Room Version 7

This room version builds on version 6 to introduce knocking as a possible join rule and membership state.

Client considerations

This is the first room version to support knocking completely. As such, users will not be able to knock on rooms which are not based off v7.

Though unchanged in this room version, clients which implement the redaction algorithm locally should refer to the redactions section below for a full overview.

Server implementation components

Room version 7 adds new authorization rules for events to support knocking. Room version 6 has details of other authorization rule changes, as do the versions v6 is based upon.

Authorization rules

[New in this version] For checks performed upon m.room.member events, a new point for membership=knock is added.

Events must be signed by the server denoted by the sender property.

m.room.redaction events are not explicitly part of the auth rules. They are still subject to the minimum power level rules, but should always fall into “10. Otherwise, allow”. Instead of being authorized at the time of receipt, they are authorized at a later stage: see the Redactions section below for more information.

The types of state events that affect authorization are:

• m.room.create
• m.room.member
• m.room.join_rules
• m.room.power_levels
• m.room.third_party_invite

The rules are as follows:

1. If type is m.room.create:
   1. If it has any prev_events, reject.
   2. If the domain of the room_id does not match the domain of the sender, reject.
   3. If content.room_version is present and is not a recognised version, reject.
   4. If content has no creator property, reject.
   5. Otherwise, allow.
2. Reject if event has auth_events that:
   1. have duplicate entries for a given type and state_key pair
   2. have entries whose type and state_key don’t match those specified by the auth events selection algorithm described in the server specification.
3. If event does not have a m.room.create in its auth_events, reject.
4. If type is m.room.member:
   1. If there is no state_key property, or no membership property in content, reject.
   2. If membership is join:
      1. If the only previous event is an m.room.create and the state_key is the creator, allow.
      2. If the sender does not match state_key, reject.
      3. If the sender is banned, reject.
      4. [Changed in this version] If the join_rule is invite or knock then allow if membership state is invite or join.
      5. If the join_rule is public, allow.
      6. Otherwise, reject.
   3. If membership is invite:
      1. If content has third_party_invite property:
         1. If target user is banned, reject.
         2. If content.third_party_invite does not have a signed property, reject.
         3. If signed does not have mxid and token properties, reject.
         4. If mxid does not match state_key, reject.
         5. If there is no m.room.third_party_invite event in the current room state with state_key matching token, reject.
         6. If sender does not match sender of the m.room.third_party_invite, reject.
         7. If any signature in signed matches any public key in the m.room.third_party_invite event, allow. The public keys are in content of m.room.third_party_invite as:
            1. A single public key in the public_key property.
            2. A list of public keys in the public_keys property.
         8. Otherwise, reject.
      2. If the sender’s current membership state is not join, reject.
      3. If target user’s current membership state is join or ban, reject.
      4. If the sender’s power level is greater than or equal to the invite level, allow.
      5. Otherwise, reject.
   4. If membership is leave:
      1. [Changed in this version] If the sender matches state_key, allow if and only if that user’s current membership state is invite, join, or knock.
      2. If the sender’s current membership state is not join, reject.
      3. If the target user’s current membership state is ban, and the sender’s power level is less than the ban level, reject.
      4. If the sender’s power level is greater than or equal to the kick level, and the target user’s power level is less than the sender’s power level, allow.
      5. Otherwise, reject.
   5. If membership is ban:
      1. If the sender’s current membership state is not join, reject.
      2. If the sender’s power level is greater than or equal to the ban level, and the target user’s power level is less than the sender’s power level, allow.
      3. Otherwise, reject.
   6. [New in this version] If membership is knock:
      1. If the join_rule is anything other than knock, reject.
      2. If sender does not match state_key, reject.
      3. If the sender’s current membership is not ban or join, allow.
      4. Otherwise, reject.
   7. Otherwise, the membership is unknown. Reject.
5. If the sender’s current membership state is not join, reject.
6. If type is m.room.third_party_invite:
   1. Allow if and only if sender’s current power level is greater than or equal to the invite level.
7. If the event type’s required power level is greater than the sender’s power level, reject.
8. If the event has a state_key that starts with an @ and does not match the sender, reject.
9. If type is m.room.power_levels:
   1. If the users property in content is not an object with keys that are valid user IDs with values that are integers (or a string that is an integer), reject.
   2. If there is no previous m.room.power_levels event in the room, allow.
   3. For the properties users_default, events_default, state_default, ban, redact, kick, invite check if they were added, changed or removed. For each found alteration:
      1. If the current value is higher than the sender’s current power level, reject.
      2. If the new value is higher than the sender’s current power level, reject.
   4. For each entry being changed in, or removed from, the events or notifications properties:
      1. If the current value is greater than the sender’s current power level, reject.
   5. For each entry being added to, or changed in, the events or notifications properties:
      1. If the new value is greater than the sender’s current power level, reject.
   6. For each entry being changed in, or removed from, the users property, other than the sender’s own entry:
      1. If the current value is greater than or equal to the sender’s current power level, reject.
   7. For each entry being added to, or changed in, the users property:
      1. If the new value is greater than the sender’s current power level, reject.
   8. Otherwise, allow..
10. Otherwise, allow.

Unchanged from v6

The following sections have not been modified since v6, but are included for completeness.

Redactions

Upon receipt of a redaction event, the server must strip off any keys not in the following list:

• event_id
• type
• room_id
• sender
• state_key
• content
• hashes
• signatures
• depth
• prev_events
• prev_state
• auth_events
• origin
• origin_server_ts
• membership

The content object must also be stripped of all keys, unless it is one of one of the following event types:

• m.room.member allows key membership.
• m.room.create allows key creator.
• m.room.join_rules allows key join_rule.
• m.room.power_levels allows keys ban, events, events_default, kick, redact, state_default, users, users_default.
• m.room.history_visibility allows key history_visibility.

Handling redactions

In room versions 1 and 2, redactions were explicitly part of the authorization rules under Rule 11. As of room version 3, these conditions no longer exist as represented by this version’s authorization rules.

While redactions are always accepted by the authorization rules for events, they should not be sent to clients until both the redaction event and the event the redaction affects have been received, and can be validated. If both events are valid and have been seen by the server, then the server applies the redaction if one of the following conditions is met:

1. The power level of the redaction event’s sender is greater than or equal to the redact level.
2. The domain of the redaction event’s sender matches that of the original event’s sender.

If the server would apply a redaction, the redaction event is also sent to clients. Otherwise, the server simply waits for a valid partner event to arrive where it can then re-check the above.

Event IDs

The event ID is the reference hash of the event encoded using a variation of Unpadded Base64 which replaces the 62nd and 63rd characters with - and _ instead of using + and /. This matches RFC4648’s definition of URL-safe base64.

Event IDs are still prefixed with $ and might result in looking like $Rqnc-F-dvnEYJTyHq_iKxU2bZ1CI92-kuZq3a5lr5Zg.

Event format

Events in rooms of this version have the following structure:

{
  "auth_events": [
    "$urlsafe_base64_encoded_eventid",
    "$a-different-event-id"
  ],
  "content": {
    "key": "value"
  },
  "depth": 12,
  "hashes": {
    "sha256": "thishashcoversallfieldsincasethisisredacted"
  },
  "origin": "example.com",
  "origin_server_ts": 1404838188000,
  "prev_events": [
    "$urlsafe_base64_encoded_eventid",
    "$a-different-event-id"
  ],
  "redacts": "$some-old_event",
  "room_id": "!UcYsUzyxTGDxLBEvLy:example.org",
  "sender": "@alice:example.com",
  "signatures": {
    "example.com": {
      "ed25519:key_version:": "these86bytesofbase64signaturecoveressentialfieldsincludinghashessocancheckredactedpdus"
    }
  },
  "type": "m.room.message",
  "unsigned": {
    "age": 4612
  }
}

Deprecated event content schemas

Events sent into rooms of this version can have formats which are different from their normal schema. Those cases are documented here.

m.room.power_levels events accept values as strings

In order to maintain backwards compatibility with early implementations, each of the integer-valued properties within m.room.power_levels events can be encoded as strings instead of integers. This includes the nested values within the events, notifications and users properties. For example, the following is a valid m.room.power_levels event in this room version:

{
  "content": {
    "ban": "50",
    "events": {
      "m.room.power_levels": "100"
    },
    "events_default": "0",
    "state_default": "50",
    "users": {
      "@example:localhost": "100"
    },
    "users_default": "0"
  },
  "origin_server_ts": 1432735824653,
  "room_id": "!jEsUZKDJdhlrceRyVU:example.org",
  "sender": "@example:example.org",
  "state_key": "",
  "type": "m.room.power_levels"
}

When the value is representative of an integer, they must be the following format:

• a single base 10 integer, no float values or decimal points, optionally with any number of leading zeroes ("100", "000100");
• optionally prefixed with a single - or + character before the integer ("+100", "-100").
• optionally with any number of leading or trailing whitespace characters (" 100 ", " 00100 ", " +100 ", " -100 ");

State resolution

The room state S′(E) after an event E is defined in terms of the room state S(E) before E, and depends on whether E is a state event or a message event:

• If E is a message event, then S′(E) = S(E).
• If E is a state event, then S′(E) is S(E), except that its entry corresponding to the event_type and state_key of E is replaced by the event_id of E.

The room state S(E) before E is the resolution of the set of states {S′(E₁), S′(E₂), …} after the prev_events {E₁, E₂, …} of E. The resolution of a set of states is given in the algorithm below.

Definitions

The state resolution algorithm for version 2 rooms uses the following definitions, given the set of room states {S₁, S₂, …}:

Power events. A power event is a state event with type m.room.power_levels or m.room.join_rules, or a state event with type m.room.member where the membership is leave or ban and the sender does not match the state_key. The idea behind this is that power events are events that might remove someone’s ability to do something in the room.

Unconflicted state map and conflicted state set. The keys of the state maps S_i are 2-tuples of strings of the form K = (event_type, state_key). The values V are state events. The key-value pairs (K, V) across all state maps S_i can be divided into two collections. If a given key K is present in every S_i with the same value V in each state map, then the pair (K, V) belongs to the unconflicted state map. Otherwise, V belongs to the conflicted state set.

Note that the unconflicted state map only has one event for each key K, whereas the conflicted state set may contain multiple events with the same key.

Auth chain. The auth chain of an event E is the set containing all of E’s auth events, all of their auth events, and so on recursively, stretching back to the start of the room. Put differently, these are the events reachable by walking the graph induced by an event’s auth_events links.

Auth difference. The auth difference is calculated by first calculating the full auth chain for each state S_i, that is the union of the auth chains for each event in S_i, and then taking every event that doesn’t appear in every auth chain. If C_i is the full auth chain of S_i, then the auth difference is  ∪ C_i −  ∩ C_i.

Full conflicted set. The full conflicted set is the union of the conflicted state set and the auth difference.

Reverse topological power ordering. The reverse topological power ordering of a set of events is the lexicographically smallest topological ordering based on the DAG formed by auth events. The reverse topological power ordering is ordered from earliest event to latest. For comparing two topological orderings to determine which is the lexicographically smallest, the following comparison relation on events is used: for events x and y, x < y if

1. x’s sender has greater power level than y’s sender, when looking at their respective auth_events; or
2. the senders have the same power level, but x’s origin_server_ts is less than y’s origin_server_ts; or
3. the senders have the same power level and the events have the same origin_server_ts, but x’s event_id is less than y’s event_id.

The reverse topological power ordering can be found by sorting the events using Kahn’s algorithm for topological sorting, and at each step selecting, among all the candidate vertices, the smallest vertex using the above comparison relation.

Mainline ordering. Let P = P₀ be an m.room.power_levels event. Starting with i = 0, repeatedly fetch P_i+1, the m.room.power_levels event in the auth_events of P_i. Increment i and repeat until P_i has no m.room.power_levels event in its auth_events. The mainline of P₀ is the list of events [P₀ , P₁, … , P_n], fetched in this way.

Let e = e₀ be another event (possibly another m.room.power_levels event). We can compute a similar list of events [e₁, …, e_m], where e_j+1 is the m.room.power_levels event in the auth_events of e_j and where e_m has no m.room.power_levels event in its auth_events. (Note that the event we started with, e₀, is not included in this list. Also note that it may be empty, because e may not cite an m.room.power_levels event in its auth_events at all.)

Now compare these two lists as follows.

• Find the smallest index j ≥ 1 for which e_j belongs to the mainline of P.
• If such a j exists, then e_j = P_i for some unique index i ≥ 0. Otherwise set i = ∞, where ∞ is a sentinel value greater than any integer.
• In both cases, the mainline position of e is i.

Given mainline positions calculated from P, the mainline ordering based on P of a set of events is the ordering, from smallest to largest, using the following comparison relation on events: for events x and y, x < y if

1. the mainline position of x is greater than the mainline position of y (i.e. the auth chain of x is based on an earlier event in the mainline than y); or
2. the mainline positions of the events are the same, but x’s origin_server_ts is less than y’s origin_server_ts; or
3. the mainline positions of the events are the same and the events have the same origin_server_ts, but x’s event_id is less than y’s event_id.

Iterative auth checks. The iterative auth checks algorithm takes as input an initial room state and a sorted list of state events, and constructs a new room state by iterating through the event list and applying the state event to the room state if the state event is allowed by the authorization rules. If the state event is not allowed by the authorization rules, then the event is ignored. If a (event_type, state_key) key that is required for checking the authorization rules is not present in the state, then the appropriate state event from the event’s auth_events is used if the auth event is not rejected.

Algorithm

The resolution of a set of states is obtained as follows:

1. Select the set X of all power events that appear in the full conflicted set. For each such power event P, enlarge X by adding the events in the auth chain of P which also belong to the full conflicted set. Sort $X$ into a list using the reverse topological power ordering.
2. Apply the iterative auth checks algorithm, starting from the unconflicted state map, to the list of events from the previous step to get a partially resolved state.
3. Take all remaining events that weren’t picked in step 1 and order them by the mainline ordering based on the power level in the partially resolved state obtained in step 2.
4. Apply the iterative auth checks algorithm on the partial resolved state and the list of events from the previous step.
5. Update the result by replacing any event with the event with the same key from the unconflicted state map, if such an event exists, to get the final resolved state.

Rejected events

Events that have been rejected due to failing auth based on the state at the event (rather than based on their auth chain) are handled as usual by the algorithm, unless otherwise specified.

Note that no events rejected due to failure to auth against their auth chain should appear in the process, as they should not appear in state (the algorithm only uses events that appear in either the state sets or in the auth chain of the events in the state sets).

Rejected auth events are deliberately excluded from use in the iterative auth checks, as auth events aren’t re-authed (although non-auth events are) during the iterative auth checks.

Canonical JSON

Servers MUST strictly enforce the JSON format specified in the appendices. This translates to a 400 M_BAD_JSON error on most endpoints, or discarding of events over federation. For example, the Federation API’s /send endpoint would discard the event whereas the Client Server API’s /send/{eventType} endpoint would return a M_BAD_JSON error.

Signing key validity period

When validating event signatures, servers MUST enforce the valid_until_ts property from a key request is at least as large as the origin_server_ts for the event being validated. Servers missing a copy of the signing key MUST try to obtain one via the GET /_matrix/key/v2/server or POST /_matrix/key/v2/query APIs. When using the /query endpoint, servers MUST set the minimum_valid_until_ts property to prompt the notary server to attempt to refresh the key if appropriate.

Servers MUST use the lesser of valid_until_ts and 7 days into the future when determining if a key is valid. This is to avoid a situation where an attacker publishes a key which is valid for a significant amount of time without a way for the homeserver owner to revoke it.