About

On this page I aim to collect some general info about my Matrix instance.

While my server does not offer open registrations I'm open to provide accounts to friends and mutuals, if you are interested you can contact me on any of the platforms listed here.

I'm running Dendrite on a homelab server (Intel Xeon E3-1270, 32GB memory) in my living room, aside from regular updates and backups I don't expect major unplanned outages.

In addition to the server itself I'm also hosting two web clients:

Of course you can also use any other client you like, for example Nheko on desktop or FluffyChat on mobile.

Rules

When given an account on my instance I expect you to adhere to the following guidelines; If you get reported to me for breaking any of the rules set here, or the rules of someone else's community you may join using my server, there's a high chance you'll loose your account.

Getting started

I recommend you to do the following steps with Element, i.e. the one I'm running at chat.squirrel.rocks.
Other clients should have similar functions but with this one I'm most familiar and can help if needed.

Change your password!

Because I don't allow self-service registration you will receive an initial password from me,
change it as soon as you log in for the first time!
To do so go to the Settings, there you will find a Change Password form in the General section.

Remove old sessions

Due to the way account creation works new accounts will have a session with the ID shared_secret_registration, this is safe to remove.
To do so, go to Settings → Security & Privacy, there you'll find a list of all logged in sessions.
Tick the checkbox of the session you want to remove and confirm with the "Sign out selected device" button.

Screenshot of the Security & Privacy settings in Element, the
area showing the unverified session is highlighted with a red box.

Set up encryption key backup

This part is important to not loose access to your messages in case you loose your sessions.
To check if key backup is enabled and set it up if it isn't, go to Settings → Security & Privacy, there you will find Secure Backup and Cross-signing in the Encryption section.
If the backup is not enabled yet you can start the setup by clicking the Set up button, which will then guide you through the process.

Screenshot of the Encryption section of the Security & Privacy
settings in Element. The button to start the setup process for the
key backup is highlighted with a red box.

Once the setup process is complete you will see a green checkmark saying "This session is backing up your keys." in the Secure Backup section and another saying "Cross-signing ready for use." in the Cross-signing section.
Make sure to safely store the key you set in the setup process, ideally in your password manager.

Screenshot of the Encryption section of the Security & Privacy
settings in Element. The two checkmarks indicating that key backup and
cross-signing are active are highlighted in red boxes.

More

Where to start

Since discoverability on Matrix is not great and information about other Servers and Spaces mainly spreads by word of mouth I collected a list of Furry related ones I know of here.

Stickers

Stickers on Matrix are still relatively new so questions on how to find some and use them come up frequently, I set up a small page trying to answer some of those here.