xilef-software

JWChat in Drupal

» View Demo as a Elgg plugin (same functionality)

General

Here I will descripe how to provide instant messaging via a discrete jabber server in the framework Drupal. As frontend I used a bit modified version of the web based JWChat. The backend communicates with the jabber server at database level and cares about correct registrations and buddy lists.

Please Note

• Its a beta version. However it would be nice if I get a lot of feedback (especially windows user / IE) so that it doesn't stay a beta for too long.
• Currently there is only ejabberd 2 support, but its scheduled to extend that. If you are a developer maybe you want to do that. Therefore check the engines subdirectory and the implementation of ejabberd.
• The browsersupport of JWChat should be simmilar with the browsersupport of this plugin.
• This plugin needs access to the database used by the jabberserver.
• Actually multi user chats (muc) are possible. Therefor the admins have to be hardcorded in the config file of ejabberd.

Exampleinstallation

• Set up ejabberd with MySQL native driver, descriped here. Adjust the additional modules mod_last, mod_offline, mod_roster and mod_vcard as well (like he descripes at the end). If your drupal is using another DBMS you have to set up ejabberd to use that DBMS. Tipp: Here you can download debian packages for erlang mysql support.
• Make sure that either HTTP-Polling or HTTP-Binding is activated in the ejabberd config. For help please consult Google or the ejabberd doc.
• Configure your webserver. How to do that is descriped in the README of JWChat (quote):

  • Setup your web server so that it redirects some local address like http://jabber.example.com/http-poll/ to some service that either implements HTTP Polling or HTTP Binding.

    Here is an example that should work with a default ejabberd installation on the same host:

    
<VirtualHost *>
ServerName jabber.example.com
# (...)
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule http-poll/ http://127.0.0.1:5280/http-poll/ [P]
</VirtualHost>


    (...)

    Note 1: You need to enable mod_rewrite and mod_proxy at your apache configuration. Apache2 users also need to enable the protocol specific proxy module mod_proxy_http.

    Note 2: With JabberHTTPBind you don't need to do this sort of address rewriting if you're serving JWChat's files from within your servlet container directly or you're using some technique like mod_jk to mount a remote servlet engine directory transparently into your apache's domain of served addresses.

  • Restart your web server.

  • Test if this redirect works. Following the example above point your browser to http://jabber.example.com/http-poll/. You should see the same response as if you you're pointing it to http://jabber.example.com:5280/http-poll/.

  However that didn't satisfied me. I found my happiness with following lines.

  
<VirtualHost *>
ProxyPass /http-bind/ http://127.0.0.1:5280/http-bind/
ProxyPassReverse /http-bind/ http://127.0.0.1:5280/http-bind/
# further more stuff..
(...)
</VirtualHost>


  Replace 127.0.0.1 with the server address of youre ejabberd.

• Now the plugin comes into play. Download and extract it and copy the jabber folder into the module directory of your drupal installation.

• Add the database connection to the jabber server to your settings.php
  To do so you have to declare $db_url as an array. For example if your
  current settings.php looks like this:

  
$db_url = 'mysql://username:password@localhost/databasename';


  You have to change it to this:

  
$db_url['default'] = 'mysql://username:password@localhost/databasename';
$db_url['jabber'] = 'mysql://jabberuser:jabberpass@jabber.example.com/jabberdb';


  Note that the jabber server and the drupal installation have to use the same DBMS.

• Enable this module by navigating to Administer > Site building > Modules.
• Go to Administer > User Management > Access control, and give the permission access jabber to the roles you like (probably authenticated users).
• Configure the module by going to Administer > Site configuration > Jabber server parameters. Set the options depending on your specific jabber server setup. My test configuration looks like this. Note: In most instances you cannot run the jabberserver as localhost, because your user won't be able to connect to it.
• If all seems fine you should remove the module mod_register from the ejabberd configuration file. After that only the plugin is able to change passwords or registrate users.
• Thats it! Surely its a bit nasty to come to this point, but at the end all efforts pay off :) If you have issues don't hestitate to leave a comment and I will help you as good as it is possible for me.

Download

• Download *.tar.gz (532 KB)