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Improve documentation on becoming server admin #13230

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Improve documentation on becoming server admin #13230

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Improved section regarding server admin
jejo86 Jul 8, 2022
8e235ad
Improved section regarding server admin
jejo86 Jul 8, 2022
847e45a
Reference database settings
jejo86 Jul 13, 2022
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Add suggestions from PR conversation
jejo86 Jul 23, 2022
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Update changelog.d/13230.doc
reivilibre Aug 3, 2022
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1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions changelog.d/13230.doc
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Added steps describing how to elevate an existing user to administrator by manipulating a postgres database.
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12 changes: 11 additions & 1 deletion docs/usage/administration/admin_api/README.md
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Many of the API calls in the admin api will require an `access_token` for a
server admin. (Note that a server admin is distinct from a room admin.)

A user can be marked as a server admin by updating the database directly, e.g.:
An existing user can be marked as a server admin by updating the database directly.

When using PostgreSQL, switch to the `postgres` user and start the command line tool.
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I'm not sure this is accurate -- not everyone will have a postgres user to switch to. I think this is why it was left a bit agnostic (and isn't copy & paste directions).

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Yes, to me personally it would have been helpful to have this example to understand what is meant. As it was left agnostic, I could not follow the steps immediately. In other words, I would have preferred to have this information.
I followed the installation guide and pretty quickly switched from SQLite to PostreSQL. I do not know how to do this in SQLite, which is why I am starting the sentence with "When using PostreSQL...". Maybe eventually someone else will extend the instructions for SQLite...

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I mean that these directions don't make sense if someone is using postgres on a different system or didn't install it as the postgres user (maybe they're using Docker).

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Ok. Though I do not have the knowledge about all different kinds of setups to extend the document accordingly. I guess we could start with this information and extend it eventually?! I could prepend an "For example:" for everyone to know that this might not apply to them.

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I agree with @clokep here.

We want to keep it generic here so I would at least drop the part about the postgres user and just mention something like "Connect to the correct database using either psql [database name] (if using PostgreSQL) or sqlite3 path/to/your/database.db (if using SQLite)". This would also allow dropping the \c synapse line below (since it's not needed when you tell psql which database to use directly).

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Also worth noting that you could just connect using the same details as you have configured in Synapse's config, whatever they may be.

```sh
su - postgres
psql
```

List all databases, connect to the correct database called e.g. `synapse` and elevate the user
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Maybe mention you can find the database name if the homeserver config file instead of listing them?

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That sounds sensible.

`@foo:bar.com` to administrator.
```sql
\l
\c synapse
UPDATE users SET admin = 1 WHERE name = '@foo:bar.com';
```

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