Instant Messenger software

[Greg Groth]

Robert Fitzpatrick wrote:
> Can anyone here recommend an IM client/server software that runs on
> FreeBSD? I'm looking at DBabble, but I see no port (which would be
> nice). We like BSD servers and are getting a lot of requests for this
> type of private service. But if BSD is not recommended, please tell.
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 

It might help to list any special requirements you might have.  For 
instance, our specs required that we logged all messages on a mysql 
database backend.  Also, the suggestion to visit this list:

http://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/jadmin

is a good one.  Very helpful, knowledgeable people there.

As far as BSD, AFAIK, there are 3 servers to choose from in the ports. 
jabber 1.4, jabberd2 & ejabberd.  When I went to install jabber 1.4, it 
was marked as ignore at the time because of a security issue which has 
since been fixed, so I didn't really get to do much with it.  Jabberd2 
required a plug-in named bandersnatch to get the mysql logging to work. 
  Unfortunately the plug-in does not work with the current perl release, 
so if you want to get it up and running w/ jabberd2, you have to install 
older perl modules from backpan.  Bandersnatch does work with ejabberd, 
however there's an issue that's been documented on the bandersnatch 
forum that it will suddenly quit working after a while for no reason. 
It doesn't appear that any further maintenance is being done on 
bandersnatch as some of these issues have been posted on the forum for 6 
months or so with no response.  There are other plug-ins to log messages 
for ejabberd in either xml or mnesia, but I haven't gotten around to 
trying them out yet. I'm not sure if bandersnatch currently works with 
jabber 1.4 or not.

As far as wildfire, the same issue exists.  There is a plug-in for 
message logging to sql called I-Ball, but from reading the forums, it 
isn't working with the current release.  The open-source version does 
log to xml.  Because of the plug-in issue, I've never tried wildfire.

As far as ease of configuration, IMHO I found jabber 1.4 & jabberd2 
easier to set up that ejabberd.  If I recall correctly, jabber 1.4 & 
jabberd2 use xml config files that are easy to read (IMHO).  ejabberd's 
config files were a little more difficut for me because I am unfamiliar 
with the syntax, and found the error reporting (when I made a mistake or 
two) to be somewhat cryptic.  Overall I think the biggest issue I had 
with any of these was modifying the DNS record by adding an SRV record 
so that users could log in using username at domain.com instead of 
username at server.domain.com.

You also might want to check out jabber.org.  They have a list comparing 
the various servers that are available, and give a nice chart that gives 
a "feature score" which is described as "rough percentage of expected 
server features that each implementation claims to support".

Best regards,
Greg Groth