Jabber Chat for your Intranet

Jabber is a XML-based instant messaging system which can inter-operate with other messengers.

To set up the server, log in as root and create a user ‘jabber’ as:

useradd jabber



passwd jabber

Mount this month’s PCQuest CD. Logout and login as user ‘jabber’. Copy the file jabber-1.4.1.tar.gz found in cdrom/linux/ jabber directory on the CD to /home/jabber. Extract as:

tar -zxvf jabber-1.4.1.tar.gz

Change to the resulting directory ‘jabber-1.4.1’ and issue:

./configure



make

Next determine the hostname of the Linux machine using the command ‘hostname’. Note the output (say

shekhar.pcqlabs.net). Start the Jabber server as:

jabberd/jabberd -h shekhar.pcqlabs.net

Substitue ‘shekhar.pcqlabs. net’ with the output of ‘hostname’ on your machine.

Setting up Jabber Clients



If you are not using a DNS server which maps the hostname of the Linux machine running the Jabber server to its IP address, then on each Linux and Windows machine in which you are installing the client, you must append an entry in the file named ‘hosts’ in the form:

On a Linux machine, you can find this file in /etc directory. On Windows NT and 2000 machines you can find this file in the directory ‘winnt\system32\drivers\etc’ and on Windows 98 you’ll find it in the ‘windows’ directory.

Linux client: Gabber



Prior to installing Gabber, install the RPMs required by it found in cdrom/linux/jabber/dep. Now, issue:

ln -s /usr/lib/lib-



crypto.so.1 /usr/- lib/libcrypto.so.2


ln -s /usr/lib/libssl.so.1 /usr/lib/- libssl.so.2

Now install the Gabber RPM from cdrom/linux/jabber as:

rpm -ivh gabber-0.8.5-1-rh7.i386.rpm –nodeps

From a terminal window within X, issue ‘gabber’. A wizard will take you through setting up the Jabber account. For ‘Personal Information’ enter your nick name, name and uncheck ‘Add this information to the Jabber Users Directory’. For username and server enter a unique username and the hostname. Once connected, add users to the Gabber through the menu ‘Services>Add Contact> ‘Add a contact by JabberID’. For the username, enter the user’s ID and for the server enter the hostname. Subsequently you can create a group say ‘friends’ and add the user to the group. after the authorization the user will show up online-indicated by a yellow bulb.

Windows Client: Jabber



Install the Jabber client for Windows found on this month’s CD in Interconnect>Internet Essentials. Launch it through Start>Programs>Jabber>Jabber Instant Messenger. Click on ‘click here for a new account’. In account information, fill in the hostname, a unique username and other details. You can add users through Edit>Contacts>Add. Fill in the Jabber Id of the user:

@

For example, suppose in our case to add user ‘sachin’ we fill in sachin@shekhar.pcqlabs.net Double click on a user in your list to send a message.

Web based Client

(Java applet)

Assuming that you are running Apache Web server on the Linux machine, running the Jabber server, copy the file JabberApplet.1.1.0.20.zip found in cdrom/ linux/jabber on the CD to /var/ www/html. Unzip the archive as:

unzip JabberApplet.1.1.0.20.zip

This will produce three files named JabberApplet.html, JabberApplet.jar and ReadMe.txt. You may now delete the zipped file and ReadMe.txt. Start the Apache Web server:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start









From any machine on your network, load the following URL in Internet Explorer or Netscape:

http://shekhar.pcqlabs.net/JabberApplet.html

When creating a new account enter a unique Username in the form @. The procedure for login with a new user id or adding users remains the same as for other

clients.