Note: This post is for programmers like the folks who build Roo Kids. Parents and everyday users of Roo Kids app can skip this post.

Roo Kids uses eJabberd XMPP Server running on Ubuntu on AWS ec2 machine. XMPP powers more app than you may realise. Here is list of all apps that use XMPP – http://xmpp.org/xmpp-software/clients/

Here are some notes on how to install eJabberd XMPP Server:

Step 1: Get install files

Get the installation file from http://www.process-one.net/en/ejabberd/downloads. Or:

wget http://www.process-one.net/downloads/ejabberd/13.12/ejabberd-13.12-linux-x86-installer.run

Step 2: Install

chmod +x ejabberd-13.12-linux-x86-installer.run 
sudo ./ejabberd-13.12-linux-x86-installer.run 
cd /opt/ejabberd-13.12/

By default ejabberd is installed in /opt/ejabberd-13.12/

Step 3: Configure SSL (optional)

The following step assumes that you have SSL certificates that you are already using in your Apache:

sudo -i
cd /opt/ejabberd-13.12/
cat /etc/apache2/ssl/crt/yoursite.crt > server.pem 
cat /etc/apache2/ssl/key/yoursite.key >> server.pem 
chmod o-r server.pem

This allows all XMPP stanza’s to be shared over safe SSL layer.

Step 4: Starting Up

sudo -i
cd /opt/ejabberd-13.12/bin
./start

The logs files are placed in

/opt/ejabberd-13.12/logs

by default.

ejabberd.cfg

Here some some things we need to configure properly in the configuration file

%% Admin user
{acl, admin, {user, "adminname", "yoursite.com"}}.

%% Hostname
{hosts, ["yoursite.com"]}.

ejabberd Web Console

1. To access the console, make sure the port is configured in ejabberd.cfg

{5280, ejabberd_http, [
			 %%{request_handlers,
			 %% [
			 %%  {["pub", "archive"], mod_http_fileserver}
			 %% ]},
			 %%captcha,
			 http_bind,
			 http_poll,
			 web_admin
			]}

2. Then visit this URL to access the webconsole

http://yoursite.com:5280/admin

3. The username to be used should include the domain name

adminname@yoursite.com

The password is what you would have entered while installing ejabberd. Forgot ejabberd webconsole’s admin password?

AWS EC2 Security Group & Firewalls

Please ensure that port 5280 is enabled. Below is suggested configuration.

Forgot ejabberd Webconsole’s Admin Password?

There is no direct way to retrieve or reset it. We suggest you create a new user using ejabberctl, add that user as admin and then access Webconsole using this new user.

1. Create new user

sudo -i
cd /opt/ejabberd-13.12/bin
./ejabberdctl register newadmin yoursite password

2. Update ejabberd.cfg

%% The 'admin' ACL grants administrative privileges to Jabber accounts.
%% You can put as many accounts as you want.
{acl, admin, {user, "newadmin", "yoursite"}}.

3. Restart ejabberd

sudo -i
cd /opt/ejabberd-13.12/bin
./stop
./start