Generic deployment documentation

Getting help

If you run into any problems while setting up Tuwunel open an issue on GitHub.

Installing Tuwunel

Static prebuilt binary

You may simply download the binary that fits your machine architecture (x86_64 or aarch64). Run uname -m to see what you need.

Prebuilt fully static binaries can be downloaded from the latest tagged release here or main CI branch workflow artifact output. These also include .deb packages for Debian or Ubuntu and .rpm packages for Red Hat or Fedora.

For the best performance; if using an x86_64 CPU made in the last ~10 years, we recommend using the -v3- optimised packages. See below for a command to check what your system supports. If the server refuses to start or exits with an "Illegal Instruction" error you will need -v2- or -v1- packages instead. The database backend, RocksDB, benefits from -v2- or greater as it features performance critical hardware accelerated CRC32 hashing/checksumming.

Linux users can run this script to display which optimization levels they may choose:

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -Po '(avx|sse)[235]' | sort -u | sed 's/avx5/v4/;s/avx2/v3/;s/sse3/v2/;s/sse2/v1/' | sort

Compiling

Alternatively, you may compile the binary yourself. We recommend using Nix to build tuwunel as this has the most guaranteed reproducibiltiy and easiest to get a build environment and output going. This also allows easy cross-compilation.

You can run the nix build -L .#static-x86_64-linux-musl-all-features or nix build -L .#static-aarch64-linux-musl-all-features commands based on architecture to cross-compile the necessary static binary located at result/bin/tuwunel. This is reproducible with the static binaries produced in our CI.

If wanting to build using standard Rust toolchains, make sure you install:

liburing-dev on the compiling machine, and liburing on the target host
LLVM and libclang for RocksDB

You can build Tuwunel using cargo build --release --all-features

Adding a Tuwunel user

While Tuwunel can run as any user it is better to use dedicated users for different services. This also allows you to make sure that the file permissions are correctly set up.

In Debian, you can use this command to create a Tuwunel user:

sudo adduser --system tuwunel --group --disabled-login --no-create-home

For distros without adduser (or where it's a symlink to useradd):

sudo useradd -r --shell /usr/bin/nologin --no-create-home tuwunel

Forwarding ports in the firewall or the router

Matrix's default federation port is port 8448, and clients must be using port 443. If you would like to use only port 443, or a different port, you will need to setup delegation. Tuwunel has config options for doing delegation, or you can configure your reverse proxy to manually serve the necessary JSON files to do delegation (see the [global.well_known] config section).

If Tuwunel runs behind a router or in a container and has a different public IP address than the host system these public ports need to be forwarded directly or indirectly to the port mentioned in the config.

Note for NAT users; if you have trouble connecting to your server from the inside of your network, you need to research your router and see if it supports "NAT hairpinning" or "NAT loopback".

If your router does not support this feature, you need to research doing local DNS overrides and force your Matrix DNS records to use your local IP internally. This can be done at the host level using /etc/hosts. If you need this to be on the network level, consider something like NextDNS or Pi-Hole.

Setting up a systemd service

Two example systemd units for Tuwunel can be found on the configuration page. You may need to change the ExecStart= path to where you placed the Tuwunel binary if it is not /usr/bin/tuwunel.

On systems where rsyslog is used alongside journald (i.e. Red Hat-based distros and OpenSUSE), put $EscapeControlCharactersOnReceive off inside /etc/rsyslog.conf to allow color in logs.

If you are using a different database_path other than the systemd unit configured default /var/lib/tuwunel, you need to add your path to the systemd unit's ReadWritePaths=. This can be done by either directly editing tuwunel.service and reloading systemd, or running systemctl edit tuwunel.service and entering the following:

[Service]
ReadWritePaths=/path/to/custom/database/path

Creating the Tuwunel configuration file

Now we need to create the Tuwunel's config file in /etc/tuwunel/tuwunel.toml. The example config can be found at tuwunel-example.toml.

Please take a moment to read the config. You need to change at least the server name.

RocksDB is the only supported database backend.

Setting the correct file permissions

If you are using a dedicated user for Tuwunel, you will need to allow it to read the config. To do that you can run this:

sudo chown -R root:root /etc/tuwunel
sudo chmod -R 755 /etc/tuwunel

If you use the default database path you also need to run this:

sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/tuwunel/
sudo chown -R tuwunel:tuwunel /var/lib/tuwunel/
sudo chmod 700 /var/lib/tuwunel/

Setting up the Reverse Proxy

We recommend Caddy as a reverse proxy, as it is trivial to use, handling TLS certificates, reverse proxy headers, etc. transparently with proper defaults. However, Nginx is also well-supported and widely used.

Choose your reverse proxy:

Caddy Setup Guide - Recommended for ease of use and automatic TLS
Nginx Setup Guide - Popular choice with extensive documentation

Quick Overview

Regardless of which reverse proxy you choose, you will need to:

Reverse proxy the following routes:
- /_matrix/ - core Matrix C-S and S-S APIs
- /_tuwunel/ - ad-hoc Tuwunel routes such as /local_user_count and /server_version
Optionally reverse proxy (recommended):
- /.well-known/matrix/client and /.well-known/matrix/server if using Tuwunel to perform delegation (see the [global.well_known] config section)
- /.well-known/matrix/support if using Tuwunel to send the homeserver admin contact and support page (formerly known as MSC1929)
- / if you would like to see hewwo from tuwunel woof! at the root
Handle ports:
- Port 443 (HTTPS) for client-server API
- Port 8448 for federation (if federating with other homeservers)

See the following spec pages for more details on well-known files:

Examples of delegation:

Other Reverse Proxies

Specific contributions for other proxies are welcome!

Not Recommended:

Apache: While possible, Apache requires special configuration (nocanon in ProxyPass) to prevent corruption of the X-Matrix header.
Lighttpd: Its proxy module alters the X-Matrix authorization header, breaking federation functionality.

You are done

Now you can start Tuwunel with:

sudo systemctl start tuwunel

Set it to start automatically when your system boots with:

sudo systemctl enable tuwunel

How do I know it works?

You can open a Matrix client, enter your homeserver and try to register.

You can also use these commands as a quick health check (replace your.server.name).

curl https://your.server.name/_tuwunel/server_version

# If using port 8448
curl https://your.server.name:8448/_tuwunel/server_version

# If federation is enabled
curl https://your.server.name:8448/_matrix/federation/v1/version

To check if your server can talk with other homeservers, you can use the Matrix Federation Tester. If you can register but cannot join federated rooms check your config again and also check if the port 8448 is open and forwarded correctly.

Tuwunel One