Matrix Moderation Tool

A Matrix moderation tool to make managing a Synapse server easier.

Contact me at @michael:perthchat.org if you get stuck or have an edit in mind. if it

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Licensing

This work is published under the MIT license, for more information on this license see here: https://opensource.org/license/mit/

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Setup script

You can hard code the server URL, federation port and access token into the hardcoded_variables.py file for faster use, it will prompt you for these values if you don't.

Your access token can be found in Element > Settings > Help & About, your user account must first be upgraded to a server admin.

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Upgrade user to 'server admin'

https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tree/master/docs/admin_api

“So first connect to the correct db and then run the UPDATE users...”

$ sudo -i -u postgres

$ psql synapse

synapse=# UPDATE users SET admin=1 WHERE name='@PC-Admin:perthchat.org';

UPDATE 1

synapse=#

‘-’ sign instead of ‘=’ means:

It means you didn't type a complete SQL query yet.

You need a semicolon to terminate the command.

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Make sure /_synapse/ is mapped

A few of the commands will not work unless /_synapse/ is mapped to port 8008. Here is a example for nginx:

    location /_matrix {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8008;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    }

    location /_synapse {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8008;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    }

You can also run the script locally on your server if you do not wish to map /_synapse/.

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Roadmap

To do:

1. Add https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/docs/admin_api/delete_group.md
2. Make the menu prettier!
3. Modularise the functions into multiple files - DONE
4. Use URI module for all API calls instead of curl
5. Add fully automated (should just return a web link and decryption password) reporting functions for users:

• User's ID
• List of the rooms the user is participating in
• The content of the messages they've sent (if they were sent to rooms your server is participating in)
• The state events they have generated (such as changing their display name or avatar URL)
• Device IDs the user has logged in from and some metadata about those devices (like last seen times)

6. Add fully automated (should just return a web link and decryption password) reporting functions for rooms:

• Room's ID
• Room alias
• List of room members
• Room metadata (name, topic, avatar, etc.)
• The power levels of the room (which determine what actions users are permitted to do)
• History of messages and state events, including their timestamps and senders

7. Add a function to extract a users email
8. Do room shutdowns in parallel?
9. Add more automated rdlist function with sane defaults - DONE

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rdlist Functionality

'rdlist' is a comprehensive list of child abuse related rooms on Matrix, it's a safety initiative led by the Legion of Janitors.

This script can automatically load and block/purge abusive rooms from rdlist, making it very easy for inexperienced administrators to block this harmful content.

If you are running a public server, please dm me at @michael:perthchat.org and I can invite you to the 'Legion of Janitors' room.

Once you have read access to the rdlist repository, simply run this moderation script like so:

$ python3 moderation_tool.py 

Please select one of the following options:
...
#### rdlist ####
30) Block all rooms with specific rdlist tags.
34) Block all rooms with recommended rdlist tags.
('q' or 'e') Exit.

34

rdlist repo already cloned...
Fetching origin
rdlist repo is up-to-date, no need to pull changes.

Using recommended rdlist tags.

Number of rooms being shutdown: 305

Are you sure you want to shutdown these rooms? y/n?

curl -kXGET 'https://matrix.perthchat.org/_synapse/admin/v1/rooms/!***REDACTED***:matrix.org/state?access_token=***REDACTED***' > ./!***REDACTED***:matrix.org_state_1688238203.json

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100    50    0    50    0     0    891      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   892

Exported room state events to file, this data can be useful for profiling a room after you've blocked/purged it: ./state_events!***REDACTED***:matrix.org_state_1688238203.json
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   226    0    32  100   194    341   2069 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  2430
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   318    0   318    0     0   7095      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  7227
status: complete
!***REDACTED***:matrix.org has been successfully shutdown!

Note that this script before shutting these rooms down will save the state events to the "./state_events" folder, this data is important for law enforcement. Please collect these files and send them back to the Legion of Janitors for collection and analysis.