Post: mxadm intro

content/post/2021-08-04-mxadm.md

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+---
+title: "mxadm: a small CLI Matrix room admin tool"
+slug: introducing-mxadm
+date: 2021-08-04T17:11:49+01:00
+type: post
+tags:
+- Rust
+- Matrix
+- Open source
+- Communication
+---
+
+I've enjoyed learning [Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org/) (the programming language) recently, but having only really used it for [solving programming puzzles](/blog/day-15) I've been looking for an excuse to use it for something more practical.
+
+At the same time, I've been using and learning about [Matrix](https://matrix.org) (the chat/messaging platform), and running some small rooms there I've been a bit frustrated that some pretty common admin things don't have a good user interface in any of the available clients.
+
+So…
+
+I decided to write a little command-line tool to do a few simple tasks, and it's now released as `mxadm`! It's on [crates.io](https://crates.io), so if you have Rust and [cargo](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/) available, installing it is as simple as running `cargo install mxadm`.
+
+I've only taught it to do a few things so far:
+
+-   List your joined rooms
+-   Add/delete a room alias
+-   Tombstone a room (i.e. redirect it to a new room)
+
+I'll add more as I need them, and I'm open to suggestions too.
+
+It uses [matrix-rust-sdk, the Matrix Client-Server SDK for Rust](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-rust-sdk), which is built on the lower-level [Ruma](https://www.ruma.io/) library, along with [anyhow](https://github.com/dtolnay/anyhow) for error handling. The kind folks in the [#matrix-rust-sdk:matrix.org](https://matrix.to/#/#matrix-rust-sdk:matrix.org) have been particularly kind in helping me get started using it.
+
+More details from:
+
+-   [mxadm on lib.rs](https://lib.rs/crates/mxadm)
+-   [Source code on tildegit](https://tildegit.org/petrichor/mxadm)
+
+Suggestions, code reviews, pull requests all welcome, though it will probably take me a while to act on them. Enjoy!