Openfire

This is for intermediate to advanced users of Linux an Amahi.

What is Openfire?

Openfire is an XMPP protocol chat server. You can use it for secure communication with family and friends. The protocol can run over SSL and does by default.

You can also use it as an IM gateway via the kraken plugin. That means you register your different users (AIM, Yahoo, GTalk, MSN, etc.) and all of your buddies show up in the same list just by you logging into your chat server. Why would you want to do that? Because when you connect to a wifi hotspot and log into instant messaging such as AIM, your password gets sent as clear text and anyone sniffing on the network will be able to see it. Using your Openfire connection will be encrypted with SSL so even though you're logging in on a wifi hotspot your password won't be easily obtained. The connect is unencrypted, however, from Openfire to the AIM servers because that is the nature of the protocol. That is the case with most of the chat protocols.

How to install Openfire

Download the RedHat version of Openfire under Linux and save it as openfire-3.6.4-1.i386.rpm.

Install the package with the following command since it is an unsigned package.

       rpm -ivh openfire-3.6.4-1.i386.rpm

Once it is installed start Openfire.

       service openfire start

Go to http://hda:9090 to initiate the setup for openfire. It is recommended for more basic users to use the embedded database rather than create a connection to MySQL. If you're a more advanced user then follow these instructions for creating the database for openfire. Otherwise skip it.

       mysql -u root -phda;
       CREATE DATABASE openfire;
       CREATE USER 'openfire'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'openfire';
       GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON openfire.* TO 'openfire'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
       quit;

Now that you've created your database you need to set up the connection.

Driver: com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
Server: jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/openfire
username: openfire
password: openfire

Set up your administrator password and you're done.

Note: You will not be able to log into the Openfire through the web logon until after you restart the Openfire service. There is a bug in the Openfire setup.

Restart the Openfire service a couple of times until you're able to log in to http://hda:9090 with the admin password you set up. To restart the server run the following command.

       service openfire restart

Restart the setup of openfire

If you find you have a broken install or you messed up some settings you can force Openfire to run the setup again. Just edit openfire.xml.

       gedit /opt/openfire/conf/openfire.xml

Change <setup>true</setup> to <setup>false</setup>. Then restart the Openfire service.

       service openfire restart

And go to http://hda:9090 once again.