LoL, we dont. Accounts are issued to individuals. My local sysadmin cosplay group encourages people to make their own instances with small user counts and to federate the services with each other. That way if one users network goes out as residential networks are want to do, communication is not completely down for the collective.
this post was submitted on 08 May 2026
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Pedantic comment of the day
as residential networks are want to do
The word you're thinking of is "wont" pronounced the same as "want," which makes it pretty confusing for anyone who might not have read it before, but only heard it spoken.
I didn't know that and assumed a typo. Well there was a typo, but not the one I thought.
Thanks!
local sysadmin cosblay group
made my day. So apt.
Mine's only for people I know personally, so it's backed by my LDAP server and registration is disabled in Synapse. I use my regular onboarding process to create the new LDAP user and grant access to Synapse.
I don’t allow registration but I can manually create accounts. My server is just for me and a few others so this is perfectly fine for me
This is how I do it.
Does Synapse have an option to create a one-time registration token with short expiry? I'd do that if my community is small enough.
Yeah, that’s how I set my private server up
For friends that I know, they can just ask me and I'll give them a login secret. I don't have the headspace to manage fedidrama.
Use Continuwuity instead of synapse... Faster and much less resource hungry
Yeah probably but now I have a running instance with other users than me and I don't see any tutorial/doc to make the switch.
It isn't possible to switch non-destructively.
wasn't there a DB conversion document?
We allow registration with a one time token only and a hidden registration page. The token is generated via bot by an admin/mod.
Open registration if and only if you are ready for routine maintenance, creating cleaning schedules, applying spam filters, balancing resource usage, etc. Not to discourage, but for you to know what you really want. If server is for friends and family, just leave registration closed.
My recommendation, as someone hosting a public server is to first host the server for yourself, play for some time, join some rooms on other servers, then invite friends, then if you feel ready and willing open it to the public.
Matrix Authentication Service is good to have, as you can use next-gen Element X which is most polished app as for now.
Thanks but my instance is already open for registration. Goal is to have ease of use here, it's already hard enough to make people switch messenger apps.
edit: btw Element X works also without MAS? Or you mean just for the registration?
Element X requires MAS for registration by design, but login is whatever for now. They’re very adamant about making the app MAS-centric.
Also, open registration will get your instance banned from matrix.org homeserver afaik. Probably not an issue if you don’t plan to federate with them, but worth noting.
No federation issue atm, server has been up more than 2 years now.
If by “open registration” you mean that anybody with your domain name can just go and create an account with no extra verification, then that’s interesting. Good to know.
Yes that is what I mean.
I recently migrated my Synapse to MAS.
The next night, I dreamed that my sleep is now modern, extensible, secure, and uses XML.