Google talk

I know that you can set up the component to let user talk to google talk.

Now we have gateways for major IM network, I think that it will be good to have google talk in this gateway so that all the external IM network configuration can be found under the same session. Admin don’'t need to go out of their way to configure it separately. We can even add jabber gateway wizard to add jabber server as needed and all the other external IM network can be found/congigured/maintained in the same session with a familiar interface.

I don’'t think a gateway plugin should be concerned with s2s-connections, since they are completely different.

There has often been a lot of discussion back and forth about “I want an XMPP transport” and “That’'s silly, we have s2s”. I admit I’‘ve never really picked a side on that front. I can see reasons for both scenarios. I will have to think on this some. I’‘d like to hear other folk’'s comments if they have any. Like…

Why do you feel having an XMPP transport is unnecessary due to s2s? You could have multiple jabber accounts, some even on closed networks that don’'t do s2s?

and

Why do you feel having an XMPP transport is necessary? Most clients nowadays will let you log into multiple accounts. How many folk are there with multiple XMPP accounts that would like to be able to log in to one location to connect to all of them?

(read: I’'m not taking a side, I want to hear both side of the story)

Note that I do happen to be a person with a crapload of XMPP accounts. Livejournal, GTalk, work jabber server, home jabber server, friend’‘s jabber server, jabber.org, etc etc etc. This actually does happen to be one of the reasons why I do -not- use Spark. It doesn’'t let me log into multiple locations at the same time. I use Adium X instead.

jadestorm wrote:

There has often been a lot of discussion back and forth about “I want an XMPP transport” and “That’'s silly, we have s2s”.

I don’'t think the thread starter was talking about an XMPP transport (note that he said “let user talk to google talk”).

Note that I do happen to be a person with a crapload of XMPP accounts. Livejournal, GTalk, work jabber server, home jabber server, friend’‘s jabber server, jabber.org, etc etc etc. This actually does happen to be one of the reasons why I do -not- use Spark. It doesn’'t let me log into multiple locations at the same time. I use Adium X instead.

That’‘s the very reason I’'m all for an XMPP transport. My goal is that I only have to log into a single account to get all my IM needs (which works fine for XMPP, ICQ and AIM right now).

Some people might have a work account and a home account, for example.

anlumo wrote:
jadestorm wrote:

There has often been a lot of discussion back and forth about “I want an XMPP transport” and “That’'s silly, we have s2s”.

I don’'t think the thread starter was talking about an XMPP transport (note that he said “let user talk to google talk”).

Sorry, I wasn’‘t trying to imply that the thread starter was specifically asking for an XMPP transport. I just wanted to have a discussion about an XMPP Transport. However, since google talk is XMPP(ish), it’'s effectively the same thing.

I’‘ve been thinking about this as well. There are certain circumstances where I’‘d want to log into my wildfire server but masquerade as my google account to other google users. It’'s less of an issue with multi-account clients but mobile clients are usually not multi-account.

Another advantage of a transport would be that since you’'re only logged into wildfire, you can use groups to send broadcast messages that span native xmpp contacts and transport contacts and still appear as a remote system native user yourself.

Assuming it was treated like “any other transport”, not some sort of bastardized s2s, it really wouldn’‘t be that hard to do. I mean… Smack exists, so I wouldn’'t need to go hunting for a half-done library somewhere. ;D

Please use your low amount of time to bring up stable gateways and do not implement things that allready exist and works well.

This is really wasting useful time.

This discussion could be open again if all other gateways working well.

Message was edited by: dna

Hi,

I agree that Daniel has a lot to do right now, and fixing problems may be ok for him for some days. But one needs some more satisfying things, and using Smack to write a xmpp gateway which works may be one.

Looking at the forum I wonder now if it would have been much better to release one gateway after the other and not a icqaimy+msn-gateway which causes 4 times more problems than a icq-gateway.

LG

Then they’'d have been fistfights over what order they should be done in.

As I’‘ve posted before, I feel it’‘s actually very -helpful- to have more protocols than less. Implementing new ones brings up scenarios that I didn’‘t think about before that often affect the other protocols, just not as obviously. While I’‘m not going to willy nilly implement protocols that only a few people are using or something like that, merging in a new protocol is usually pretty easy/fun. (and in response to what lt2000 said, yes, it is definitely a fun segway from fixing bugs to throw in a new protocol if there’'s one pending)

Besides, that, the more protocols that are implemented, the more folk are using it, the more bug reports that I can see. Some folk are only using Yahoo, for example, so what if I hadn’'t implemented yahoo yet? =)

Anyway, I’‘m actually quite pleased with how the plugin has gone so far and how the slew of bug reports has come in and I’'ve got good solid stuff to work on. =)

gtj wrote:

Then they’'d have been fistfights over what order they should be done in.

lol yeah, that’'s for sure.

I have been a bit ignorant in my request before. The request is vague.

Let me try to restate my request again.

Can we provide a mechanism to configure s2s in IM Gateway plugin with some managing tools that the other Gateways are going to have?

I am thinking that it would be a good idea to have the same administrative interface for connecting all external IM network.

I think that it is good to have XMPP transport for googletalk.

We can’'t deny that googletalk has such a large userbase that people might like XMMP transport over s2s for google talk.

So to sum up a bit:

-A mechanism to configure s2s (including googletalk)

-XMMP transport for googletalk

I also recommend to have the stable Gateway first before adding these features but we still can discuss things to improve.

What are you wanting the s2s configuration to have that it does not currently at:

http://localhost:9090/server2server-settings.jsp

(obviously swap your server for localhost if localhost isn’'t valid)

I must admit I’'m still confused what you are asking.

Yeah, I know that it is there but I want IM Gateway to provide it also.

Let’'s say we start implementing some managing functionality in IM Gateway for Yahoo.

e.g. We allow some people to connect to Yahoo but not all.

Default WF s2s doesn’‘t provide that. That’'s why I want the current IM Gateway to provide

the capability to set up s2s and management interface that other gateways will have.

So that all the external IM Network (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, IRC and Jabber) can be managed in the same way.

I hope that I don’'t confuse you more.

If I’‘m reading you right, you are simply asking for the access restriction support that’‘s already on the todo list. (the ability to only allow certain people to access the gateway) s2s itself is fairly useless to the gateway plugin itself because only users local to the particular wildfire server can use it. (it’'s not usable from external servers)

No, he’'s talking about having server2server-settings.jsp mirrored on the plugin page (which would be very confusing IMO).

I agree, I don’'t see why it needs to be in two places.

Sorry to chirp in so late into conversation, but speaking on the masking the wildfire JID behind a transport to googletalk, in my opinion would be a good thing. Many Corporate Wildfire Admins I am sure, would want their internal Wildfire host name to remain off of the public radar. I for one cannot implement an s2s connection out to Google due to that direct connection. If a Googletalk plugin were available, XMPP to XMPP that allows users to register with their googletalk ID’'s, I could implement without issue. In my world of Corporate security, direct connects to untrusted networks is a no-go.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I can’'t see a big difference in “s2s connection” or “xmpp connection” to another xmpp server. If “direct connects to untrusted networks is a no-go” then a xmpp gateway will be as bad as a s2s connection.

Of course a xmpp connection will make sure that the googletalk users have no access to your users, and services like search, conference, pubsub, … One could write a plugin which allows one to restrict remote servers to certain things. So one could still use one s2s connection instead of a lot of xmpp connections to a public remote server.

LG