synapse/docs/admin_api/shutdown_room.md

# Shutdown room API

Shuts down a room, preventing new joins and moves local users and room aliases automatically
to a new room. The new room will be created with the user specified by the
`new_room_user_id` parameter as room administrator and will contain a message
explaining what happened. Users invited to the new room will have power level
-10 by default, and thus be unable to speak. The old room's power levels will be changed to
disallow any further invites or joins.

The local server will only have the power to move local user and room aliases to
the new room. Users on other servers will be unaffected.

See also: [Delete Room API](rooms.md#delete-room-api)

## API

You will need to authenticate with an access token for an admin user.

### URL

`POST /_synapse/admin/v1/shutdown_room/{room_id}`

### URL Parameters

* `room_id` - The ID of the room (e.g `!someroom:example.com`)

### JSON Body Parameters

* `new_room_user_id` - Required. A string representing the user ID of the user that will admin
                       the new room that all users in the old room will be moved to.
* `room_name` - Optional. A string representing the name of the room that new users will be
                invited to.
* `message` - Optional. A string containing the first message that will be sent as
              `new_room_user_id` in the new room. Ideally this will clearly convey why the
               original room was shut down.

If not specified, the default value of `room_name` is "Content Violation
Notification". The default value of `message` is "Sharing illegal content on
othis server is not permitted and rooms in violation will be blocked."

### Response Parameters

* `kicked_users` - An integer number representing the number of users that
                   were kicked.
* `failed_to_kick_users` - An integer number representing the number of users
                           that were not kicked.
* `local_aliases` - An array of strings representing the local aliases that were migrated from
                    the old room to the new.
* `new_room_id` - A string representing the room ID of the new room.

## Example

Request:

```
POST /_synapse/admin/v1/shutdown_room/!somebadroom%3Aexample.com

{
    "new_room_user_id": "@someuser:example.com",
    "room_name": "Content Violation Notification",
    "message": "Bad Room has been shutdown due to content violations on this server. Please review our Terms of Service."
}
```

Response:

```
{
    "kicked_users": 5,
    "failed_to_kick_users": 0,
    "local_aliases": ["#badroom:example.com", "#evilsaloon:example.com],
    "new_room_id": "!newroomid:example.com",
},
```

## Undoing room shutdowns

*Note*: This guide may be outdated by the time you read it. By nature of room shutdowns being performed at the database level,
the structure can and does change without notice.

First, it's important to understand that a room shutdown is very destructive. Undoing a shutdown is not as simple as pretending it
never happened - work has to be done to move forward instead of resetting the past. In fact, in some cases it might not be possible
to recover at all:

* If the room was invite-only, your users will need to be re-invited.
* If the room no longer has any members at all, it'll be impossible to rejoin.
* The first user to rejoin will have to do so via an alias on a different server.

With all that being said, if you still want to try and recover the room:

1. For safety reasons, shut down Synapse.
2. In the database, run `DELETE FROM blocked_rooms WHERE room_id = '!example:example.org';`
   * For caution: it's recommended to run this in a transaction: `BEGIN; DELETE ...;`, verify you got 1 result, then `COMMIT;`.
   * The room ID is the same one supplied to the shutdown room API, not the Content Violation room.
3. Restart Synapse.

You will have to manually handle, if you so choose, the following:

* Aliases that would have been redirected to the Content Violation room.
* Users that would have been booted from the room (and will have been force-joined to the Content Violation room).
* Removal of the Content Violation room if desired.