Synapse: Publish official Snap in the Ubuntu store for synapse

[ara4n]

I've promised @mectors that we'll publish an official snap of Synapse in the Ubuntu snap store. Looks like @elopio has already been working on one here: https://github.com/elopio/synapse/commits/snapcraft - I suggest we consider making it official?

@elopio: would this be okay - and what state is your work in? :)

[elopio]

oh, wow, that sounds so nice!
I had proposed it here: #1158.

This is what I tested: https://gist.github.com/elopio/dffcda326f5b51feedeb09f012ac9a44
Last time it worked all well. Now after rebasing with master it's getting stuck when I try to call register-new-matrix-user.

The homeserver.log doesn't seem to include any error, and according to the syslog there are no apparmor denials caused by the confinement here. @ara4n do you know how can I get more info of from the registration?

[elopio]

Oh, nevermind. I was using 8008 instead of 8448. This seems to work ok. There are two new apparmor denials, but they don't seem to affect the main functionality.

[elopio]

The snap source is now at https://github.com/matrix-org/package-synapse-snap/
The next steps to publish it require somebody from your project:

Register the name at https://myapps.developer.ubuntu.com/dev/click-apps/register-name/
I would suggest you to use a shared email address and a developer name like matrix or something that will make it look official. And while you are there, maybe you can upload a first snap to the edge channel, to explore the store.

With the name registered, it's possible to push a new version every time there is a change in your project. This is the part I like the most, to get happy early adopters and constant feedback from master. You can encrypt the credentials and call the snapcraft push command in any CI system, or make a sync with launchpad which will build and push for you in all the architectures.
I can guide you on the steps necessary to set it up, and answer any questions you might have along the way. Would you like to jump into a chat, hangout or something?

[ara4n]

huge thanks for this! i'll get it published :) (cc @mectors ;D)

[popey]

Hi. Did this ever get published? I don't see it in the store :(

[KuenzelIT]

Since this issue is still open: did you publish a snap package for synapse?

[richvdh]

As recently discussed in #4484: Yet another distribution mechanism does not feel like a thing we need to support. Please don't imagine that it's as simple as publishing a file to a distribution server: that's the easy bit; the real work comes with supporting users who try to use it and who hate you when it turns out not to work just the way they thought it would.

I think the very fact that this issue has sat unattended for over two years reinforces my point: we simply don't have the bandwidth to add this sort of operational overhead.

To anyone who would find a published snap useful: sorry; please use one of the other distribution mechanisms instead.