Sure, just find a way to self-host Conduit or Construct for Matrix and don't federate with outliers - it would work like a charm for internal communication (disclaimer: these light-weight servers are in beta stage, unlike the resource-hungry Synapse). Wait, NextCloud and Revolt have implemented chats, which are encrypted and open source already? As such, I don't observe any special benefits of Matrix for your use case (unless you're gonna do bots and stuff). ๐ค You have a lot of choices! ๐
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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(Choices) not the least of which is just buy a cheap phone, or VoIP phone.
I don't use neither of them. What I liked specifically about Matrix is the detailed events system: I'm just not sure that kids might find it useful. ๐คญ
Yeah, I was hoping that I could white list specific accounts (family). I can use my existing account, and it keeps it simple. The others end up walled gardens.
I'm on the same path trying to find a solution. Is it possible to just whitelist certain accounts without all the public rooms. E.g., I have my own instance, but want to allow a DM from friend@matrix.org without allowing public rooms or other random DMs?
As far as I can tell...you can't. Debating just using XMPP instead.
What my perfect use-case would be:
- Private instance (@mydomain.org)
- Allow other instance USERS to be able to DM me (user@matrix.org --> me@mydomain.org and vice versa)
- NOT allow my instance users to join rooms on other instances (child@mydomain cannot join room@matrix.org)
But given how DMs are essentially rooms...I'm not sure that level of fidelity is possible
@carlyman not sure how/if you can prevent a user on your instance to join another instance room, my kids never tried this anyway... They want snapchat and not that weird thing their dad set up ๐
I get that... but from my wife
so, I could make a room called mum and dad, have it "private" and only invite the three accounts.
it could work.
I think having matrix is useful for eventually letting them federate without needing a new account - just enable it on the server. Nextcloud chat won't have that advantage
Sure. Federate with another trusted server, but probably not the general one - you might want to avoid that.
For what it's worth, I had a few great chats - while remoting - with my oldest kid upstairs. I've given him an old Eeepc 701, with just an ssh connection to a cli-only matrix client ; worked well, but I'll easily admit it was a bit limited (which, in my very specific use-case, was actually a feature)
I run a Synapse server for just my family. It's great.
How was the setup? I fairly advanced, but love it when it just works.
Kindof a pain. I use the Docker container, but then run another Postgres server that it connects to. You also need a TURN server, but I use a hosted version, since it's something that my family actually uses like twice a month. Oh, then you need a domain setup, I use Cloudflare to punch the whole into my home network...
Just thinking about it makes me tired. haha. But I did it all once, and now I just upgrade the Docker container every couple months. Been running smoothly for a few years now.
If you wanna chat about it, I'm on Matrix! lol. @phil [colon] kulak.us
thanks for the offer - i will keep working down the conduit race and see where i end up. if i end up on synapse, and need some help, i will definitely hit you up!