In processCreateEvent, branch on event.federatedId: group DM messages now
look up the pre-bootstrapped local channel by federatedId instead of
computing a pair hash from two participants. In queueDmRelay, fetch the
channel's federatedId and ownerId and include federatedId in the outgoing
relay payload for group DMs so receiving instances can route correctly.
Add three new event processors to the relay endpoint for handling
inbound group DM membership changes from peer instances:
- processMemberAddEvent: handles member additions with channel bootstrap
(creates the local channel from group metadata on first contact)
- processMemberRemoveEvent: handles member removals with read state
cleanup and soft-delete GC when no local members remain
- processOwnershipTransferEvent: updates local channel owner tracking
All three are wired into the relay endpoint's event dispatch switch.
getGroupDmTargetOrigins() was called after the leaving user's dm_members row
was deleted, causing their instance to be excluded from member_remove and
ownership_transfer relay fan-out if they were the only member from that peer.
Move the target origins and leaving user lookups to before the deletion.
Hook POST /api/dm/:id/members and DELETE /api/dm/:id/members to the
federation outbox so membership changes propagate to peer instances:
- Assign federatedId when a group DM first gains remote members
- Relay member_add events with group metadata and participant-aware routing
- Relay member_remove (leave) events to peer instances
- Relay ownership_transfer when the departing user was the group owner,
updating the federated owner columns accordingly
Extend FederationRelayEvent with member_add, member_remove, and
ownership_transfer event types, plus federatedId and the new optional
membership/ownership/group payload fields. Add FederationMembershipPayload,
FederationOwnershipPayload, and FederationGroupPayload interfaces.
Add federatedId to FederationSyncRequest for group DM sync filtering.
Remove federated_id from addMissingColumns so it no longer races with
migrateDmChannelsFederatedId on installs that have canonical_pair_id.
Wrap the table rebuild in PRAGMA foreign_keys = OFF/ON with a transaction
so the DROP TABLE succeeds even when dm_members/dm_messages hold FK refs.
Renames dm_channels.canonical_pair_id → federated_id and adds
owner_home_user_id, owner_home_instance, deleted_at columns to support
federated group DMs. Migration handles upgrade from existing installs
(full table rebuild to rename), partial states (ALTER TABLE), and fresh
installs (correct DDL from the start). Backfills federated_id for
existing 1-on-1 DM channels and owner federation identity for group DMs.
Uses messageHomeInstance to determine whether the target message
originated locally (lookup by ID) or was replicated from another
instance (lookup by sourceInstance + sourceMessageId). Supports
N-instance federation and falls back to relay-sender lookup for
backward compatibility with in-flight outbox entries.
Resolves canonical messageId (sourceMessageId for replicated messages,
local ID for originated messages) and includes messageHomeInstance so
the receiver can deterministically find the target message regardless
of which instance created it.
Consolidates 4 inline constructions of the instance origin URL into a
single shared function. Removes the private copy in federationWorker
and two ad-hoc domainOrigin variables in federationOutbox.
When Instance 2 receives a relay from Instance 1, it no longer
broadcasts dm_message_created to members whose home instance is Instance
1. Those users already have the original message via their home WS
connection. This prevents duplicate messages from appearing in the
sender's chat.
When a user has federated WS connections, they can receive both the
original message (from their home instance) and the relay copy (from the
remote instance). The relay copy has a different message ID but carries
sourceMessageId pointing to the original. The dedup now checks both
directions: incoming relay copy vs existing original, and incoming
original vs existing relay copy.
SQLite stores self-referencing FK identifiers with quotes (REFERENCES
"dm_messages"), but the migration guard only checked for the unquoted
string. This caused the migration to re-run on every server startup,
which DROP TABLE dm_messages and triggered ON DELETE CASCADE on
attachments.dm_message_id — wiping every DM-linked attachment.
When a relay-created dm_message_created arrives for an unknown channel,
check if an existing DM has the same member (by homeUserId). If so,
route the message to the existing channel instead of adding a duplicate
sidebar entry. Prevents the transient duplicate that required page
refresh to dedup.
Reaction outbox events used reactionId (add) or a composite dedup key
(remove) as the event messageId. The receiver looked up dm_messages by
sourceMessageId = event.messageId, which never matched because it was
searching for a reactionId, not the actual message ID.
Fix: include the actual DM messageId in the reaction payload JSON.
The receiver now uses event.reaction.messageId for the lookup, with
fallback to event.messageId for backward compatibility.
After the file worker downloads a federated attachment, generate a
thumbnail using the same sharp pipeline as local uploads. This ensures
federated images use bandwidth-efficient thumbnails in chat view
instead of serving the full-size image.
Also fixes processCreateEvent to not copy the source instance's
thumbnailFilename (which doesn't exist locally).
The source instance's thumbnail file doesn't exist locally, so copying
its thumbnailFilename causes a 404 in the chat view. Set to null so
AttachmentRenderer falls back to the full image URL.
The file worker now UPDATEs the attachment row created by processCreateEvent
(swapping sourceUrl interim filename to local path) instead of INSERTing a
duplicate. Falls back to INSERT for legacy queue entries.
After download, broadcasts dm_message_updated so clients see the attachment
transition from remote hotlink to local file in real-time.
Insert attachment rows with sourceUrl as interim filename so the initial
WebSocket broadcast includes working remote URLs. AttachmentRenderer
already handles http:// filenames as direct URLs. The file worker will
UPDATE the filename to the local path after download completes.
This fixes the invisible bubble bug where attachment-only messages
(content: null, attachments: []) appeared as empty messages.
Single function builds complete relay payload with attachments (including
sourceUrl) and participants. Eliminates 4-way duplication that caused
the attachments: [] hardcode bug.
The relay was failing because processCreateEvent relied on the friends
table to discover the DM recipient, but friendships aren't federated
across instances. Also, resolveLocalUser matched deleted replicated
users before active ones.
- Add participants[] to FederationRelayEvent with homeUserId/homeInstance
for all DM channel members
- Add getDmParticipants() helper to look up member identities
- Include participants in outbox payloads (create/update) and sync events
- Rewrite processCreateEvent to resolve participants directly, compute
canonicalDmPairId, and findOrCreateDmChannel — removing the entire
friends-list fallback (60+ lines)
- Fix resolveLocalUser to filter out deleted users (is_deleted = 0)
and prefer the replicated user match when multiple candidates exist
The old query missed channels where both members appear as 'local'
(e.g., native Nova + native youruser on orbit). Using
canonical_pair_id is simpler and correct — any channel with a pair
ID is a federated DM that should be synced.
Messages by replicated users (e.g., Jannis browsing orbit) have
source_instance IS NULL because they were created on that instance.
The sync endpoint was incorrectly filtering these out, causing most
DM history to be missing from the sync response.
- buildRelayPayload now uses config.domain for local users instead of
empty string, so the relay receiver can resolve the user
- Fixed canonical_pair_id backfill: SQLite NULL || ':' || x = NULL,
so use COALESCE(home_user_id, id) instead of concatenation
Existing 1-on-1 DM channels created before federation had canonical_pair_id = NULL,
causing the relay to create duplicate channels on receipt of a message. On server
startup, migrations now: (1) compute and set canonical_pair_id for all existing
1-on-1 channels using home_user_id (falling back to regular id for local users),
and (2) merge any duplicate channels that share the same canonical_pair_id by
moving all messages, read states, and members into the oldest channel and deleting
the stale duplicate. Both steps are non-fatal and idempotent.
Federation relay was incorrectly defaulting to disabled, requiring
admins to discover a buried settings toggle. Since federation itself
is opt-in (you connect instances manually), relay should be on by
default. Also migrates existing instances from 0 → 1.
Adds a post-deploy step that removes Docker images and build cache
older than 24 hours. Prevents the gradual disk bloat from repeated
docker compose --build invocations (was 71GB on the Pi).
Task 13: Hook server-to-server peering into connectToRemote (non-fatal)
and add federation API namespace to the client (initiate, peers, revoke).
Task 14: Show a transparency notice in the DM welcome header when the
other user is on a remote instance, informing that messages are stored
on both home instances and are not end-to-end encrypted.
Task 15: Add Federation section to the instance settings General panel
with DM relay toggle, TTL config, and a live peer list with revoke
buttons. Also extends InstanceAdminSettings type and the server settings
route to support federationRelayEnabled / federationRelayTtlDays.
Add POST /api/federation/sync for peer instances to catch up on missed
DM mutations after downtime. Uses HMAC-SHA256 authentication (same as
relay), determines shared channels between peers via raw SQL join on
dm_members/users, queries the federation_mutation_log with timestamp
pagination, and returns FederationRelayEvent payloads for each mutation
type (create, update, delete, reaction_add, reaction_remove).
Add federation routes module with four endpoints:
- POST /api/federation/peer/initiate — admin-only, starts peering handshake
with a remote instance (validates origin, generates HMAC secret, sends
server-to-server accept request with 10s timeout)
- POST /api/federation/peer/accept — server-to-server first contact,
rate-limited to 10 req/min per IP, creates/activates peer record
- GET /api/federation/peers — admin-only, lists all peers (hmacSecret excluded)
- DELETE /api/federation/peers/:id — admin-only, revokes peer and cleans outbox
Jannis Braun