a random
+value is generated by `--generate-config`), but it should be kept secret, as
+anyone with knowledge of it can register users on your server even if
+`enable_registration` is `false`.
+
+## Setting up a TURN server
+
+For reliable VoIP calls to be routed via this homeserver, you MUST configure
+a TURN server.  See [docs/turn-howto.rst](docs/turn-howto.rst) for details.
+
+## URL previews
+
+Synapse includes support for previewing URLs, which is disabled by default.  To
+turn it on you must enable the `url_preview_enabled: True` config parameter
+and explicitly specify the IP ranges that Synapse is not allowed to spider for
+previewing in the `url_preview_ip_range_blacklist` configuration parameter.
+This is critical from a security perspective to stop arbitrary Matrix users
+spidering 'internal' URLs on your network.  At the very least we recommend that
+your loopback and RFC1918 IP addresses are blacklisted.
+
+This also requires the optional lxml and netaddr python dependencies to be
+installed.  This in turn requires the libxml2 library to be available - on
+Debian/Ubuntu this means `apt-get install libxml2-dev`, or equivalent for
+your OS.