Matrix server for participants to communicate during Camp

[benhylau]

Motivation

If there is no Internet, how do people message one another on a local network? Apps like Slack will not be able to reach their centralized servers, and most other apps including Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram... will also stop working due to the same problem of inability to reach their servers. We need a locally hosted chat server that can work:

• On a local network independent of centralized server only reachable on the Internet
• On multiple platforms, including laptop browsers / Android / iOS
• Without common Internet services (e.g. DNS, SSL, NTP)

According to @ara4n this should be okay:

yup, matrix has no need for internet, or even DNS

Android should work since Riot Android is already distributed on F-Droid, though we should confirm it has no hidden Google Play Services dependency... For iOS, bootstrap is a bit more tricky:

in-browser riot on mobile is terrible, but we could provide enterprise-signed apps which can be installed locally
(although i'd need to check apple's rules on that)

And whether we can start Internet-synced history, then carry the room & chat history over to the local network:

so federation will work fine
the way you'd do it is to start a new server on the local IP range which federates with the existing public servers

Timeline

• End-May have server running on Internet
  • Able to federate with the rest of the Matrix network
  • Bootstrap from binary installer and confirm it works with off Internet
    • Browser
    • Android
    • iOS
• End-June move physical server to Internet Archive and test with local mesh network at June meet-up
  • Verify that Internet-synced room & chat history is transferred over
  • Verify we can login & create new accounts from local network
  • Bootstrap from binary installer and confirm it works on local network
    • Browser
    • Android
    • iOS
• Mid-July Move server to The Farm (maybe give it some Internet as people may be discussing things in the rooms, but we may take it offline during Camp)

[ara4n]

the Fdroid app does indeed have no Google dep (it's the main selling point).

How important is internet-less bootstrapping (in terms of distributing the iOS app)? Is the plan to build a faraday cage over the camp or something? O:-)

[benhylau]

Probably useful for testing the server locally: https://github.com/dweb-camp-2019/meshnet/blob/master/testnet/README.md

[benhylau]

@ara4n we'll likely have Internet at the site now that we got a local ISP to build a tower to relay some internets over. I will be able to check this out first week of July.

BUT we are thinking to do some Internet blackout hours 😉 so how are we with the timeline^ ?