jabber.vecna.org
20080211: This really should be on the wiki; unfortunately, I'm in the middle of a migration to MediaWiki since I'm tired of waiting for the nice people who write WikkaWiki to release a new version that is proof against the automated wiki spam that's been hosing me, and I've worked with PmWiki enough at HMDC to know that I don't want to roll it out at home. -shuff
So, I'm working on rolling out a Jabber-based chat/IM service on
vecna.org. The software I'm currently using is
ejabberd; while I
don't really know the first thing about Erlang, I do know that
this was a heck of a lot more straightforward to put up than either
no, actually, I
finally acquiesced to Openfire;
I don't like Java, and I don't like having to depend on it
for anything, but I dislike even more broken shit that doesn't
work and generates cryptic error messages (note to programmers: if
your program is smart enough to say "There's a syntax error
in my config file!", please make it smart enough to say
"There's a synax error in my config file on line
N!).
jabberd2 or jabberd (boo, no links for you!
you're broken without MU-Conference, which seems to
be unavailable anywhere for love or money!)
jabber.vecna.org chat
account, since I don't give accounts to random obnoxious
people. In addition, I have little or no objection to creating
accounts for your friends (provided they're not random
obnoxious people).
It's the last IM service you will ever need!
I have linked in the necessary transports to connect
jabber.vecna.org to the following IM services:
What this means is that you'll be able to
log into your jabber.vecna.org account, and then
the server will take care of announcing your presence to
whatever various other IM services you have configured.
One-stop shopping for IM!
NB: be aware that when you register a
Jabber-to-other service transport on
jabber.vecna.org, you'll need to provide your
password for the other IM service (otherwise how can
jabber.vecna.org log into the other chat service on
your behalf?); your password will be stored encrypted on the
server, and I will not be able to see what it is, but you should
think about whether this is something you're comfortable
with.
You might; much of the functionality is in place, and while I
haven't put together documentation (other than this page) yet,
you're welcome to start hacking your way around. If you already
have a login account on vecna.org, you automatically
have a chat account, and I'd be happy if you'd log in, do
some basic testing, and let me know if anything seems horribly broken
(or if you need something).
To log in, point your Jabber-capable client to
<your_username>@jabber.vecna.org>, using the
same credentials you'd use to SSH in. You'll need to tell
your client to use TLS/SSL (TLS on port 5222, SSL on port 5223).
Don't try to create a new account; your account has already been
created for you, and you will not be able to create a new one.
NOTE REGARDING SSL: You are likely to see SSL warnings about a bogus certificate; to fix these, you'll need to install the appropriate root certs.
Once you're in, you'll be able to IM me, shuff@jabber.vecna.org; I should
be on pretty much all the time during the day, and occasionally in
the evening. You're welcome to join the persistent chat room,
lossage@conference.jabber.vecna.org,
or try out creating rooms of your own.
If you're on a Mac, try out Adium as a client. However, it doesn't yet implement Jabber administrative commands; if you want to mess around with your chat rooms, you can use Psi, which is full-featured but pretty much equally awful on all platforms. Finally, the same people who make Openfire also make Spark, a free cross-platform download (my Java iz pastede on yay); it's pretty much guaranteed to be compatible with the various features of Openfire, and the interface is (a bit) more intuitive than Psi. Finally, if you don't want to download a client at all, there is a Flash-based version of Spark here.