cockpit-file-sharing VS Synapse

I just build a new Proxmox server, and it has a ZFS pool that I'd like to share via NFS/SMB with other hosts on my network. I want to do as little on the Proxmox host as possible, so I figured I'd mount the ZFS pool in an unprivileged Ubuntu 22.04 LXC container that runs cockpit and cockpit-file-sharing to easily manage NFS and SMB shares. Should be simple, right?

I am a fan of virtualization and run a three-node Proxmox cluster along with a Hyper-V host at home. I avoided Docker for years because I couldn't wrap my head around it. A couple of months ago, I migrated my NAS from being a Proxmox VM to bare-metal. It runs minimal Debian 11 (no desktop GUI) and the Cockpit web UI with the 45Drives Cockpit File Sharing extension for managing the server and file shares, respectively. I also installed Docker Engine and a Portainer container for managing containers. The system, a 2C/4T i3 CPU with 16 GB RAM, easily runs 19 containers.

My NAS is simply minimal Debian 11 running the Cockpit web UI (https://cockpit-project.org/) with the 45Drives Cockpit File Sharing application (https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-file-sharing) for managing SMB and NFS shares. I use MDADM (Linux software RAID), but 45Drives also has a ZFS management Cockpit application as well. Cockpit is in the Debian repository, see https://cockpit-project.org/running#debian. Give Cockpit a look. You can easily “apt remove” if you don’t like it.

https://cockpit-project.org/ https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit-machines https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-navigator https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-file-sharing

Hi, I'm using Cockpit to manage my Ubuntu server and I want to mount a network share (Synology NAS) through the web interface. Under the "Storage" page it is possible to mount a NFS share with options such as auto-mount at boot and such, and this is exactly what I need for Samba. I found a third-party plugin to manage Samba shares (link), but it can only create new and manage shares and not mount existing network shares (I think, I haven't tried it yet). Does anyone know how to mount SMB shares using Cockpit? Thanks in advance.

45-drives makes a plugin for the web interface for nas features (use the "install from RPM" install option). You'd also need this plugin

Some important services for me: 1. Wireguard: I have bypass rules in Authelia since I’m too lazy to login to my services. Wireguard also provides adblock on-the-go. 2. Samba server: use to transfer files between iPhone/iPad/laptop. Didn’t expect I’m depending on it too much. 3. Webtop: aka my lite/fake VM. I mounted my data directory to this container, mostly use it when i need GUI to move/edit files on my server. Accessible through web browser or RDP protocol. 4. Diversion: adblock on Asus router. Easy to setup adblock with vpn. Also no need to setup 2 Adblock instances. Another advantage, asus router can force all dns queries through this, bypass hard coded dns on some devices. 5. Cockpit with file sharing plugin: easily manage samba/nfs share

there's plugins for cockpit like: https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-file-sharing

What are you thinking of here? Synapse has supported purging room history since 2016: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/911, and configurable data retention since 2019: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/5815.

Meanwhile, Matrix has never needed the full room history to be synchronised - when a server joins a room, it typically only grabs the last 20 messages. (It does needs to grab all the key-value state about the room, although these days that happens gradually in the background).

If you're wondering why Matrix implementations are often greedy on disk space, it's because they typically cache the key-value state aggressively (storing a snapshot of it for the room on a regular basis). However, that's just an implementation quirk; folks could absolutely come up with fancier datastructures to store it more efficiently; it's just not got to the top of anyone's todo list yet - things like performance and UX are considered much more important than disk usage right now.

some context re the Matrix isses, long history apparently: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14481#issuecomm...

Why not Matrix? Here's one reason: it has incredibly hard-to-debug edge cases, and plenty of bugs. One of my favourites is the one where people are kicked out of your room at random, which was reported a year ago[0]. It wasn't fixed, however, because the head of the Matrix foundation (Matthew) presumably didn't like the issue being posted on Twitter.

This is honestly really disappointing behaviour from a platform owner.

[0]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14481

> That doesn't make this situation any less bad to the rest of the community.

How is the community suffering here? Let's say Element adds a bunch of baller stuff to their versions over the next few months and then closes the source. Can't the community just fork the last AGPL version? You might say, "well then no one can take the AGPL fork and make their own closed-source business", but do you want them to? Even if you do, they still can with the existing Apache-licensed version, just like Element is doing right now.

You're arguing that Element will lose a lot of contributions, but TFA points out that despite being super open, the vast majority of contributions are still made by Element employees (which seems to be true [0]). It's not the case that Element is looking to monetize the (small) contributions of others, it is the case that others are looking to monetize the (huge) contributions of Element.

And besides, aren't the MSCs the core of Matrix? It's already super possible to build your own compliant client and server.

The situation is that Element needs money to keep developing the ecosystem. It would be cool if there were a big network of donors and contributions, but there isn't. You're essentially saying, "that's fine, go out of business then, and the community will keep developing the ecosystem", but that's not happening now, and it can still happen anyway with the Apache-licensed versions, which again people can still contribute to.

[0]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/graphs/contributors