Chatter

A lightweight, performant, self-hosted chat application built with Rust. Chatter implements real-time messaging, voice chat, and screen sharing.

Development is moving fast — features are offered as-is with no guarantee of stability.

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Features

• Rooms
• Real-Time Messaging
• Voice Chat
• Multi Screen Sharing (requires HTTPS)
• File Sharing
• Steam Integration
• Forums
• Collaborative Whiteboard
• Code Snippets and Syntax Highlighting
• Direct Messages
• Custom Emojis
• Room Invite Links
• 2FA (TOTP)
• Themes
• Profile Customization
• Friend Requests
• Chat Search
• Message Pins
• Webhooks
• Push Notifications and Installable App (PWA, requires HTTPS)
• Synced Drafts and Video Resume Across Devices
• Per-Room Sound Packs and Entrance Sounds
• Rate Limiting and Per-Channel Slow Mode
• Active Threads in the Channel List
• Moderation Audit Log
• Full Server Backup Export
• GIF Search (requires Klipy API key)
• Server Admin Dashboard

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Deployment

Chatter is deployed via Docker Compose. The stack includes three services: the Chatter application, MongoDB, and coturn (the TURN server required for WebRTC voice and screen sharing).

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose
• A domain with HTTPS (required for WebRTC features)
• Ports open on your firewall: 3478/tcp, 3478/udp, 49152-49252/udp (TURN relay range)

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Sphyrna-029/Chatter.git
cd Chatter

2. Configure the TURN server

The TURN server enables WebRTC (voice and screen share) to work across different networks and through NATs. Coturn is included in the Docker Compose stack and reads from turnserver.conf in the project root.

Open turnserver.conf and set a strong username and password:

user=chatter:your-strong-password

Then configure the external-ip line based on your hosting scenario — see the TURN server configuration section below.

3. Set environment variables

Copy the example below into a .env file in the project root:

JWT_SECRET=change-this-to-a-long-random-string
TURN_USERNAME=chatter
TURN_PASSWORD=your-strong-password

TURN_USERNAME and TURN_PASSWORD must match the credentials in turnserver.conf.

4. Configure docker-compose.yml

Open docker-compose.yml and adjust the settings for your environment. At minimum:

• Set the exposed port for the chatter service (default is 127.0.0.1:8067)
• If using a reverse proxy (e.g. Traefik, Nginx), uncomment and fill in the labels or upstream config
• Uncomment and set TURN_PUBLIC_URL if your domain name differs from the internal TURN address

5. Start the stack

docker compose up -d

Chatter will be available on the port you configured. Register an account from the login screen — the first user to register is automatically promoted to server admin.

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TURN Server Configuration

WebRTC requires a TURN server for peers who cannot connect directly (e.g. users behind strict firewalls or symmetric NATs). Coturn handles this. The critical setting is external-ip in turnserver.conf, which tells coturn what address to advertise to clients.

Scenario A: Server has a public IP directly

If your server is directly on the internet with a public IP (no NAT between the server and the internet), set external-ip to that IP:

external-ip=203.0.113.1

docker-compose.yml — no changes needed for TURN. Leave TURN_URL as-is:

TURN_URL: "turn:host.docker.internal:3478"
TURN_USERNAME: ${TURN_USERNAME:-chatter}
TURN_PASSWORD: ${TURN_PASSWORD:-changeme}

Since coturn uses network_mode: host, it binds directly to the server's network interfaces and the relay ports are immediately reachable.

Scenario B: Server is behind a NAT (home server, VPS with private LAN IP)

If your server sits behind a router or has both a private LAN IP and a public IP, coturn needs to know both so it can bind on the LAN interface but advertise the public address to clients.

Set external-ip in turnserver.conf using the format PUBLIC_IP/LAN_IP:

# Replace with your actual public IP and LAN IP
external-ip=203.0.113.1/192.168.1.100

To find your LAN IP:

ip addr show | grep 'inet '

To find your public IP:

curl -s https://ifconfig.me

In docker-compose.yml, also set TURN_PUBLIC_URL so the Chatter backend sends clients the correct public TURN address:

TURN_URL: "turn:host.docker.internal:3478"
TURN_PUBLIC_URL: "turn:yourdomain.com:3478"
TURN_USERNAME: ${TURN_USERNAME:-chatter}
TURN_PASSWORD: ${TURN_PASSWORD:-changeme}

TURN_URL is used internally by the Chatter container to reach coturn. TURN_PUBLIC_URL is what gets sent to browser clients — it must be reachable from the internet.

Firewall / port forwarding rules

In both scenarios, ensure the following are open and forwarded to your server:

On your router (NAT scenario), forward these port ranges to the server's LAN IP. On the server's firewall (ufw, iptables, cloud security group), allow inbound traffic on these ports.

Verifying TURN works

After deployment, you can test your TURN server using a WebRTC ICE tester such as Trickle ICE. Enter your TURN URL and credentials and click "Gather candidates" — you should see relay candidates appear. If you only see host or srflx candidates but no relay candidates, the TURN server is not reachable.

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Optional Integrations

Uncomment the relevant environment variables in docker-compose.yml:

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Reverse Proxy (HTTPS)

HTTPS is required for WebRTC (voice and screen sharing). A Traefik example is included as comments in docker-compose.yml. Nginx or Caddy work equally well — proxy traffic to the Chatter container's port (8000 internally).

Example Traefik labels (uncomment and fill in):

labels:
  traefik.enable: "true"
  traefik.http.routers.chatter.entrypoints: "your-https-entrypoint"
  traefik.http.routers.chatter.rule: "Host(`yourdomain.com`)"
  traefik.http.routers.chatter.tls.certResolver: "your-tls-resolver"
  traefik.http.routers.chatter.tls: "true"

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Admin Dashboard

The first registered user is automatically promoted to server admin. Admins have a "Server Dashboard" button in the sidebar with:

• Overview — server stats (users, rooms, messages, files, storage)
• Users — view all users, disable/enable accounts, reset passwords, delete users
• Rooms — view all rooms with member and message counts, force-delete rooms

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Notes

• Data is persisted in a named Docker volume (mongo_data). Deleting the volume deletes all data.
• If behind Cloudflare's free plan, the maximum file upload size is 100 MB (Chatter does not currently chunk uploads).
• WebRTC (voice, screen share) requires HTTPS — it will not work over plain HTTP.

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License

See LICENSE for details.