Using a self-hosted workspace with users in mainland China (server hosted outside China)

[bitflicker64]

Hi! I'm looking at Rocket.Chat for an open source project where some contributors are in mainland China and the rest are spread around the world. The idea is one workspace everyone can join without a VPN, with auto-translate turned on so people can write in their own language.

I haven't set anything up yet and wanted to check what works before trying.

The rough plan:

• Self-hosted Community Edition on a server outside China (Hong Kong or Singapore)
• People connect from inside and outside China, on web, desktop and mobile
• Auto-translate with LibreTranslate on the same server

From earlier issues, I saw that a server running inside China ran into trouble reaching releases.rocket.chat (#34863), and that Android push relies on FCM, which isn't reliable in China (#22805). Since our server would be outside China, I'm not sure how much of that applies.

A few questions:

1. Do the web, desktop or mobile clients load anything from domains that are commonly blocked in China, or is everything served by the workspace itself?
2. For Android users in China, is there any way to get push notifications today, or is the desktop app the practical option?
3. Has anyone run a workspace like this? Any tips would be really helpful.

Thanks!

[bitflicker64]

cc @PhoenixRising666 (you added the LibreTranslate provider, so you might know how auto-translate behaves here)

[bitflicker64]

Also looping in a few people whose areas this touches, sorry for the extra ping:

• @KevLehman @pierre-lehnen-rc (recent work on the push code, for question 2)
• @diegolmello @OtavioStasiak (mobile app, for questions 1 and 2)
• @tassoevan @sampaiodiego (web client and server, for question 1)

[DonQuinleone]

A few things from the code that should help with planning.

Translation. The LibreTranslate provider (in releases since 8.9.0) is called by the Rocket.Chat server using the URL in Administration → Settings → Message → Auto-Translate. Clients never talk to LibreTranslate, so running it next to the server in HK/SG doesn't affect users in China at all.

Push on Android. The server stores Android devices as FCM tokens and sends to them either through the push gateway (https://gateway.rocket.chat, used only when the workspace is registered and the cloud terms are accepted) or directly to fcm.googleapis.com. Either way the last hop is Firebase Cloud Messaging to Google Play services on the phone. Where the server is hosted doesn't change that, so Android phones in mainland China without working Google services won't get pushes from the official app. The web and desktop clients get their notifications over their own live connection to your workspace (the notify-user stream), with no FCM involved. So for those members the desktop app is the practical choice, as you suspected.

Server-side calls (registration with Rocket.Chat Cloud, the push gateway, update checks) are made by your server, so a server outside China shouldn't hit the problems in #34863, which was about a server inside China reaching releases.rocket.chat.

Client-side third-party loads. I can't promise that nothing in the clients ever touches a blocked domain. Optional features and content (link previews, embedded media, OAuth providers you enable, video-call providers) can load from elsewhere. The most reliable check is to open the workspace from a connection inside China, or through a China-based test tool, with the browser's Network tab open, and look for requests to anything other than your own domain. Then disable or self-host whatever turns up.