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<meta name="author" content="Jordan Bancino">
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content="Telodendria, a Matrix homeserver written in ANSI C.">
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<h1 id="telodendria">Telodendria</h1>
<p>
<b>Telodendria:</b> The terminal branches of an axon.
</p>
<p>
<b><i>Note:</i></b> <b>Telodendria</b> is under <i>heavy</i> development.
Please see the <a href="#project-status">Project Status</a>.
</p>
<p>
<b>Telodendria</b> is a Matrix homeserver implementation written from
scratch in ANSI C. It is designed to be lightweight and simple, yet
functional. <b>Telodendria</b> differentiates itself from other Matrix
homeserver implementations because it:
<ul>
<li>
Is written in C, a stable, low-level programming language with a long
history, low build and runtime overhead, and wide compatibility.
</li>
<li>
Is written with minimalism as a primary design goal. Whenever possible
and practical, no third-party libraries are pulled in to the source
code. Everything <b>Telodendria</b> needs is custom written. As a
result, <b>Telodendria</b> depends only on a standard C compiler and
POSIX C library to be built, both of which are built in to a good
Unix-style operating system already, which means you shouldn't have
to install anything extra.
</li>
<li>
Uses a flat-file directory structure to store data instead of a
database. This has a number of advantages:
<ul>
<li>It makes setup and maintenance much easier.</li>
<li>
It allows <b>Telodendria</b> to run on systems with fewer resources.
</li>
<li>
It provides both runtime and data safety and stability. Since no
database is running, there's fewer things that could go wrong because
there's a lot less code running on the system.
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Is packaged as a single small, statically-linked and highly-optimized
binary that can be run just about anywhere. It is designed to be
extremely easy to set up and consume as few resources as possible.
</li>
<li>
Is permissively licensed. <b>Telodendria</b> is licensed under the
MIT license, which imposes few restrictions on what you can do with
it.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
<b>Telodendria</b> is on Matrix! Check out the official Matrix rooms:
</p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Room</th>
<th>Description</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<code>#telodendria-releases:bancino.net</code>
</td>
<td>
Get notified of new releases.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<code>#telodendria-general:bancino.net</code>
</td>
<td>
General discussion and support for <b>Telodendria</b>.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<code>#telodendria-issues:bancino.net</code>
</td>
<td>
Report issues with <b>Telodendria</b>.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<code>#telodendria-patches:bancino.net</code>
</td>
<td>
Submit code patches to the <b>Telodendria</b> project.
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h2 id="table-of-contents">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#telodendria">Telodendria</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#table-of-contents">Table of Contents</a></li>
<li><a href="#download">Download</a></li>
<li><a href="#building-the-source">Building The Source</a></li>
</li>
<li><a href="#configure">Configure Telodendria</a></li>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#project-status">Project Status</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#phase-1">Phase 1: Getting Off The Ground</a></li>
<li><a href="#phase-2">Phase 2: Building A Foundation</a></li>
<li><a href="#phase-3">Phase 3: Welcome To Matrix</a></li>
<li><a href="#phase-4">Phase 4: A Real Homeserver</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#documentation-status">Documentation Status</a></li>
<li><a href="#rationale">Rationale</a></li>
<li><a href="#project-goals">Project Goals</a></li>
<li><a href="#getting-support">Getting Support</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#contributing">Contributing</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#reporting-issues">Reporting Issues</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#Developing">Developing</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#getting-the-code">Getting The Code</a></li>
<li><a href="#code-style">Code Style</a></li>
<li><a href="#submitting-patches">Submitting Patches</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#license">License</a></li>
<li><a href="#contributors">Contributors</a></li>
<li><a href="#change-log">Change Log</a></li>
<li><a href="#resources">Resources</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="download">Download</h2>
<p>
<b>Telodendria</b> is distributed as source tarballs, in true Unix
fashion. If you want, you can verify the checksum of your download,
and check the signature. To check the signature, you'll need
<code>signify</code>, and the signify public key:
<a href="/telodendria-signify.pub">
telodendria-signify.pub</a>.
</p>
<p>
If your operating system has an official package or port of
<b>Telodendria</b>, you should prefer to use that instead of manually
downloading the source and building it. If your operating system's
package or port is too out of date for your tastes, please contact
the package's maintainers to notify them, or offer to update the
package yourself.
</p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Version</th>
<th>Download</th>
<th>Checksum</th>
<th>Signature</th>
</tr>
<!--
<tr>
<td>v0.0.0</td>
<td>
<a href="/pub/v0.0.0/Telodendria-v0.0.0.tar.gz">
Telodendria-v0.0.0.tar.gz
</a>
</td>
<td>
<a href="/pub/v0.0.0/Telodendria-v0.0.0.tar.gz.sha256">
SHA256
</a>
</td>
<td>
<a href="/pub/v0.0.0/Telodendria-v0.0.0.tar.gz.sig">
Signify
</a>
</td>
</tr>
-->
<tr>
<td colspan="4" style="text-align: center;">
No downloads here yet. See the
<a href="#project-status">Project Status</a> for more
information.
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
You can check out the change log <a href="#change-log">here</a>.
</p>
<h2 id="building-the-source">Building The Source</h4>
<p>
<b>Telodendria</b> is designed to be light enough that it can be built
from source on just about any operating system. It only has the
following requirements, all of which should be already available to
you on a sufficiently complete operating system:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
A standards-compliant C compiler with a POSIX.1c standard library. Because
<b>Telodendria</b> is written in ANSI C and sticks to POSIX.1c features, it
should compile on almost any compiler and operating system with minimal
effort, but the following compilers and operating systems are known to work:
<ul>
<li>GCC on Linux</li>
<li>Clang on OpenBSD</li>
<li>
Tiny C Compiler (<b>Note:</b> must edit <code>make.sh</code> and remove
<code>-Wl,-static -Wl,-gc-sections</code> from <code>LDFLAGS</code>)
on OpenBSD.
</li>
</ul>
Other compilers should work as well, but you may have to play with the
flags in <code>make.sh</code>.
</li>
<li>
POSIX base utilities, including <code>find</code>, <code>stat</code>,
<code>env</code>, and compliant <code>sh</code>-like shell.
</li>
</ul>
<div class="code">
$ ./make.sh
</div>
<p>
If everything went well, that will produce
<code>build/telodendria</code>, which you can then place wherever you
want, and run as a system daemon. See the <code>contrib</code> folder
for configuration examples.
</p>
<h2 id="configure">Configure Telodendria</h3>
<p>
Once you get <b>Telodendria</b> built, you will have to write a
configuration file for it. The configuration file is a simple
OpenBSD-style configuration file, which should be called
<code>telodendria.conf</code>.
</p>
<h2 id="project-status">Project Status</h2>
<p>
<b>Telodendria</b> is a very ambitious project. There's a lot that needs
to happen yet before it is usable. At the moment, there's nothing that
even remotely ressembles a Matrix homeserver here; I'm still
getting off the ground and building a foundation.
</p>
<p>
But just because there's nothing here yet doesn't mean you should go away!
I could always use help, so you are more than welcome to help
out if you want things to go quicker. Please see the
<a href="#contributing">Contributing</a> section for details on how you
can get involved.
</p>
<h3 id="phase-1">Phase 1: Getting Off The Ground</h3>
<ul>
<li><s>Name this project</s></li>
<li><s>Set up a CVS repository</s></li>
<li><s>Make CVS repository public</s></li>
<li><s>Write a coding style guide</s></li>
<li><s>Write a build script</s></li>
<li><s>Add a license</s></li>
<li><s>Add support and issue reporting guide</s></li>
<li><s>Add table of contents to this document</s></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="phase-2">Phase 2: Building A Foundation</h3>
<ul>
<li><s>Implement an array</s></li>
<li><s>Implement a logging facility</s></li>
<li><s>Implement argument parsing (<code>-c file -Vh</code>)</s></li>
<li><s>Implement a hash map</s></li>
<li><s>Combine library code files</s></li>
<li><s>Implement configuration file parsing using the hash map</s></li>
<li><s>Base64 encoding/decoding with padded/unpadded support</s></li>
<li><s>Write a release script</s></li>
<li>Implement a JSON library using the hash map and array</li>
<li><s>Figure out how to w</s>Write unit tests for array/hashmap/etc</li>
<li>Add license/documentation comments to all source files</li>
<li>Implement a simple HTTP server</li>
<li>
Design the server architecture
<ul>
<li>Route requests</li>
<li>Handle requests</li>
<li>Data abstraction layer</li>
<li>Error generation</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="phase-3">Phase 3: Welcome To Matrix</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Implement the Client-Server API
</li>
<li>
Implement the Server-Server API
</li>
<li>
Implement the other Matrix APIs
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="phase-4">Phase 4: A Real Homeserver</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Create an OpenBSD package and get it submitted to ports
</li>
<li>
Create a command line tool to manage Telodendria
<ul>
<li>Configuration file generation</li>
<li>User management</li>
<li>Room management</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Migrate from Synapse. I run a Synapse homeserver right now, so somehow
I have to get all my data into the Telodendria format.
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="documentation-status">Documentation Status</h2>
<p>
This documentation needs just a little work. Here's the things
on my list for that:
</p>
<ul>
<li><s>Update Rationale section</s></li>
<li><s>Update Project description (no longer a CGI binary)</s></li>
<li><s>Update project code requirements (ANSI C, POSIX.1c)</s></li>
<li><s>Clean up dark mode colors (tables, background, code snippets)</s></li>
<li>Add logo (possibly center title?)</li>
<li><s>Update Code Style to not include indent or line rules, but to use
<code>indent(1)</code> instead.</s></li>
<li><s>Fix typo "Subitting Patches" in Table of Contents</s></li>
<li><s>Make a note in Getting The Code that the password for the
<code>anoncvs</code> account is just <code>anoncvs</code>.</s></li>
<li><s>Add Contributors list</s></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="rationale">Rationale</h2>
<p>
I want a lightweight Matrix homeserver designed specifically for
OpenBSD and other Unix-like operating systems. I want a homeserver
that can be developed in <code>vi(1)</code> and compiled with the
built-in C compiler. I want it to function entirely on a base OS
install without having to install any extra packages whatsoever.
I've found that as far as these priorities are concerned, the
existing homeserver implementations fall tremendously short. This
project aims to point out that existing homeserver implementations
are way over-engineered and written in such a way that many programs
and libraries have to be pulled in to use them.
</p>
<p>
I also want to learn how Matrix works, and I want to understand the
code I'm running on my server, which is why I'm writing every
component from scratch, even the HTTP server.
</p>
Telodendria is written entirely in portable ANSI C. It depends on
no third-party C libraries other than the standard POSIX C library.
The only thing you need to run it is a reverse proxy with HTTPS support,
such as <code>relayd(8)</code>, and a directory that data can be
written to. Everything Telodendria needs to run itself is compiled
into a single static binary, and the source code can be built
anywhere, right out of the box. This makes it suitable for running
in a <code>chroot(8)</code> environment.
</p>
<p>
Telodendria doesn't use a database like all the other homeservers.
Instead, it operates more like email: it uses a flat-file data
structure similar to Maildir to store data. The advantage of this is
that it saves server maintainers from also having to maintain a
database. It greatly simplifies the process of getting a Matrix
homeserver up and running, and it makes it highly portable. It also is
extremely easy to back up and restore with base tools; just
<code>tar(1)</code> up the directory, and you're good to go.
</p>
<p>
Telodendria is developed and tested on OpenBSD, but you'll find that it
should just run on any POSIX operating system without modification.
</p>
<h2 id="project-goals">Project Goals</h2>
<p>
The goals of this project are as follows:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
To be a production-ready Matrix server capable of handling a lot of
users. Telodendria should have good performance in many diverse
environments.
</li>
<li>
To have as few external build and run dependencies as possible. It
should be possible to compile Telodendria on any operating system out
of the box, and have it be totally statically linked, ready to run
under a <code>chroot(8)</code>-ed web server. You'll even notice that
the documentation is written in HTML directly, not Markdown, to remove
the dependency on a Markdown parser and renderer.
</li>
<li>
To be written in clean, elegant, and well-documented code. The goal is
to build a Matrix homeserver from the ground up, not just because I
don't like the way existing homeservers are implemented, but also so I can
learn how Matrix really works, and maybe even teach others along the
way.
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="getting-support">Getting Support</h2>
<p>
<b>Telodendria</b> is designed to be fairly straightforward, but that
doesn't mean there won't be hiccups along the way. If you are struggling
to get <b>Telodendria</b> up and running, you're more than welcome to
reach out for support. Just join the
<code>#telodendria-general:bancino.net</code> Matrix channel. Before
you do though, make sure you're running the latest version of
<b>Telodendria</b> and you've thoroughly read through all the
relevant documentation.
</p>
<h2 id="contributing">Contributing</h2>
<p>
<b>Telodendria</b> is an open source project. As such, it welcomes
contributions. There are many ways you can contribute, and any way you
can is greatly appreciated.
</p>
<h3 id="reporting-issues">Reporting Issues</h3>
<p>
If&mdash;after you've reached out to
<code>#telodendria-general:bancino.net</code>&mdash;it has been
determined that there is a problem with <b>Telodendria</b>, it should
be reported to <code>#telodendria-issues:bancino.net</code>. There it
can be discussed further. The issues channel serves as the official
issue tracker of <b>Telodendria</b>; although issues may be copied
into a <code>TODO</code> file in the CVS repository just so they
don't get lost.
</p>
<h3 id="developing">Developing</h3>
<p>
The primary language used to write <b>Telodendria</b> code is ANSI C.
Yes, that's the original C standard from 1989. The reason this standard
is chosen, and the reason that it will not be changed, is because the
original C is the most portable. Other languages you'll find in the
<b>Telodendria</b> repository are shell scripts and HTML. If you have
any experience at all with any of these languages, your contributions
are valuable. Please follow the guidelines in this section to ensure
the contribution workflow goes as smoothly as possible.
</p>
<h4 id="getting-the-code">Getting The Code</h4>
<p>
You can download an official release tarball if you would really like,
but the preferred way is to check out the source code from CVS. This
makes generating patches a lot easier. If you do not have CVS, consult
your operating system's package repository to install it. CVS was the
chosen version control system for this project primarily because it is
built into OpenBSD.
</p>
<div class="code">
$ export CVSROOT=anoncvs@bancino.net:/cvs
$ cvs checkout Telodendria
$ cd Telodendria
</div>
<p>
The password for the <code>anoncvs</code> account is simply
<code>anoncvs</code>.
</p>
<p>
You should now have the latest <b>Telodendria</b> source code. Follow
the <a href="#code-style">Code Style</a> as you make your changes.
</p>
<h4 id="code-style">Code Style</h4>
<p>
In general, these are the conventions used by the code base. This
guide may be slightly outdated or subject to change, however. The
source code itself is the absolute source of truth, so as long as
you make your code look like the code surrounding it, you should
be fine.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
All function, enumeration, structure, and header names are
<code>CamelCase</code>. This is preferred to <code>snake_case</code>
because it is more compact.
</li>
<li>
<code>enum</code>s and <code>struct</code>s are always
<code>typedef</code>-ed to their same name. The <code>typedef</code>
occurs in the public API header, and the actual declaration occurs in
the implementation file.
</li>
<li>
A feature of the code base lives in a single <code>.c</code> file that
has a matching header file. The header file should only export public
symbols, everything else in the <code>.c</code> file should be
<code>static</code>.
</li>
<li>
Anywhere curly braces are optional, there must still be curly braces.
This makes it easy to add on to the code later, and just makes things
less ambiguous.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
As far as actually formatting the code goes, such as where to put
brackets and whether you use tabs or spaces, use <code>indent(1)</code>
to take care of all of that. The root of the repository has a
<code>.indent.pro</code> file that should automatically be loaded by
<code>indent(1)</code> to set the correct rules. If you don't have
access to a working <code>indent(1)</code>, just indicate in your patch
that I should run <code>indent(1)</code> on the code after applying it.
I'll likely run my <code>indent(1)</code> on the code anyway though,
just to make sure the spacing is consistent, if nothing else.
</p>
<h4 id="submitting-patches">Submitting Patches</h4>
<p>
Submitting patches is fairly easy to do if you've got the CVS sources
checked out. Once you have made your changes, just run
<code>cvs diff</code>:
</p>
<div class="code">
$ cvs diff -uNp > your-changes.patch
</div>
<p>
Then, send the resulting patches to
<code>#telodendria-patches:bancino.net</code>, where they will be
promptly reviewed by the community.
</p>
<h2 id="license">License</h2>
<p>
All of the code and documentation for <b>Telodendria</b> is licensed
under the following terms and conditions:
</p>
<div class="code">
Copyright (C) 2022 Jordan Bancino &lt;@jordan:bancino.net&gt;
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
</div>
<h2 id="contributors">Contributors</h2>
<p>
<b>Telodendria</b> would not be possible without the support of the
following people:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b>Project Manager:</b>
Jordan Bancino &lt;@jordan:bancino.net&gt;
</li>
<li>
<b>Logo/site design:</b>
Jonah
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="change-log">Change Log</h2>
<p>
At this time, Telodendria does not have any tagged releases because it
is not yet functional as a Matrix homeserver. Please check out the <a
href="#project-status">Project Status</a> to see where things are
currently at.
</p>
<h2 id="resources">Resources</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="/pub">Old <b>Telodendria</b> Versions</a></li>
<li><a href="/matrix-spec.html">Matrix Spec Mirror</a></li>
</ul>
<hr>
&copy; 2022 Jordan Bancino &lt;@jordan:bancino.net&gt;
</body>
</html>