Fediversity/matrix/element-web/README.md

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Element-web

Element-web is the webinterface, Element in a browser. You'll find the source and documentation on installing and configuring on Github.

You should never run Element-web on the same FQDN as your Synapse-server, because of XSS problems. So start by defining a new FQDN for where you will publish Element-web, and get a certificate for that.

We'll use element.example.com here.

Installing on Debian

Installing it on Debian is very easy indeed:

wget -O /usr/share/keyrings/element-io-archive-keyring.gpg https://packages.element.io/debian/element-io-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/element-io-archive-keyring.gpg] https://packages.element.io/debian/ default main" |
              tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/element-io.list
apt update
apt install element-web

Configuration

Configuring is done in config.json, which needs to go into /etc/element-web in a Debian install. See the documentation on Github.

The most important thing to change is the default_server_config. Make sure it's something like this:

"default_server_config": {
    "m.homeserver": {
        "base_url": "https://vm02199.example.com",
        "server_name": "example.com"
    },
    "org.matrix.msc3575.proxy": {
        "url": "https://vm02199.example.com"
    },
},

Of course, substitute the correct domain and server name. The msc3575.proxy is for SSS and may not be necessary. But it won't hurt, so let's just put it there.

Element-web runs in the browser, on JavaScript. Yours truly found out that running JShelter throws a spanner in the works, so you'll have to disable it for the URL you publish Element-web.

Also, Element-web is rather dependent on the version of your browser, so make sure you keep yours up-to-date. Debian users, who run "Firefox ESR" should know support for that is on a best effort basis, you might want to consider using the "real" Firefox. Debian packages are available.