Install XMPP server prosody

Preamble

Prosody is an alternative to ejabberd and is focused on easy setup and configuration and being efficient with system resources. You can find all the information about prosody here.

What we will do in this tutorial

• Of course, install Prosody
• Configure Prosody to use a MySQL backend for authentication

What you will need

• ssh access to an ubuntu server with sudo privileges
• Maybe a frontend for your MySQL server like phpMyAdmin if you’re not familiar with the MySQL command line interface
• A sub-domain to run the jabber server on
• Make sure your server is accessable on port 5222.

1. Configure your domains

• Your server should have an IP address, I will use the 10.100.10.1 for demonstration.
• I will use the following domains to run the XMPP server on:
  • jabber.hollo.me
  • conference.jabber.hollo.me

Of course, you should replace the IP and the domains with your real world ones.

Local configuration via /etc/hosts

Edit your /etc/hosts and add the following line to it:

10.100.10.1     jabber.hollo.me conference.jabber.hollo.me

Save the file. That’s it.

This configuration is only for testing the service.

Domain provider / DNS configuration

• Setup the A-Record of your two domains to point on the IP 10.100.10.1

You’ll have to do this, if your server should be reachable for other clients in a public or private network. Makes sense. :)

2. Install MySQL and Prosody

SSH into your server

ssh user-with-sudo@jabber.hollo.me

Update your system (optional)

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade -y

Install all packages we will need

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.5 mysql-client-5.5 prosody lua-dbi-mysql

Standard MySQL server will do the job, but I prefer using the percona derivate of MySQL, so this line would look like this:

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo apt-get install percona-xtradb-cluster-server-5.5 percona-xtradb-cluster-client-5.5 prosody lua-dbi-mysql

• You will be asked for a root password for your mysql server during installation; set one you like.
• After installation both, the mysql server and the prosody server are up and running.

Secure your MySQL server (optional, but strictly recommended)

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

3. Configure MySQL and Prosody

Login to your MySQL server

jabber.hollo.me$ mysql -u root -p

Create a database named “prosody”

mysql> CREATE DATABASE `prosody`;

Create a user names “prosody” and grant all privileges for database “prosody”

mysql> CREATE USER 'prosody'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret'; # Replace 'secret' with a password you like!
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON prosody.* TO 'prosody'@'localhost';
mysql> quit

Configure Prosody to use the MySQL backend

Edit /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua:

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo nano /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua

Search for the following config block:

--storage = "sql" -- Default is "internal" (Debian: "sql" requires one of the
-- lua-dbi-sqlite3, lua-dbi-mysql or lua-dbi-postgresql packages to work)

-- For the "sql" backend, you can uncomment *one* of the below to configure:
--sql = { driver = "SQLite3", database = "prosody.sqlite" } -- Default. 'database' is the filename.
--sql = { driver = "MySQL", database = "prosody", username = "prosody", password = "secret", host = "localhost" }
--sql = { driver = "PostgreSQL", database = "prosody", username = "prosody", password = "secret", host = "localhost" }

Now uncomment the first and the sixth line of this block (remove the -- and line start)

The block should now look like this:

storage = "sql" -- Default is "internal" (Debian: "sql" requires one of the
-- lua-dbi-sqlite3, lua-dbi-mysql or lua-dbi-postgresql packages to work)

-- For the "sql" backend, you can uncomment *one* of the below to configure:
--sql = { driver = "SQLite3", database = "prosody.sqlite" } -- Default. 'database' is the filename.
sql = { driver = "MySQL", database = "prosody", username = "prosody", password = "secret", host = "localhost" }
--sql = { driver = "PostgreSQL", database = "prosody", username = "prosody", password = "secret", host = "localhost" }

• Replace “secret” with the password you set for the MySQL user ‘prosody’.
• Leave anything else as is.
• Save the file and exit nano.

Note: By default Prosody will handle the database scheme by itself the first time it is needed. So we don’t need to create tables ourselves.

Create a VHost for Prosody with your domains

First, create a copy of the example.com VHost file:

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo cp /etc/prosody/conf.avail/example.com.cfg.lua /etc/prosody/conf.avail/jabber.hollo.me.cfg.lua

Edit /etc/prosody/conf.avail/jabber.hollo.me.cfg.lua:

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo nano /etc/prosody/conf.avail/jabber.hollo.me.cfg.lua

The config should look like this:

-- Section for example.com

VirtualHost "example.com"
        enabled = false -- Remove this line to enable this host

        -- Assign this host a certificate for TLS, otherwise it would use the one
        -- set in the global section (if any).
        -- Note that old-style SSL on port 5223 only supports one certificate, and will always
        -- use the global one.
        ssl = {
                key = "/etc/prosody/certs/example.com.key";
                certificate = "/etc/prosody/certs/example.com.crt";
                }

------ Components ------
-- You can specify components to add hosts that provide special services,
-- like multi-user conferences, and transports.
-- For more information on components, see http://prosody.im/doc/components

-- Set up a MUC (multi-user chat) room server on conference.example.com:
Component "conference.example.com" "muc"

-- Set up a SOCKS5 bytestream proxy for server-proxied file transfers:
--Component "proxy.example.com" "proxy65"

---Set up an external component (default component port is 5347)
--Component "gateway.example.com"
--      component_secret = "password"

Edit the content to look like this:

-- Section for jabber.hollo.me

VirtualHost "jabber.hollo.me"

Component "conference.jabber.hollo.me" "muc"

• Save the file and exit nano.
• Yes, that’s all we need.

Now create a symlink to activate the VHost. Prosody automatically loads all VHosts under /etc/prosody/conf.d.

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo ln -sf ../conf.avail/jabber.hollo.me.cfg.lua /etc/prosody/conf.d/jabber.hollo.me.cfg.lua

Restart Prosody

The basic configuration is done. Now restart Prosody to let the changes take effect.

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo service prosody restart

4. Create jabber users

• Prosody serves a command line interface prosodyctl that easily lets you register some users.
• We will add two test users for demonstration

jabber.hollo.me$ sudo prosodyctl register testuser1 jabber.hollo.me secret1
jabber.hollo.me$ sudo prosodyctl register testuser2 jabber.hollo.me secret2

Note: This is the first time Prosody uses the MySQL backend and will apply the nessecary database scheme.

Check if database scheme was applied (optional)

Login to your MySQL server:

jabber.hollo.me$ mysql -u root -p

Show all tables in database prosody:

mysql> SHOW TABLES FROM `prosody`; 

Output should look like this:

+-------------------+
| Tables_in_prosody |
+-------------------+
| prosody           |
+-------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Now check, if our two testusers were inserted.

mysql> SELECT * FROM `prosody`.`prosody` WHERE 1; 

Output should look like this:

+-----------------+-----------+----------+----------+--------+---------+
| host            | user      | store    | key      | type   | value   |
+-----------------+-----------+----------+----------+--------+---------+
| jabber.hollo.me | testuser1 | accounts | password | string | secret1 |
| jabber.hollo.me | testuser2 | accounts | password | string | secret2 |
+-----------------+-----------+----------+----------+--------+---------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Note: By default the user’s secrets are stored in plaintext. You can enable hashing in the config, see: mod_auth_internal_hashed