Getting started with openfire

Remarks#

This section provides an overview of what openfire is, and why a developer might want to use it.

It should also mention any large subjects within openfire, and link out to the related topics. Since the Documentation for openfire is new, you may need to create initial versions of those related topics.

Installation

Openfire it’s available to download at Ignite Realtime website It’s also possible to download relative source codeenter link description here

Windows installer:

Just execute the exe and follow basic instructions as any program (installation directory, shortcut etc.).

Unix-Linux-Mac install:

Extract in an arbitrary folder or follow the basic instructions as any program

You can find detailed instructions on official documentation

Setup

Openfire setup it’s based on a combination of xml configuration and database entries. After first installation, run Openfire will leads to deploy a web administration panel listening on port 9090. Endpoint to access it’s typically on https://machinenamewhereinstalled:9090 and flagged on Openfire’s log during startup.

Access to admin panel will land to web based wizard configuration. It’s possible to follow the wizard or avoid it to setup an already configurated Openfire server, as example with given domain, users and other configurations (to clone or move another installation).

What you need before start wizard

Openfire requires access to a database for data persistence, such like registered users and many other configurations. In Openfire folder, following the path <Openfire_home>/database is possible to find database’s declined script to execute on an existent database.

Openfire will require to select a database driver and insert credential to access your database.

As alternative, it’s possible to let Openfire create an embedded (but not ever comfortable to develop) HSQLDB database; more, if Openfire it’s configurated with database credentials of admin grants, it will be able to lunch the database script itself during wizard transparently.

Keep in mind what is the scope the installer wants to achieve to obtain the right behaviour.

Oracle notes:

Oracle ODBC drivers have not a standard Opensource license, so cannot’ be delivered with Openfire; to use download from Oracle website and copy before starting the wizard in <Openfire_Home>/lib directory.
Oracle’s script may needs updates depending by Oracle database target version, check file before execute it.

What you need to avoid wizard

If is needed to avoid the wizard, it’s necessary to:

Configure properly <Openfire_home>/conf/openfire.xml
Configure properly <Openfire_home>/conf/security.xml
Export ofProperty table

openfire.xml and security.xml To clone (and so “move”) an installation, be sure to have the flag setup to true under the jive tag

<setup>true</setup>

To replicate an installation with same params (for example on multiple environment such like develop and maintenance) check out on database tag configuration and be sure about encryption key. This is how looks like encrypted keys

  <database> 
    <defaultProvider> 
      <username encrypted="true">QXxDT1fOVuvrY=</username>  
      <password encrypted="true">QXxDT1fO1jnAiTGZq6u=</password>
    </defaultProvider> 
  </database>

And this how looks like uncrypted keys

  <database> 
    <defaultProvider> 
      <username>admin</username>  
      <password>password</password>
    </defaultProvider> 
  </database>

encrypted attribute it’s just a placeholder (encrypted=“false” has no effect): username and password are considered encrypted if in <Openfire_home>/conf/security.xml there is the encrypt tag declared with entries as in the default behaviour like this one:

<security> 
  <encrypt> 
    <!-- This can be set to "AES" or "Blowfish" (default) at setup time -->  
    <algorithm>AES</algorithm>  
    <key> 
    </key>  
    <property> 
      <!-- 
        This list includes the names of properties that have been marked for
        encryption. Any XML properties (from openfire.xml) that are listed here 
        will be encrypted automatically upon first use. Other properties 
        (already in the database) can be added to this list at runtime via the 
        "System Properties" page in the Openfire console.
      -->  
      <name>database.defaultProvider.username</name>  
      <name>database.defaultProvider.password</name> 
    </property> 
  </encrypt>

Remove those 2 name entry to use plain password

  <encrypt> 
    <!-- This can be set to "AES" or "Blowfish" (default) at setup time -->  
    <algorithm>AES</algorithm>  
    <key> 
    </key>  
    <property> 
    </property> 
  </encrypt>

ofProperty table

ofProperty is a table that must be exported to clone the configuration between 2 Openfire servers. There are however 3 entries to focus on and maybe edited:

xmpp.domain if the domain of new Openfire installation is not equal from source one
admin.authorizedJIDs must be changed accordly to update the jid of admins
database.defaultProvider.serverURL must be changed if database changes.

Example of insert:

Insert into OFPROPERTY  (NAME,PROPVALUE) values ('admin.authorizedJIDs','admin@environmentDomain');
Insert into OFPROPERTY (NAME,PROPVALUE) values ('database.defaultProvider.serverURL','jdbc:oracle:thin:@...');
Insert into OFPROPERTY (NAME,PROPVALUE) values ('xmpp.domain','environmentDomain');