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configuring-playbook-client-element-web.md

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Configuring Element Web (optional)

By default, this playbook installs the Element Web Matrix client for you. If that's okay, you can skip this document.

💡 Note: the latest version of Element Web is also available on the web, hosted by 3rd parties. If you trust giving your credentials to the following 3rd party Single Page Applications, you can consider using it from there and avoiding the (small) overhead of self-hosting (by disabling Element Web):

Disabling Element Web

If you'd like for the playbook to not install Element Web (or to uninstall it if it was previously installed), add the following configuration to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.example.com/vars.yml file:

matrix_client_element_enabled: false

Adjusting the playbook configuration

The playbook provides some customization variables you could use to change Element Web's settings.

Their defaults are defined in roles/custom/matrix-client-element/defaults/main.yml and they ultimately end up in the generated /matrix/element/config.json file (on the server). This file is generated from the roles/custom/matrix-client-element/templates/config.json.j2 template.

If there's an existing variable which controls a setting you wish to change, you can simply define that variable in your configuration file (inventory/host_vars/matrix.example.com/vars.yml) and re-run the playbook to apply the changes.

Alternatively, if there is no pre-defined variable for an Element Web setting you wish to change:

  • you can either request a variable to be created (or you can submit such a contribution yourself). Keep in mind that it's probably not a good idea to create variables for each one of Element Web's various settings that rarely get used.

  • or, you can extend and override the default configuration (config.json.j2) by making use of the matrix_client_element_configuration_extension_json_ variable. You can find information about this in roles/custom/matrix-client-element/defaults/main.yml.

  • or, if extending the configuration is still not powerful enough for your needs, you can override the configuration completely using matrix_client_element_configuration_default (or matrix_client_element_configuration). You can find information about this in roles/custom/matrix-client-element/defaults/main.yml.

Themes

To change the look of Element Web, you can define your own themes manually by using the matrix_client_element_setting_defaults_custom_themes setting.

Or better yet, you can automatically pull it all themes provided by the aaronraimist/element-themes project by simply flipping a flag (matrix_client_element_themes_enabled: true).

If you make your own theme, we encourage you to submit it to the aaronraimist/element-themes project, so that the whole community could easily enjoy it.

Note that for a custom theme to work well, all Element Web instances that you use must have the same theme installed.

Adjusting the Element Web URL

By default, this playbook installs Element Web on the element. subdomain (element.example.com) and requires you to adjust your DNS records.

By tweaking the matrix_client_element_hostname and matrix_client_element_path_prefix variables, you can easily make the service available at a different hostname and/or path than the default one.

Example additional configuration for your inventory/host_vars/matrix.example.com/vars.yml file:

# Switch to the domain used for Matrix services (`matrix.example.com`),
# so we won't need to add additional DNS records for Element Web.
matrix_client_element_hostname: "{{ matrix_server_fqn_matrix }}"

# Expose under the /element subpath
matrix_client_element_path_prefix: /element

Adjusting DNS records

Once you've decided on the domain and path, you may need to adjust your DNS records to point the Element Web domain to the Matrix server.

By default, you will need to create a CNAME record for element. See Configuring DNS for details about DNS changes.

If you've decided to reuse the matrix. domain, you won't need to do any extra DNS configuration.

Installing

After configuring the playbook and potentially adjusting your DNS records, run the playbook with playbook tags as below:

ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts setup.yml --tags=setup-all,start

The shortcut commands with the just program are also available: just install-all or just setup-all

just install-all is useful for maintaining your setup quickly (2x-5x faster than just setup-all) when its components remain unchanged. If you adjust your vars.yml to remove other components, you'd need to run just setup-all, or these components will still remain installed. Note these shortcuts run the ensure-matrix-users-created tag too.