Editing Delegation

Delegation is a Matrix feature allowing a homeserver admin to retain an URL of example.com so that user IDs, etc. continue to look like {{ic|*:example.com}}, whilst having federation traffic routed to a different server and/or port (e.g. {{ic|matrix.example.com:443}}). There are multiple ways to do this. This includes with the {{ic|.well-known}} file and SRV DNS records.

== .well-known delegation ==

To use this method, you need to be able to configure the server at {{ic|https://<server_name>}} to serve a file at {{ic|https://<server_name>/.well-known/matrix/server}}. There are two ways to do this, shown below.

=== Using a web server ===

This is the more commonly used method, and is the only method if you are using server software that is not Synapse. You need to configure a server such as nginx or Apache to serve the {{ic|https://<server_name>/.well-known/matrix/server}} file. Setting up such a server is out of the scope of the wiki, but note that it is often possible to configure your reverse proxy for this.

The URL {{ic|https://<server_name>/.well-known/matrix/server}} should be configured to return a JSON structure containing the key {{ic|m.server}} like this:
{{bc|
{
    "m.server": "<synapse.server.name>[:<yourport>]"
}
}}
{{Note|
*Specifying a port is optional. If no port is specified, then it defaults to 8448.
}}

=== Using Synapse's built in method ===

If you are able to set up your domain so that {{ic|https://<server_name>}} is routed to Synapse (i.e., the only change needed is to direct federation traffic to port 443 instead of port 8448), then it is possible to configure Synapse to serve a suitable {{ic|.well-known/matrix/server}} file. To do so, add the following to your {{ic|homeserver.yaml}} file:
{{bc|
serve_server_wellknown: true
}}

{{Note|
* This only works if {{ic|https://<server_name>}} is routed to Synapse, so is generally not suitable if Synapse is hosted at a subdomain such as {{ic|<nowiki>https://matrix.example.com</nowiki>}}.
}}

== SRV DNS record delegation ==

{{Warning|This form of delegation is not generally recommended, as it can be difficult to configure the TLS certificates correctly in this case, and it offers little advantage over {{ic|.well-known}} delegation.}}

{{Note|
* Server delegation is a function of server-server communication, and as such using SRV DNS records will not cover use cases involving client-server communications. This means setting global client settings will still require that you serve a file from the {{ic|https://<server_name>/.well-known/}} endpoints defined in the specification.
}}

To set up SRV DNS record delegation, create a SRV DNS record with {{ic|_matrix-fed._tcp.<hostname>}} that points to the delegated hostname.