Ejabberd is an open-source XMPP instant messaging server written in Erlang. It is cross-platform, distributed, fault-tolerant, and based on open XMPP standards. Ejabberd supports features like internal and external authentication, virtual hosting, IPv6, and extensions for messaging, presence, file transfers and more. It can be installed on Linux, Windows and other platforms. Basic configuration involves setting up an admin user, hosts, and adding/managing other users.

1. Ejabberd with XMPP
Written By: Prem Narain

2. Introduction: ejabberd
ejabberd is a free and open source instant messaging server written in Erlang/OTP.
ejabberd is cross-platform, distributed, fault-tolerant, and based on open standards to
achieve real-time communication.
ejabberd is designed to be a rock-solid and feature rich XMPP server.
ejabberd is suitable for small deployments, whether they need to be scalable or not,
as well as extremely big deployments.
Ejabberd is developed by ProcessOne and written by Alexey Shchepin under the
licence of GNU.
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3. Features: ejabberd
Cross-platform: ejabberd runs under Microsoft Windows and Unix derived systems
such as Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD.
Open Standards: ejabberd is the first Open Source Jabber server claiming to fully
comply to the XMPP standard.
Authentication:
a)Internal Authentication.
b)PAM, LDAP and ODBC.
c) External Authentication script
Ejabberd can communicate with other XMPP servers and with non-XMPP instant
messaging networks as well, using a special type of XMPP component called
transport or gateway.
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4. Others:
Support for virtual hosting.
Compressing XML streams with Stream Compression (XEP-0138).
Statistics via Statistics Gathering (XEP-0039).
IPv6 support both for c2s and s2s connections.
Multi-User Chat module with support for clustering and HTML logging.
Users Directory based on users vCards.
Publish-Subscribe component with support for Personal Eventing via Pubsub.
Support for web clients: HTTP Polling and HTTP Binding (BOSH) services.
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5. Introduction: XMPP
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is a communications
protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML (Extensible Markup
Language).
XMPP powers a wide range of applications including instant messaging, multi-
user chat, voice and video conferencing, collaborative spaces, real-time gaming,
data synchronization, and even search.
XMPP, like all protocols, defines a format for moving data between two or more
communicating entities.One major feature XMPP gets by using XML is XML’s
extensibility. It is extremely easy to add new features to the protocol that are both
backward and forward compatible.
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6. Pros and Cons: XMPP
Pros: XMPP has the following Pros over HTTP
➤ Enables pushing data, not just pulling
➤ Firewall friendly
➤ Strong authentication and security
➤ Provides many out-of-the-box tools for solving a wide range of problems
Cons: XMPP has the following Cons which are
➤ Stateful protocol
➤ Community and deployments are not as broad as HTTP
➤ More overhead than HTTP for simple chores
➤ Specialized implementations still needed
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7. Uses of XMPP
● Instant Messaging
● Internet of Things (IoT)
● Social (like Movim,Jappix)
● WebRTC
XMPP Session Life Cycle
● Connection
● Stream Set Up
● Authentication
● The Session Body
● Disconnection
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8. Installation: ejabberd
On Ubuntu/Debian : For installing ejabberd first go to superuser mode then write
apt-get install -y ejabberd
On Windows : Browse
https://www.process-one.net/en/ejabberd/archive/
And download latest window installer .exe file and install it.
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9. Setup and Configuration: ejabberd
For Setup Admin User
ejabberdctl register admin localhost password
Give Admin Privileges
Go to configuration file (vi /etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.cfg) as superuser and type
following lines as
%% Admin user
{acl, admin, {user, "admin", "localhost"}}.
%% Hostname
{hosts, ["localhost"]}.
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10. Restart Ejabberd
Service ejabberd restart
Now you can navigate to your eJabberd Web Admin interface on droplet's IP
address port 5280
http://yourserverhostIP:5280_or_localhost:5280/admin
Enter username as admin@localhost and your password then ejabberd admin
interface will start there will 5 items list at left corner as
● Access Control list
● Access Rules
● Virtual Hosts
● Nodes
● Statistics 10

11. For Add New User
Virtual host Hosts Users Add New User details Submit
For Add New Host
Go to configuration file (vi /etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.cfg) and edit %%Hostname as
%% Hostname
{hosts, ["localhost","yourhostIP"]}.
Now restart ejabberd while you will go to virtual host,there will be two hosts one is
localhost another is that one which you did edit,like as you can add multiple hosts
and users in individual host as described above.
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12. Ejabberd file and directories structure
/etc/ejabberd/ Configuration Directory
ejabberd.yml ejabberd configuration file
ejabberd.cfg configuration file on the administration
script
inetrc network DNS file
/lib/ejabberd/
ebin/ erlang binary files (*.beam)
include/ erlang header files (*.hrl)
priv/ additional file required at runtime
bin/ executable programs
lib/ binary system libraries (*.so)
msgs/ translation files (*.msgs)
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13. lib/ejabberd/sbin/ejabberdctl Administration script
lib/ejabberd/share/doc/ejabberd Documentation of ejabberd
/var/lib/ejabberd/ Spool directory
.erlang.cookie erlang cookie file
.acl.DCD Mnesia database spool files
/var/log/ejabberd/ Log Directory
ejabberd.log ejabberd service log
erlang.log erlang/OTP system log
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14. References
http://xmpp.org/
http://ejabberd.im/
For installation Guide
For Windows
http://sharepointtaskmaster.blogspot.in/2013/10/web-chat-with-ejabberd-xmpp-server-step.html
For Ubuntu:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-ejabberd-xmpp-server-on-ubuntu
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