Ketesa

The evolution of Synapse Admin. Manage users, rooms, media, and federation across your Matrix homeserver from one web interface. Formerly Synapse Admin.

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About

Ketesa began as a fork of Awesome-Technologies/synapse-admin and quietly grew into its own thing. The interface got a full redesign, it now covers far more of the Synapse and MAS admin APIs than the original ever did, it speaks ten languages, and it's picked up a pile of management tools the original never had.

Already running synapse-admin? Switching over is genuinely nothing. Ketesa is a drop-in replacement with no config changes, so take your pick:

Method	How
Hosted (CDN)	Open admin.etke.cc and point it at your homeserver, nothing to install
Docker	Swap your image tag to ghcr.io/etkecc/ketesa:latest
Static files	Drop the Ketesa release tarball where your current dist directory lives

One private server or a federated community with thousands of users, it's the same tool either way.

Questions? Come say hi in the community room or open an issue.

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Features

User management

Everything you'd do to an account lives on one page. Suspend someone, shadow-ban them, deactivate or erase the account outright. Set rate limits, flip on experimental features, dig into account data. Third-party IDs, devices (create, rename, delete), room memberships, and cross-signing keys are all right there too. Got a whole batch to onboard? Hand CSV import a file and it registers everyone at once, third-party IDs and all. Passwords generate on demand or you set them by hand, and every avatar wears a role badge (admin, bot, support, federated, system-managed) so you know what you're dealing with before you click in.

Running Matrix Authentication Service (MAS)? Ketesa grows a whole MAS-native side: browse and revoke active sessions (compat, OAuth2, personal), manage linked email addresses, check upstream OAuth provider links, and create users straight through MAS.

User management guide

Room management

See every room on your server, then act on any of them: block or unblock, purge history, or delete a room outright. The messages viewer walks room history with filters and jump-to-date, and spaces get their own hierarchy tab. You can hand out room-admin rights and pull users into rooms straight from the UI, and media can be quarantined, protected, or deleted by file, by user, or by whole room.

Room management guide · Media management guide

Authentication

Log in however your server expects: username and password, a raw access token, or OIDC/SSO. Ketesa speaks Matrix Authentication Service (MAS) natively, session management and registration tokens included, and when Synapse hands authentication off to an external provider, a dedicated external auth provider mode reshapes the interface to match.

Registration tokens guide

Customization

Every data table is built on react-admin's Configurable component, so you can show, hide, and reorder columns to taste, no code required.

Configurable columns guide

And there's a deployment-level layer on top of those per-user preferences. A config.json file (or your homeserver's /.well-known/matrix/client) lets you restrict which homeservers people can connect to, add your own navigation items, pre-fill the login form, tune CORS credentials, and shield appservice-managed users (bridge puppets) from accidental edits.

Server statistics

Wondering what's eating your disk? Built-in stats break down per-user media usage and database room size. The federation overview tells you which remote destinations are healthy and which have gone unreachable, and reported events land in a list you can review and act on without leaving the page.

Server statistics guide · Federation guide · Event reports guide

Ten languages

Ketesa is fully translated into ten languages: English, German, French, Japanese, Russian, Persian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Italian, and Portuguese. Fully meaning fully, every string, with no half-translated screens or stray English left sitting in the other locales.

Mobile support

The whole interface is responsive, so running your server from a phone or tablet actually works. Tables fold down into readable lists on a small screen, long identifiers wrap instead of running off the edge, and every action you'd reach for on desktop is still there.

Built and maintained by etke.cc

Ketesa is built and maintained by etke.cc, a managed Matrix hosting provider. Everything you've read about so far is open source and free for anyone to use, developed in the open at github.com/etkecc.

And if you happen to host your server with etke.cc, that same admin interface doubles as the control panel for the platform itself. These are the same screens you already use for users and rooms; they just light up when there's an etke.cc platform behind them to talk to:

Feature	What it does
Server health	A live status badge in the toolbar and a dashboard covering every server component, with color-coded indicators, error details, and suggested actions.
Notifications	Server events appear as an in-app feed with an unread badge.
Server actions	Run management commands on demand, schedule them for a specific time, or set up recurring weekly jobs.
Components	Browse, add, and remove server add-ons (bridges, bots, apps) from a self-service catalogue, with the cost impact shown before you commit.
Billing	View payment history and transaction details, and download invoices, without leaving the admin panel.
Support	Open support requests, track their progress, and exchange messages with etke.cc support from the same interface.
White-labelling	Custom name, logo, favicon, and background, applied automatically from the platform with no extra configuration.

Learn more about etke.cc managed Matrix hosting.

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Availability

Where	Details
etke.cc	Managed hosting with Ketesa built in
admin.etke.cc	Hosted instance, always on the latest development version
GitHub Releases	Official prebuilt tarballs for root-path and /admin deployments
GHCR / Docker Hub	Official container images
Source	Build from source or track main directly

Official static builds:

• ketesa.tar.gz for root path deployment, such as https://admin.example.com
• ketesa-subpath-admin.tar.gz for /admin deployments, such as https://example.com/admin

For nightly builds, distro packages, Ansible integrations, and IPFS, see the full availability guide.

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Configuration

There are two ways to configure Ketesa. The straightforward one is a config.json file in the deployment root. The convenient one is your homeserver's /.well-known/matrix/client file: drop Ketesa's settings under the cc.etke.ketesa key and every instance pointed at that homeserver picks them up on its own, so you never have to touch each deployment by hand. When both are present, /.well-known/matrix/client wins.

Note: The legacy key cc.etke.synapse-admin is still supported for backward compatibility, but is deprecated. Please migrate to cc.etke.ketesa at your convenience.

If you use spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy or etkecc/ansible, configuration is automatically written to /.well-known/matrix/client for you.

Full configuration reference

To inject a config.json into a Docker container, use a bind mount:

services:
  ketesa:
    ...
    volumes:
      - ./config.json:/var/public/config.json:ro
    ...

Prefilling the login form

Every field on the login page can be pre-filled via URL query parameters, which is handy for sharing direct-access links with your users.

Documentation

Restricting available homeservers

Lock down the homeserver selection so users can only connect to servers you approve. Useful for managed deployments where the homeserver should never change.

Documentation

Configuring CORS credentials

Fine-tune the CORS credentials mode for your Ketesa deployment to match your server's cross-origin policies.

Documentation

Protecting appservice-managed users

Bridge puppets and other appservice-managed accounts can be shielded from accidental edits. Specify a list of MXID patterns (as regular expressions) to be restricted to display name and avatar changes only.

Documentation

Adding custom menu items

Extend the navigation menu with links to your own tools or documentation, no rebuild required.

Documentation

External auth provider mode

When Synapse delegates authentication to an external provider (OIDC, LDAP, and similar), enable this mode to adjust Ketesa's behavior accordingly and avoid confusing UI elements that don't apply in your setup.

Documentation

Matrix Authentication Service (MAS)

MAS requires a small amount of additional configuration to enable its admin API. See the designated MAS section for the details.

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Usage

Supported APIs

See Supported APIs for a full list of API endpoints used by Ketesa.

Supported Synapse versions

Ketesa needs Synapse v1.150.0 or newer for everything to work as intended.

Not sure what you're running? Call /_synapse/admin/v1/server_version, or just glance at the version indicator that shows up under the homeserver URL field on the login page.

See also: Synapse version API

Prerequisites

Your browser needs access to the following endpoints on your homeserver:

• /_matrix
• /_synapse/admin

See also: Synapse administration endpoints

Use without installing anything

The hosted build at admin.etke.cc is always current and needs no installation. Open it, type in your homeserver URL, and log in with your admin account. That's the whole setup.

Your browser must be able to reach /_synapse/admin on your homeserver. The endpoints do not need to be exposed to the public internet; access from your local network is enough.

Step-by-step installation

Choose a method:

Method	Best for
Tarball + webserver	Any static hosting, full control
Source + Node.js	Development or custom builds
Docker	Containerized deployments

Steps for 1)

• Make sure you have a webserver installed that can serve static files (nginx, Apache, Caddy, or anything else will work)
• Configure a virtual host for Ketesa on your webserver
• Download the appropriate .tar.gz from the latest release:
  • ketesa.tar.gz for root path deployment (e.g., https://admin.example.com)
  • ketesa-subpath-admin.tar.gz for /admin subpath deployment (e.g., https://example.com/admin)
• Unpack the archive and place the contents in your virtual host's document root
• Open the URL in your browser

Reverse proxy configuration examples

Steps for 2)

• Make sure you have git, yarn, and Node.js installed
• Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/etkecc/ketesa.git
• Enter the directory: cd ketesa
• Install dependencies: yarn install
• Start the development server: yarn start

Steps for 3)

• Run the Docker container: docker run -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/etkecc/ketesa

  Or use the provided docker-compose.yml:

  docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up -d
  

  Note: If you're building on a non-amd64 architecture (e.g., Raspberry Pi), set a Node.js memory cap to prevent OOM failures during the build: NODE_OPTIONS="--max_old_space_size=1024".

  Note: On IPv4-only systems, set SERVER_HOST=0.0.0.0 so Ketesa binds correctly.

  To build your own image from source:

  services:
    ketesa:
      container_name: ketesa
      hostname: ketesa
      build:
        context: https://github.com/etkecc/ketesa.git
        dockerfile: docker/Dockerfile.build
        args:
          - BUILDKIT_CONTEXT_KEEP_GIT_DIR=1
        #   - NODE_OPTIONS="--max_old_space_size=1024"
        #   - BASE_PATH="/ketesa"
      ports:
        - "8080:8080"
      restart: unless-stopped
  

• Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser

Serving Ketesa under a custom path

The base path is baked in at build time and cannot be changed at runtime.

• For /admin specifically: use the prebuilt ketesa-subpath-admin tarball from GitHub Releases or the dist-subpath-admin artifact from GitHub Actions, or the *-subpath-admin Docker image tag.
• For root path: use ketesa.tar.gz or the dist-root artifact.
• For any other prefix: build from source with yarn build --base=/my-prefix, or pass the BASE_PATH build argument to Docker.

If you need a reverse proxy to expose Ketesa under a different base path without rebuilding, here is a Traefik example:

docker-compose.yml

services:
  traefik:
    image: traefik:v3
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 80:80
      - 443:443
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro

  ketesa:
    image: ghcr.io/etkecc/ketesa:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.admin.rule=Host(`example.com`) && PathPrefix(`/admin`)"
      - "traefik.http.services.admin.loadbalancer.server.port=8080"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.admin-slashless-redirect.redirectregex.regex=(/admin)$$"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.admin-slashless-redirect.redirectregex.replacement=$${1}/"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.admin-strip-prefix.stripprefix.prefixes=/admin"
      - "traefik.http.routers.admin.middlewares=admin-slashless-redirect,admin-strip-prefix"

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Development

• See https://yarnpkg.com/getting-started/editor-sdks for IDE setup instructions

Command	What it does
yarn lint	Run all style and linter checks
yarn test	Run all unit tests
yarn fix	Auto-fix coding style issues
just run-dev	Spin up the full local development stack

just run-dev launches a complete local environment: a Synapse homeserver, Element Web, and a Postgres database. The app starts in development mode at http://localhost:5173. (If user creation fails on first run, re-run the command; the server may still be starting up.)

Open http://localhost:5173 and log in with:

Field	Value
Login	admin
Password	admin
Homeserver URL	http://localhost:8008

Element Web is available at http://localhost:8080.