Make Backspace self-hostable in any homelab environment, not just a clean host
that owns ports 80/443.
install.sh is now mode-aware and auto-detects which fits:
- allinone (default): bundled Caddy + auto-HTTPS — unchanged behavior
- proxy: behind your own reverse proxy (nginx / Traefik / Caddy / Nginx Proxy
Manager / SWAG) — app published on 127.0.0.1:APP_PORT, no bundled Caddy,
prints paste-ready proxy snippets
- tunnel: behind a tunnel (Cloudflare / Tailscale) — same, plus a 90MB upload
cap (under Cloudflare's 100MB body limit) and voice force-disabled (WebRTC
over UDP can't traverse a tunnel)
Port detection is Docker-aware (consults `docker ps` published ports, not just
`ss`), so a host whose proxy already owns 80/443 via iptables DNAT — with no
listening socket for `ss` to see — is correctly detected as "taken" instead of
dead-ending.
docker-compose.proxy.yml is a small overlay, layered via COMPOSE_FILE (written
into .env so no `-f` flags are ever needed), that publishes the loopback port and
parks Caddy in an inert profile. The base compose file is untouched, so All-in-One
behaves exactly as before.
Prebuilt image: .github/workflows/docker-publish.yml builds and pushes a
multi-arch (linux/amd64 + linux/arm64) image to ghcr.io/thezwiss/backspace on
release tags (and manual dispatch), so weak/ARM hosts skip the ~1.6GB local build
(the Vite build OOMs small ARM boxes). install.sh and docker-compose.yml default
to pulling it, fall back to an image already present on the host, and finally to a
from-source build — AGPL §13 commit stamping preserved on every path. Kept
deliberately separate from the desktop-installer workflow (release.yml).
Docs: README gains a "Deployment modes" section (all three modes, nginx / Caddy /
Traefik snippets, GUI-proxy field-by-field, cloudflared ingress, the update path,
and voice-per-mode caveats); docs/systems/deployment.md updated to match.
Verified live on a throwaway VM: proxy + all-in-one end-to-end through install.sh
(with a real Let's Encrypt cert), tunnel config generation, loopback-only binding,
and the local-image fallback path.
The @backspace/desktop postinstall runs `electron-rebuild -f -w uiohook-napi`,
which compiles a native module from source and needs a C++ toolchain
(make/g++/python3). On a bare host without those — a typical VPS a self-hoster
clones onto — that failure took the ENTIRE `pnpm install` down (exit 255), so the
server never installed either, even though uiohook-napi is desktop-only and
irrelevant to hosting.
Make the rebuild non-fatal: on failure it now prints a clear one-line warning and
continues. Machines with build tools (CI, desktop devs) are byte-identical — the
fallback never fires; only toolless boxes (which aren't building the desktop app
anyway) skip it. Verified on a bare x86 box: full `pnpm install` now exits 0 and
the server builds and boots from source. Docs note the build-tool requirement for
desktop work and point self-hosters at the Docker installer.
Spell out that JWT_SECRET is required and must be a strong 32+ char value, and
that the empty default is intentional (docker compose fails fast rather than the
server boot-looping). Pairs with the compose-level guard added in 028005d.
Without JWT_SECRET the server throws at boot (config.ts) and `restart:
unless-stopped` turns that into an endless crash loop that is invisible unless
you run `docker compose logs backspace`. Guard it exactly like DOMAIN already is,
so `docker compose up` stops immediately with an actionable message. install.sh
generates the secret before bringing the stack up, so this only affects the
manual `cp .env.example .env && docker compose up` path.
Unpinned `pnpm@latest` in the Dockerfile made fresh builds non-reproducible:
`latest` now resolves to pnpm 11, but the committed lockfile targets pnpm 10, so
`pnpm install --frozen-lockfile` fails with ERR_PNPM_LOCKFILE_CONFIG_MISMATCH on
a clean host. Pin pnpm to 10.34.3 across the Dockerfile, the `packageManager`
field, and the release workflow; pin Node to 20 (LTS) via `.nvmrc` and `engines`
so Docker, CI, and from-source builds all use the same tested toolchain.
Also corrects the docs: the lockfile is v9.0 (requires pnpm 10, not "pnpm 8+"),
and "Node 20+" implied untested newer majors were supported.
CI run 2: mac/win/linux-x64 green, but linux-arm64 failed packaging .deb —
electron-builder's bundled fpm is x86_64-only and can't execute on the arm64
runner (Exec format error). The arm64 AppImage built fine; only fpm/.deb broke.
Install fpm natively on the Linux runners and set USE_SYSTEM_FPM=true so both
arches package .deb with a host-native fpm. Preserves arm64 .deb (the reason
the arm64 runner was added — Raspberry Pi users).
First real CI run failed on 3 of 4 platforms in postinstall (electron-rebuild
of uiohook-napi):
- Linux (x64+arm64): missing X11 dev headers — 'Xrandr.h: No such file'. Add the
full libuiohook header set (libxrandr-dev, libxinerama-dev, libx11-xcb-dev,
libxkbfile-dev, libxkbcommon-x11-dev) derived from its #include list.
- Windows: node-gyp on the windows-latest image can't detect VS 18
('unknown version undefined'). Pin to windows-2022 (VS 2022 / v17).
macOS built cleanly and is unaffected.
A reset peer reaches needs_attention via the auth-failure path (HMAC desynced by
the new incarnation) without passing through unreachable, so the 5s recovery
probe never saw it — detection waited up to a full 15-min health-check cycle
before 'Re-peer & heal' surfaced. Extract detectResetForPeer() and fire it
event-driven at the transition, plus a startup sweep for already-stuck peers.
15-min tick remains the backstop.
Also add the positive companion assertion (folded in from a Task 3 review
Minor): findFederatedUser tier-2 STILL returns a NON-detached (orphaned=0)
same-name federated row, locking that the eq(federation_home_orphaned, 0)
clause discriminates on the flag alone and never over-filters legitimate
replicated identities.
All three behaviors pass against the shipped Task 1-3 code; no product-code
change was required.
Finding 1: handleReactionAdd/Remove now drop reactions on a dead 1-on-1
(isDeadOneOnOne) — previously a survivor could react on a Deleted-User
thread and the relay fanned out to all peers via undefined target-origins.
Client Message.tsx withdraws add/toggle reaction affordances for dead DMs
(existing reactions still display read-only).
Finding 2: dmMembership purge test now runs with foreign_keys=ON (matches
prod) and asserts dm_members/dm_messages cascade cleanup on channel purge.
Finding 3: tombstone group-DM ownership transfer filters isDeleted=0 so
ownership can never move to a tombstoned member; covered by a new test.
Jannis Braun