"Red list" module for Tchap

This module allows users to hide themselves from user search.

Users are expected to be in a single room, hidden from clients, to help user discovery across a closed federation. When users update their global im.vector.hide_profile account data with {"hide_profile": True}, they are removed from this discovery room, and added to a local database table to filter them out from local results.

This module can also interact with the synapse-email-account-validity module. If this compatibility feature is enabled, the module will automatically scan for expired and renewed users every hour. It will then add expired users to the red list and remove renewed users from it (without updating the users' account data).

Installation

From the virtual environment that you use for Synapse, install this module with:

pip install path/to/tchap-red-list

(If you run into issues, you may need to upgrade pip first, e.g. by running pip install --upgrade pip)

Then alter your homeserver configuration, adding to your modules configuration:

modules:
  - module: tchap_red_list.RedListManager
    config:
      # ID of the room used for user discovery.
      # Optional, defaults to no room.
      discovery_room: "!someroom:example.com"
      # Whether to enable compatibility with the synapse-email-account-validity module.
      # Optional, defaults to false.
      use_email_account_validity: false

Development

In a virtual environment with pip ≥ 21.1, run

pip install -e .[dev]

To run the unit tests, you can either use:

tox -e py

or

trial tests

To run the linters and mypy type checker, use ./scripts-dev/lint.sh.

Releasing

The exact steps for releasing will vary; but this is an approach taken by the Synapse developers (assuming a Unix-like shell):

1. Set a shell variable to the version you are releasing (this just makes subsequent steps easier):

   version=X.Y.Z

2. Update setup.cfg so that the version is correct.

3. Stage the changed files and commit.

   git add -u
   git commit -m v$version -n

4. Push your changes.

   git push

5. When ready, create a signed tag for the release:

   git tag -s v$version

   Base the tag message on the changelog.

6. Push the tag.

   git push origin tag v$version