Jabber
From TLUGWiki
https://www.xmpp.net/servers/tlug-up-ac-za
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[edit] Jabber on TLUG
There is a Jabber server for TLUG available.
Jabber is an Instant Messaging protocol, like MSN or AIM, with one big difference: It is an open protocol, so you can use a number of clients to connect to it. It also allows you to connect to MSN and AIM via so-called "transports". So you can still keep in touch with your friends that are not yet ready to use Jabber.
[edit] Registering for Jabber on TLUG
We ask that only people affiliated with TLUG in some way, create accounts on our server. If you are not, you can register at either jabber.obsidian.co.za or jabberafrica.org. The same steps apply and you can still chat to the TLUG people! Both Obsidian and Jabberafrica has an impressive list of transports (AIM, ICQ). We currently only have MSN and IRC, but that can change if people are interested.
Generic steps, using a Jabber client:
- Grab a Jabber client (Gaim or Psi is good)
- Register an account on tlug.up.ac.za using the Jabber client. Use the form: username@tlug.up.ac.za when prompted for a username.
- Check the "Register a new account" checkbox and connect.
Registering using the Web based Jabber client (only works for tlug.up.ac.za):
- Go to https://tlug.up.ac.za/webchat
- Enter a username, without @tlug.up.ac.za.
- Choose a password
- Check the "Register new Account" box
- Click on Login.
You now have a Jabber id of the form: username@tlug.up.ac.za. Any Jabber user can now add that user id to their Jabber client and chat to you.
[edit] Jabber Clients
- Web Interface: https://tlug.up.ac.za/webchat
- psi
- gaim
[edit] TLS/SSL
We have recently obtained a properly signed SSL certificate for our Jabber server (thanks to XMPP and Startcom). Whilst the strugles to get the server side working has been great, and a bug in ejabberd has been uncovered and fixed, this is not all that is required.
Hopefully future versions jabber clients will ship with the startcom root CA certificate installed, but for the moment you may need to manually install the certificate.
The file can be obtained from http://www.startcom.com (direct link: https://certs.startcom.com/ca.crt). Note that the file is actually PEM encoded.
I recommend downloading this file to /etc/ssl/certs (or whereever OpenSSL stores it's CA certificates) as startcom_ca.pem. Now all that remains for OpenSSL to do is to create a hash link:
# ln -s startcom_ca.pem cb796bc1.0
The hash value was obtained by running:
$ openssl x509 -in startcom_ca.pem -noout -hash
Then, symlink to that value followed by .n where n is the lowest unused integer.
After this most clients that use OpenSSL will hopefully just work. If this is not the case, please figure out what you need to do and document below.
[edit] PSI
For PSI you need to find it's shared certs folder (/usr/share/psi/certs on my installations), and create a new file (call it startcom.xml, anything really, it seems anything works as long as the extension is .xml), and put the following content in it:
<store><certificate>
<data>MIIFFjCCBH+gAwIBAgIBADANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQQFADCBsDELMAkGA1UEBhMCSUwxDzANBgNVBAgTBklz
cmFlbDEOMAwGA1UEBxMFRWlsYXQxFjAUBgNVBAoTDVN0YXJ0Q29tIEx0ZC4xGjAYBgNVBAsTEUNBIEF1dGhv
cml0eSBEZXAuMSkwJwYDVQQDEyBGcmVlIFNTTCBDZXJ0aWZpY2F0aW9uIEF1dGhvcml0eTEhMB8GCSqGSIb3
DQEJARYSYWRtaW5Ac3RhcnRjb20ub3JnMB4XDTA1MDMxNzE3Mzc0OFoXDTM1MDMxMDE3Mzc0OFowgbAxCzAJ
BgNVBAYTAklMMQ8wDQYDVQQIEwZJc3JhZWwxDjAMBgNVBAcTBUVpbGF0MRYwFAYDVQQKEw1TdGFydENvbSBM
dGQuMRowGAYDVQQLExFDQSBBdXRob3JpdHkgRGVwLjEpMCcGA1UEAxMgRnJlZSBTU0wgQ2VydGlmaWNhdGlv
biBBdXRob3JpdHkxITAfBgkqhkiG9w0BCQEWEmFkbWluQHN0YXJ0Y29tLm9yZzCBnzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEF
AAOBjQAwgYkCgYEA7YRgACOeyEpRKSfeOqE5tWmrCbIvNP1h3D3TsM+x18LEwrHkllbEvqoUDufMOlDIOmKd
w6OsWXuO7lUaHEe+o5c5s7XvIywI6Nivcy+5yYPo7QAPyHWlLzRMGOh2iCNJitu27Wjaw7ViKUylS7eYtAkU
EKD4/mJ2IhULpNYILzUCAwEAAaOCAjwwggI4MA8GA1UdEwEB/wQFMAMBAf8wCwYDVR0PBAQDAgHmMB0GA1Ud
DgQWBBQcicOWzL3+MtUNjIExtpidjShkjTCB3QYDVR0jBIHVMIHSgBQcicOWzL3+MtUNjIExtpidjShkjaGB
tqSBszCBsDELMAkGA1UEBhMCSUwxDzANBgNVBAgTBklzcmFlbDEOMAwGA1UEBxMFRWlsYXQxFjAUBgNVBAoT
DVN0YXJ0Q29tIEx0ZC4xGjAYBgNVBAsTEUNBIEF1dGhvcml0eSBEZXAuMSkwJwYDVQQDEyBGcmVlIFNTTCBD
ZXJ0aWZpY2F0aW9uIEF1dGhvcml0eTEhMB8GCSqGSIb3DQEJARYSYWRtaW5Ac3RhcnRjb20ub3JnggEAMB0G
A1UdEQQWMBSBEmFkbWluQHN0YXJ0Y29tLm9yZzAdBgNVHRIEFjAUgRJhZG1pbkBzdGFydGNvbS5vcmcwEQYJ
YIZIAYb4QgEBBAQDAgAHMC8GCWCGSAGG+EIBDQQiFiBGcmVlIFNTTCBDZXJ0aWZpY2F0aW9uIEF1dGhvcml0
eTAyBglghkgBhvhCAQQEJRYjaHR0cDovL2NlcnQuc3RhcnRjb20ub3JnL2NhLWNybC5jcmwwKAYJYIZIAYb4
QgECBBsWGWh0dHA6Ly9jZXJ0LnN0YXJ0Y29tLm9yZy8wOQYJYIZIAYb4QgEIBCwWKmh0dHA6Ly9jZXJ0LnN0
YXJ0Y29tLm9yZy9pbmRleC5waHA/YXBwPTExMTANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQQFAAOBgQBscSXhnjSRIe/bbL0BCFaP
iNhBOlP1ct8nV0t2hPdopP7rPwl+KLhX6h/BquL/lp9JmeaylXOWxkjHXo0Hclb4g4+fd68p00UOpO6wNnQt
8M2YI3s3S9r+UZjEHjQ8iP2ZO1CnwYszx8JSFhKVU2Ui77qLzmLbcCOxgN8aIDjnfg==</data>
</certificate></store>
The base 64 encoded stuff (whilst the above is correct) should be obtained from the site above. Also note that the base64 encoding was line-breaked in order to maintain page layout, it should all be on a single line. In vim you can just put your cursor on the <data> line and repeatedly press J until everything is on one line, then press V to select the whole line, followed by :s, ,,g and enter. The J character does the joining of the lines, but this puts in spaces, the :s, ,,g is a sed-like expression that gets rid of those spaces. You may want to re-indent to make things look nicer.
[edit] Further steps
[edit] IRC
We have an IRC server on campus, also at tlug.up.ac.za. If you want to join a group chat, then that is the best place to go. Use Jabber for one-on-one chats. Have a look at JabberIrcGateway to see how to use your jabber account to do this.
[edit] MSN
We run an MSN transport, if you want to chat to your buddies on MSN. Please convert them to Jabber :)
For further information see JabberMsnGateway.
[edit] AIM
If you want Aim, let us know.
[edit] Yahoo
Ditto. We tried getting this up and running but I (jkroon) gave up after a short while.
[edit] Google Chat
Google chat is in fact pure jabber. Just connect to google_chat_nick@gmail.com :).
[edit] MXit
MXit uses the jabber protocol. Simply add 08?1234567@mxit.co.za to your jabber contact list. If that fails remove replace the 0 at the start of the number to a 27, e.g. 27821234567@mxit.co.za.
If somebody who has MXit is willing to sit with me and help figure out what changed and how to re-integrate then we can probably get this working again and this updated. It should be noted that MXit was never particularly stable to begin with and was rather finicky about subscriptions, multiple logins etc ... If you're willing to help, contact me via jabber (jkroon at up dot ac dot za).
